NHK and the Ties of Kinship Society
YAMADA Yoshitaka / Journalist
February 15, 2005
After eroding much of the public trust, the Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK), for which I had worked as a reporter until seven years ago, is in a big trouble causing an unexpected resignation of three of its top officials. With its five television and three radio stations, NHK is a giant public broadcasting corporation whose mega-sized annual budget totals \670 billion. Unlike the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) who receives fund from the government's coffer, NHK obtains 96% of its revenue directly from its viewers. While BBC viewers are penalized if they fail or refuse to pay viewer levies, NHK viewers are not, as the Japan Broadcasting Law provides no penal regulations to those who fail to pay subscription fee, though the law explicitly states viewer's duty to pay the fee. In essence, in order that NHK can survive and continue to provide services to viewers, it needs to earn the trust of the Japanese public.
However, ever since the behavior of the NHK management and employees raised doubt in their integrity, NHK has been besieged for almost six consecutive months by the growing tide of distrusting viewers who refuse to pay subscription fee or terminate their contract with NHK. Consequent income decline compelled NHK to draw up the budget for the coming fiscal year much below the year earlier level for the first time in its history. The footing on which public trust has been built is gravely shaken.
Why the Japanese public is losing confidence in NHK? The answer is twofold: the lack of good corporate governance on the part of NHK and its failure to discipline itself so as to keep distance from politicians.
Last July, one of chief producers in charge of entertainment programs was arrested on the charge of embezzling the money provided for program making. Later, seven more pecuniary misconducts surfaced involving NHK employees from wide-ranging departments. The Japanese public began to take a dim view of NHK and took the series of wrongdoings to be the problem of NHK as a whole. They demanded thorough information disclosure by NHK and a swift change of its management. The NHK management, however, could not fathom the extent of public resentment and failed to draw up any meaningful measure to assuage the viewers' anger. A case in point was a special entitled "My Opinion toward NHK" telecasted toward the end of the last year. During this lengthy program the then NHK President appeared on the screen to speak with the viewers only to make it apparent that he had had no reform measures ready to regain public confidence. The program that was designed to draw the curtains to the whole issue defeated its purpose entirely. The public discontent with NHK rose to a tsunami-scale level and the president, vice-president and one executive director were forced to resign.
What is worse, right before the three officials' resignation, the Asahi Shimbun, a major daily newspaper with a circulation of 8 million, ran an article that pointed its finger at NHK for having succumbed to political pressures. The article reported that four years ago a top NHK official met with two influential Diet members from the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) and explained to them the content of a program entitled "Wartime Violence Reconsidered" in advance of its telecasting and that after these meetings some parts were cut thereby shortening the program by four minutes. The article created bitter confrontations between the two named politicians and the Asahi as well as between NHK and the newspaper as to whether and when the reported advance explanation of the program was made to the politicians and whether views expressed by them at the meetings in fact led to the change of the content of the program. The issue has now been taken up in the Diet deliberations.
Though we still do not know what exactly had happened, it seems that one of the politicians did tell the NHK official that "NHK should produce its programs from a neutral and fair standpoint." Japan's Broadcasting Law clearly stipulates that "no one can interfere or regulate programs' contents" unless otherwise stipulated by the law.
This episode reminded me of a political scientist's opinion that "the Japanese tend to grasp their society as a limitless extension of kinship." The NHK issue represents such kinship sentiment deep-rooted in our society just like rampant misdemeanors of similar type involving politicians, bureaucrats and corporate managers in Japan.
In this country political journalists often share information with politicians of a particular political faction to which they are assigned and at times even involve themselves with the world of politics as a kind of 'political fixers'. Mr. Katuji Ebisawa, who resigned as NHK President after this episode, is a son of such political journalism in Japan and had appointed journalists of the same career background to important posts of NHK, whereby turning the central management of NHK into a kinship society. At the top of the huge public broadcasting network in Japan they retained this kinship relationship with politicians, too. Thus they have taken little heed of the general public who really are the sole stakeholders of public broadcasting. This is why serious public distrust has emerged with respect to both corporate governance of NHK and independence and self-discipline of the organization as a communication agency.
The writer is former NHK Commentator.
However, ever since the behavior of the NHK management and employees raised doubt in their integrity, NHK has been besieged for almost six consecutive months by the growing tide of distrusting viewers who refuse to pay subscription fee or terminate their contract with NHK. Consequent income decline compelled NHK to draw up the budget for the coming fiscal year much below the year earlier level for the first time in its history. The footing on which public trust has been built is gravely shaken.
Why the Japanese public is losing confidence in NHK? The answer is twofold: the lack of good corporate governance on the part of NHK and its failure to discipline itself so as to keep distance from politicians.
