This analysis exposes the structural bias of TBS’s long-running program Sunday Morning, which for 26 years has promoted a consistent anti-establishment, anti-American, and pro-China/Korea ideology through carefully selected commentators and agency-controlled staffing. By detailing its commentator lineup, production structure, and use of sports segments as soft conditioning, the essay reveals how the program functions as a subtle propaganda mechanism—something viewers who rely solely on Asahi, Mainichi, TV Asahi, or TBS news would never recognize. It urges readers to understand the hidden influence of this broadcast format on public opinion.

The following is also a fact that one would never understand if one only subscribed to the Asahi or the Mainichi and watched only TV Asahi or TBS.
Thanks to the Internet, I, a middle-aged architect with boundless curiosity, am now more curious than ever.

Self-introduction.

What an architect needs is a great deal of miscellaneous knowledge.
Pursuing nothing but trivia, my actual architectural work has recently been neglected.
Since childhood I have been a bundle of curiosity, and now the seeds I planted back then have sprouted everywhere, and I can no longer keep track of them.

For trivia, I do not choose genres.
I devour whatever intelligence I can gain, and I greedily continue pursuing all kinds of miscellaneous knowledge.

The deteriorated mass media are the enemy.
I will show no mercy.

March 5, 2013 (Tuesday)

For 26 years, TBS’s Sunday Morning has been brainwashing the nation.
I believe this program is a manipulative, intentionally constructed propaganda program.

On Sunday mornings, there is a program broadcast live on the TBS (JNN) network called Sunday Morning.
This program has a long history.
The first period was from October 1987 to September 1997.
Then, under the new title “Shin Sunday Morning,” it aired from October 1997 to March 1999.
The current version has been on air since April 1999.
It is a two-hour wide show aired from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m.
It has been running for 26 years.

The host is that well-known Hiroshi Sekiguchi.
For the first 30 minutes, he allocates the time to current affairs and political issues, assigning topics to each commentator.
There is no debate—viewers simply listen to whatever each commentator says.
Then for about an hour, sports news with commentary is broadcast.
The remaining 30 minutes again return to current events and political issues.
In its early years, I used to watch it live every week.

However, the six or so commentators were almost all grounded in a self-denigrating historical view, always praising anti-establishment stances, consistently pro-China, pro-Korea, and pro-North Korea, and fundamentally anti-American.
In today’s terms, of course, they strongly support “zero nuclear power” driven by fear of radiation.
Because this became unbearable, I stopped watching.
I then began watching Tahara’s Sunday Project from 10:00 to 12:00 instead.
Well, that too was a dubious agitation program.
Sometimes I watched live, sometimes on video recordings.

When that Sunday Project ended, the times had changed, and recording TV programs had become extremely easy.
Out of a sense of morbid curiosity—and for the purpose of checking—I now record Sunday Morning and watch it later while skipping commercials.

After I started writing a blog, I came to understand clearly how dubious these programs were, and I realized more than once that they were essentially propaganda directed from certain quarters.

This program is controlled by Sankei (Sankei Office), the agency to which Hiroshi Sekiguchi belongs.
It seems that the Sekiguchi family handles the selection of commentators.
It reminds me of how Watanabe Productions used to dominate music variety programs.
Sankei’s website.

Therefore, the commentators who often appear—Nobuo Asai (international politics scholar), Shinpei Asai (photographer), Tetsuo Nakanishi (sports journalist), Masayuki Wakui (landscape architect and professor at Tokyo City University)—are all talents belonging to the Sankei agency.
Essentially they are his own protégés.
These individuals form the core, and additional specialists are invited depending on the topic.

