This essay argues that Japan’s current political and media crisis stems from allowing non-journalists to dominate prime-time news programs. By examining the careers and limitations of prominent TV anchors, the author shows how public broadcasting became dangerously susceptible to manipulation by foreign governments and intelligence operations.

February 13, 2016

The following continues the chapter titled, “Under the Guise of Being Guardians of Democracy, They Mislead the Nation and Constantly Weaken Its National Power.”

Recently, TBS’s News 23 has seen Zenba return as its main newscaster. Her replacement had already been decided, and she is apparently set to become the host of Hōdō Tokushū, a program whose sheer awfulness once left me astonished.

Given that her counterpart is Kishii, it goes without saying that such a program is impossible to watch seriously. Above all, it represents the ultimate example of biased reporting worthy of having its broadcasting license revoked.

The other day, I watched briefly because she was interviewing Hideaki Noda. Frankly speaking, it was an utterly bland affair. What she wanted to tell viewers was simply this: “We graduated from the University of Tokyo.” That, in truth, was the extent of her reason for being. Her existence as a broadcaster rests on nothing more than that lamentable fact.

The same applies entirely to Furuta. Fundamentally, neither of them has lived a life as a journalist. To compare them with Masayuki Takayama—who can fairly be called the greatest journalist of the postwar world—would be absurdly unfair to both sides.

Zenba was merely an NHK announcer. Furuta, as everyone knows, gained some fame through professional wrestling commentary.

It is no exaggeration to say that all the root causes of the crisis Japan now faces lie in the fact that people like these have been allowed to speak about Japanese and global politics on news programs watched by vast numbers of citizens, broadcast over public airwaves.

While watching the aforementioned dialogue between Zenba and Noda, I realized something.

People like Furuta and Zenba—who are not journalists in any true sense—ultimately retreat to places that serve as their last refuge and justification for existence. In Furuta’s case, it is his connections with celebrities such as Sayuri Yoshinaga and Takuro Yoshida. In Zenba’s case, it is placing University of Tokyo graduates, whether entertainers or academics, beside her and engaging in conversation.

To allow such people to continue discussing political and international realities—where boundless ambition, power hunger, greed, intrigue, and highly sophisticated intelligence operations are unfolding day and night—is to reveal just how childish and intellectually deficient Japan’s media has become.

For the governments of South Korea or China, or for the CIA, there could hardly be a more easily manipulated target anywhere in the world—except, perhaps, for certain individuals such as Alexis Dudden and Carol Gluck in the United States, and some influential newspapers and journalists in Germany.