Last July, one of chief producers in charge of entertainment programs was arrested on the charge of embezzling the money provided for program making. Later, seven more pecuniary misconducts surfaced involving NHK employees from wide-ranging departments. The Japanese public began to take a dim view of NHK and took the series of wrongdoings to be the problem of NHK as a whole. They demanded thorough information disclosure by NHK and a swift change of its management. The NHK management, however, could not fathom the extent of public resentment and failed to draw up any meaningful measure to assuage the viewers' anger. A case in point was a special entitled "My Opinion toward NHK" telecasted toward the end of the last year. During this lengthy program the then NHK President appeared on the screen to speak with the viewers only to make it apparent that he had had no reform measures ready to regain public confidence. The program that was designed to draw the curtains to the whole issue defeated its purpose entirely. The public discontent with NHK rose to a tsunami-scale level and the president, vice-president and one executive director were forced to resign.
What is worse, right before the three officials' resignation, the Asahi Shimbun, a major daily newspaper with a circulation of 8 million, ran an article that pointed its finger at NHK for having succumbed to political pressures. The article reported that four years ago a top NHK official met with two influential Diet members from the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) and explained to them the content of a program entitled "Wartime Violence Reconsidered" in advance of its telecasting and that after these meetings some parts were cut thereby shortening the program by four minutes. The article created bitter confrontations between the two named politicians and the Asahi as well as between NHK and the newspaper as to whether and when the reported advance explanation of the program was made to the politicians and whether views expressed by them at the meetings in fact led to the change of the content of the program. The issue has now been taken up in the Diet deliberations.
Though we still do not know what exactly had happened, it seems that one of the politicians did tell the NHK official that "NHK should produce its programs from a neutral and fair standpoint." Japan's Broadcasting Law clearly stipulates that "no one can interfere or regulate programs' contents" unless otherwise stipulated by the law.
This episode reminded me of a political scientist's opinion that "the Japanese tend to grasp their society as a limitless extension of kinship." The NHK issue represents such kinship sentiment deep-rooted in our society just like rampant misdemeanors of similar type involving politicians, bureaucrats and corporate managers in Japan.
