Japanese mainstream journalism has degenerated into little more than repeating what bureaucrats say.
A dialogue between Yukihiro Hasegawa and Kent Gilbert exposes how reporters mistake dependence on officials for “reporting,” revealing a profound intellectual failure in Japan’s media establishment.

2017-07-16

Japan’s mainstream journalists often claim to “monitor power,” yet in reality they rely almost entirely on bureaucrats for information.
As veteran journalist Yukihiro Hasegawa explains, many reporters lack even basic academic knowledge of economics or international affairs.
Instead of independent thinking, they simply call government offices, repeat what they are told, and believe they have conducted proper interviews.
This essay argues that such practices represent not journalism, but the abandonment of intellectual responsibility.

2017-07-16

In my view, that is not reporting at all; it is simply not thinking with one’s own head.
The other day, a new book advertisement by Businesssha Co., Ltd. appeared in a newspaper.
It was a dialogue collection by Yukihiro Hasegawa and Kent Gilbert.
Kent & Yukihiro’s “Great Unrestrained Remarks.”
“The True Nature of Swindlers Infesting China, Korea, and Okinawa.”
This book as well is one that all Japanese citizens and people around the world should read.
Why are those newspaper reporters and the people who call themselves journalists on television news programs so terrible?
Why are Arima and Kuwako, who now host NHK’s Watch 9, so terrible?
A complete answer to these questions is presented by Yukihiro Hasegawa, who is also an active reporter for the Tokyo Shimbun.
[Omitted introduction]
Hasegawa: As for existing journalism, as I said earlier, it is not free at all.
In that sense, it lags behind the internet, and there is no sign whatsoever of an effort to regain freedom.
On the contrary, while claiming to monitor the government, in reality they are overwhelmingly dependent on the press club system, receiving the bait of exclusive stories and simply passing along what the government and bureaucrats say from right to left.
Gilbert: If you can get paid just for passing things along, that sounds easy.
Hasegawa: That is the current state of Japanese journalism, and I always find it truly laughable.
If journalism is to be independent from the government and engage in free thinking and debate, journalists, like politicians and bureaucrats, must first acquire basic academic competence, for example in economic policy and international relations.
However, when you ask whether such journalists exist, the answer is that there are hardly any.
There may be reporters who have read an economics textbook, or at least glanced at one, but in most cases it has not truly sunk in.
For example, when writing about monetary or fiscal policy, what do economic reporters do?
Those without an economics background ask the Bank of Japan about monetary policy and the Ministry of Finance about fiscal policy; in other words, they are taught everything by bureaucrats.
Even after becoming editorial writers, many of them first call bureaucrats rather than investigating and thinking on their own.
After being told something, they feel as if they have “done reporting.”
In my view, that is not reporting; it is simply not thinking for themselves.
Bureaucrats know that reporters and editorial writers are at that level, and they merely use them conveniently.
[Omitted conclusion] (pp.110–112)