The specialists who appear include:

Terashima Jitsurō (Chairman of the Japan Research Institute, Director of the Mitsui & Co. Global Strategic Studies Institute);
Eiko Oya (journalist);
Shusei Tanaka (Visiting Professor, Fukuyama University);
Masaru Kaneko (Professor, Keio University Faculty of Economics);
Mahito Kōda (novelist);
Makoto Sataka (economic critic, Shūkan Kinyōbi);
Yūko Tanaka (Professor, Hosei University);
Kenji Isezaki (Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies);
Tetsuo Nakanishi (Kawasaki Frontale Special Ambassador);
Ayako Nishizaki (Professor, Seikei University);
Setsuko Mekata (Professor, Chūō University Faculty of Policy Studies);
Toru Machida (economic critic, Lecturer at Kōnan University);
Yōhei Kōno (former Speaker of the House of Representatives);
Tsuyoshi Sunohara (Senior Writer, Nikkei International News Department);
Tetsuo Jimbo (video journalist);
Yukihiro Hasegawa (journalist, Deputy Chief Editorial Writer of Tokyo Shimbun), among others.

The regular commentator is Shigetada Kishii (Chief Editorial Writer of the Mainichi Shimbun).

Among them, the only ones who seem relatively reasonable—at least to my eyes—are Eiko Oya, Yukihiro Hasegawa, and Shinichi Hen (Editor-in-Chief of Korea Report).

Last year, during the “radiation scare,” Nobuo Asai agitated viewers by saying:
“My foreign friends are so afraid of radiation that they are all returning home, and I am considering emigrating overseas.”
As an aside, there was even a joke that an Italian returned home and measured radiation levels in his own country only to find they were higher than in Japan.
What kind of “international politics scholar” says such things?
His commentary is off the mark every time.

Makoto Sataka is also an outdated activist who can do nothing but speak from an anti-establishment viewpoint.
Recently they frequently invite Yōhei Kōno.
Frankly speaking, he is pro-China and, though I hesitate to say it, a traitor.
Recently he visited China with Murayama and was welcomed and conveniently used by the Chinese government.

The one who is increasingly criticized online these days is Yūko Tanaka (Professor, Hosei University).
She appears in what looks like expensive traditional Japanese clothing.
What she says is nothing but anti-establishment criticism rooted in the “flower-garden” worldview favored by the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party.
Students of Hosei University—if you do not remove this professor, people may start believing that your entire university shares her ideology.
Ayako Nishizaki (Seikei University) and Setsuko Mekata (Chūō University) are much the same.

Overall, the program’s selection of guests is far too biased.
Is this what the Broadcast Law means by neutrality and fairness?

The program includes a full hour of sports news.
A one-hour sports segment is now rare.
Many sports fans watch the program for this reason.
Incidentally, among my acquaintances and friends who love sports, many tend to be strangely sympathetic toward East Asia, and many tend to be understanding of left-leaning, anti-establishment positions.
Well, if one is subjected to this program’s direction for over twenty years, it is no wonder one gradually becomes that way.

This program may very well be a meticulously crafted, soft-conditioning propaganda program.
Its command structure is as follows:

Composition: Kunihiro Hiramatsu, Toshiki Sasabe, Yoichi Tanaka, Makoto Fujii, Tsuyoshi Ōno

Supervision: Kenzaburō Uenishi

Directors: Yukio Matsui, Tetsuo Hara, Tadanori Ichiki, Reiko Tamukai, Tatsuya Shiwaku, Hiroomi Inada, Taku Sugiyama, Kazuyasu Kudō, Atsushi Yoshida, Kaoru Katayama, Takahiro Ōhashi, Daisuke Fukunaga, Etsuko Ōtsuki

Production assistance: Tokyo Video Center, First Hand, Media Busters, Izumi Broadcasting Production, Project Wing, JOBX, 81NEWS, Profit Inc.

These staff members arrange what is essentially the script that commentators will follow on the day of broadcast.
Naturally, before the live broadcast, there must be rehearsals and preparations, and the show must conform to the structure drawn up by the production staff.
Around 2009, I remember the program supporting the Democratic Party to an excessive degree.
From late last year, the show has gradually come to resemble a funeral.
I strongly hope that such anti-establishment, “beautiful-sounding” programs will disappear.

I wrote today’s article because I sympathized with the blog below.

The blog he introduces is extremely valuable, but that will be discussed in the next chapter.