In this country political journalists often share information with politicians of a particular political faction to which they are assigned and at times even involve themselves with the world of politics as a kind of 'political fixers'. Mr. Katuji Ebisawa, who resigned as NHK President after this episode, is a son of such political journalism in Japan and had appointed journalists of the same career background to important posts of NHK, whereby turning the central management of NHK into a kinship society. At the top of the huge public broadcasting network in Japan they retained this kinship relationship with politicians, too. Thus they have taken little heed of the general public who really are the sole stakeholders of public broadcasting. This is why serious public distrust has emerged with respect to both corporate governance of NHK and independence and self-discipline of the organization as a communication agency.
The writer is former NHK Commentator.
The English-Speaking Union of Japan
ＮＨＫ問題と身内社会
山田吉孝 / ジャ－ナリスト
2005年 2月 15日
私が７年前まで仕事をしてきたＮＨＫが、国民の信頼を揺るがせ経営陣が俄に交代するという危機的状況に陥っている。
ＮＨＫはテレビ５波、ラジオ３波をもつ巨大な公共放送機関で、予算規模は６７００億円に上る。財政基盤は９６％が受信料収入である。英国のＢＢＣの受信許可料は税で、受信契約拒否や不払いには罰則があるが、日本の放送法には契約の義務事項はあるが罰則はない。それゆえ公共放送ＮＨＫの存立は国民の信頼だけが頼りである。ところが半年前から経営不信と受信契約拒否・中止・不払いの津波が打ち寄せ、来年度は発足以来初の前年度比マイナスの予算を組むはめになってしまった。信頼の地盤が大きく揺いだのだ。
なぜ信頼は揺いだのか。答えは、コ－ポレ－ト・ガバナンスと報道機関としての政治との距離感 、この二つの欠如である。
昨年７月、芸能番組のチ－フ・プロデユ－サ－の制作費詐取事件が発覚し逮捕された。このあと金銭にからむ職員の不正が広い部門にわたり７件も明るみに出た。国民は組織の腐敗とこの問題を捉え、徹底した情報公開の要求と経営責任追及の声が高まった。しかし、経営陣は国民の怒りを甘く見て対応を誤った。その最たるものは昨年暮れに長時間放送した「ＮＨＫに言いたい」という特集番組だった。経営責任と経営改革に対する答えを何らもたぬまま会長が出演したため、”幕引き番組”の積もりが逆効果となってしまった。不信感と受信料不払いの津波が打ち寄せ、会長・副会長・専務理事三人の首を飛ばした。
トップ交代の直前、８００万の部数をもつ朝日新聞が、４年前の「問われる戦時性暴力」という放送番組で事前の政治圧力により番組の時間が４分削られ内容が歪められた疑いがあるとする報道をした。自民党有力政治家二人にＮＨＫが事前に番組内容を説明したこと、その時点とその際の政治家の発言が番組改変の伏線になったかどうかということが、今朝日新聞と自民党有力政治家、朝日新聞とＮＨＫ経営陣との対立となって国会の質問にまで持ち出される事態になっている。真相はまだ明らかでないが、政治家の一人が放送前に「公正中立の立場で報道すべきではないか」と言ったことは事実のようだ。放送法は放送番組は法定の権限以外で「何人からも干渉・規律されることはない」と規定している。
ある政治学者は「日本人は社会を身内の限りない外延として捉える」と論じている。多発する政界・官庁の不祥事や企業の経営危機は言うまでもないが、今回のＮＨＫ問題はこの国に根強い身内社会を象徴するものとさえ言えるだろう。政治記者は担当する派閥、政治家と情報を交換し、時に大小の政界フィクサ－となる。退任した前会長の海老沢氏はその政治記者出身で、同じ政治部出身者を役員と要職に配し、経営中枢を身内社会化した。彼らは公共放送のトップに立っても政治家との身内社会感覚を捨てなかった。そこに公共放送の唯一つのステ－クホルダ－である国民は視野になかった。だからこそ、ＮＨＫのコ－ポレ－ト・ガバナンスと報道機関としての自主・自律への不信が生じているのである。
（筆者は元NHK解説委員。）
ＮＨＫはテレビ５波、ラジオ３波をもつ巨大な公共放送機関で、予算規模は６７００億円に上る。財政基盤は９６％が受信料収入である。英国のＢＢＣの受信許可料は税で、受信契約拒否や不払いには罰則があるが、日本の放送法には契約の義務事項はあるが罰則はない。それゆえ公共放送ＮＨＫの存立は国民の信頼だけが頼りである。ところが半年前から経営不信と受信契約拒否・中止・不払いの津波が打ち寄せ、来年度は発足以来初の前年度比マイナスの予算を組むはめになってしまった。信頼の地盤が大きく揺いだのだ。
なぜ信頼は揺いだのか。答えは、コ－ポレ－ト・ガバナンスと報道機関としての政治との距離感 、この二つの欠如である。
昨年７月、芸能番組のチ－フ・プロデユ－サ－の制作費詐取事件が発覚し逮捕された。このあと金銭にからむ職員の不正が広い部門にわたり７件も明るみに出た。国民は組織の腐敗とこの問題を捉え、徹底した情報公開の要求と経営責任追及の声が高まった。しかし、経営陣は国民の怒りを甘く見て対応を誤った。その最たるものは昨年暮れに長時間放送した「ＮＨＫに言いたい」という特集番組だった。経営責任と経営改革に対する答えを何らもたぬまま会長が出演したため、”幕引き番組”の積もりが逆効果となってしまった。不信感と受信料不払いの津波が打ち寄せ、会長・副会長・専務理事三人の首を飛ばした。
トップ交代の直前、８００万の部数をもつ朝日新聞が、４年前の「問われる戦時性暴力」という放送番組で事前の政治圧力により番組の時間が４分削られ内容が歪められた疑いがあるとする報道をした。自民党有力政治家二人にＮＨＫが事前に番組内容を説明したこと、その時点とその際の政治家の発言が番組改変の伏線になったかどうかということが、今朝日新聞と自民党有力政治家、朝日新聞とＮＨＫ経営陣との対立となって国会の質問にまで持ち出される事態になっている。真相はまだ明らかでないが、政治家の一人が放送前に「公正中立の立場で報道すべきではないか」と言ったことは事実のようだ。放送法は放送番組は法定の権限以外で「何人からも干渉・規律されることはない」と規定している。
ある政治学者は「日本人は社会を身内の限りない外延として捉える」と論じている。多発する政界・官庁の不祥事や企業の経営危機は言うまでもないが、今回のＮＨＫ問題はこの国に根強い身内社会を象徴するものとさえ言えるだろう。政治記者は担当する派閥、政治家と情報を交換し、時に大小の政界フィクサ－となる。退任した前会長の海老沢氏はその政治記者出身で、同じ政治部出身者を役員と要職に配し、経営中枢を身内社会化した。彼らは公共放送のトップに立っても政治家との身内社会感覚を捨てなかった。そこに公共放送の唯一つのステ－クホルダ－である国民は視野になかった。だからこそ、ＮＨＫのコ－ポレ－ト・ガバナンスと報道機関としての自主・自律への不信が生じているのである。
（筆者は元NHK解説委員。）
一般社団法人 日本英語交流連盟