Published on July 12, 2019.
Based on a dialogue in the monthly magazine WiLL between attorney Takai Katsuhiko and Professor Koyama Kazunobu, this chapter discusses NHK’s biased reporting, impression manipulation in historical programs, reporting on the comfort women issue, its silence about GHQ censorship, and its double standards regarding Article 4 of the Broadcasting Act.
Using “JAPAN Debut” and “Fifty-One Years Later: War Responsibility” as examples, it questions NHK’s responsibility as a public broadcaster that collects reception fees.

July 12, 2019.
Just the other day, they featured a university professor who studies prewar Japanese censorship, but they did not touch at all on the postwar censorship by GHQ.
The following is from a dialogue feature published in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine WiLL, titled “NHK Is Worse Than the Asahi,” between Takai Katsuhiko, attorney, and Koyama Kazunobu, professor at Kanagawa University and chairman of the Media Reporting Research Center.
You can avoid paying the Asahi by not reading it, but NHK takes money from you just for having a television.
Convenient Double Standards.
Takai.
There is something I cannot forget regarding NHK’s biased reporting.
I also wrote about it in my recently published book Court Battles against Anti-Japanese Forces: The Struggle of a Patriotic Lawyer, Tendensha, but it is the program “JAPAN Debut,” broadcast in 2009.
Its first episode, “Asia’s ‘First-Class Nation,’” was so biased that a total of 10,335 enraged Japanese and Taiwanese people filed a lawsuit seeking damages.
It was a terrible broadcast that emphasized only the aspect that Japan, in order to become a member of the advanced nations, imitated the advanced imperialist countries and carried out poor rule over Taiwan.
Koyama.
That is right.
I cannot forgive the program “Fifty-One Years Later: War Responsibility.”
I also wrote about this program in Can This Really Be Public Broadcasting, NHK!—You Have No Qualification to Collect Reception Fees, Tendensha, but NHK broadcast the contents of a military document called the Rikushi Mitsu Dainikki after altering them by 180 degrees.
The Rikushi Mitsu Dainikki contains content to the effect that “among comfort-station operators, there are dishonest operators who boast of their relationship with the military or deceive women and bring them by force, so the military and police should cooperate and make every effort to crack down on them.”
However, NHK simply lined up only the words convenient to itself and broadcast the claim that “the military and police were involved in hunting women.”
I almost fell off my chair.
It was an outrageous falsification.
I immediately protested to NHK and argued by telephone for about 40 minutes, and in the end the director in charge admitted the mistake.
At that time, I sent a certified letter saying, “Broadcast it again in the same time slot and for the same length of time, and apologize. If you do not, I will not pay the reception fee.”
Since then, I have not paid the reception fee.
Takai.
There are programs that are terrible overall, such as the “JAPAN Debut” and “Fifty-One Years Later: War Responsibility” we just discussed.
But recently, because viewers have become more critical, I get the impression that impression manipulation in small details has become terrible throughout.
Just the other day, they featured a university professor who studies prewar Japanese censorship, but they did not touch at all on the postwar censorship by GHQ.
Koyama.
NHK itself is the one carrying out censorship, claiming something like “the freedom not to report,” isn’t it?
The Asahi Shimbun did apologize, although it took a long time after Yoshida Seiji said that what was written in My War Crimes was a “lie.”
However, NHK has not apologized.
Moreover, with the Asahi, if you do not read it, you are not charged money.
But with NHK, you are charged money simply for owning a television.
I think NHK is worse than the Asahi Shimbun.
Takai.
Regarding the Broadcasting Act, when Takaichi Sanae, then Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, once said that “if Article 4 of the Broadcasting Act is not observed, there is a possibility that broadcasting waves will be suspended,” the media bashed her severely.
There was also an argument that “Article 4 is merely an ethical provision, so it does not have to exist.”
However, recently, when voices arose calling for revision of the Broadcasting Act, they said, “It should remain because fake news and hate reporting will increase.”
That is truly the very height of double standards.
Article 4 of the Broadcasting Act.
When editing broadcast programs for domestic broadcasting and domestic-and-international broadcasting, hereinafter referred to as “domestic broadcasting, etc.,” a broadcaster must comply with the provisions of the following items.
One: It must not harm public security or good morals.
Two: It must be politically fair.
Three: News reporting must not distort facts.
Four: On issues where opinions are divided, points of contention must be clarified from as many angles as possible.
Koyama.
They use Article 4 of the Broadcasting Act as an authority, as a “banner of legitimacy,” saying, “We are licensed under the law to broadcast radio waves.”
This issue has also been sealed off in the political world for a long time.
That is because, as in Takaichi’s case, if someone in the position of the government speaks about the Broadcasting Act, they are told it is “intervention in reporting.”
In the past, Miyake Hiroshi, a member of the House of Representatives who passed away last year, held up my book in front of NHK executives while questioning them.
“Did you really make such a broadcast? If you did, that is a major problem,” he said.
But Momii Katsuto, the NHK chairman at the time, insisted only, “We always strive to produce high-quality broadcasts from a fair and neutral standpoint.”
Takai.
NHK says that “it costs money to make good programs.”
I think there is some truth to this.
For example, programs that closely follow a subject, or programs like “The Great Nature of the World,” do indeed include good programs because money has been spent on them.
Koyama.
It feels like “a restaurant that serves delicious food, but occasionally has a cockroach in it.”
But that is unacceptable, isn’t it?
Takai.
Exactly.
This article continues.