A recent report by David Kaye, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights, shows that the Japanese media are increasingly concerned about the government's suppression of public opinion and muzzling of the press.
As many Japanese media professionals see it, since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe assumed office in 2012, the government went to great lengths to control the climate of public opinion and to suppress liberal media. Japanese media of late are becoming increasingly reluctant to touch upon sensitive issues and the so-called press freedom in Japan is only a mere shadow of its fully-democratic role in past years.
LIBERAL MEDIA GAGGED
A landmark suppression of media by Abe's government was the comfort women furore caused by the Japanese Asahi Shimbun newspaper in 2014.
Under pressure from the government, the Asahi Shimbun was forced to admit its reports on the comfort women issue were "inaccurate". As a result, the credibility of the highly-regarded paper was somewhat dented and sales dropped.
"Since then, the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's flagship liberal voice, began avoiding issues and cut down critical reports on the Abe administration. There have been reporters of senior journalists who resigned, angry at the government's repression of the press," said Seigo Arasaki, president of Japan Federation of Newspaper Workers' Unions and former reporter of Kyodo News.
"The Asahi Shimbun is a flag bearer of the press circles. Repression of the Asahi Shimbun makes the Japanese media feel a strong sense of crisis," he said.
The Japan Federation of Newspaper Workers' Unions is the largest union of journalists in Japan with more than 22, 000 members. Eighty percent of newspaper reporters in Japan are members of the union.
"In Japan, weekly magazines often report issues that mainstream media do not have the courage to touch upon. But after the incident with the Asahi Shimbun, magazines, afraid of revenge, started to also avoid critical reports of the government," said Arasaki.
Last July, chief editor of Japanese magazine Weekly Post was suddenly dismissed from his post following the magazine's exposure of scandals about Abe government members in a series of issues.
Abe even used his administrative power to handpick his close ally and personal friend Katsuto Momii, a known rightwinger with revisionist tendencies, as chief of the largest public broadcaster NHK. Momii claimed at his inauguration in 2014 that media shall strictly follow the government which shocked the public. NHK's other boardmembers were also all handpicked by Abe and his Cabinet, which doubles up as his rightwing coterie of close allies.
"Since Abe is in power, NHK's prime time programs have been avoiding or massively diluting sensitive issues," said Arasaki.
A number of liberal TV professionals have been unceremoniously fired or transferred recently, including a popular host from current affairs program of Asahi TV who was well known for criticizing the Abe government, as well as hosts and commentators from TBS and NHK, among others.
"These are all liberals who are against Abe on issues such as the new security laws, nuclear policy and so on. Obviously, those criticizing Abe are disappearing one by one from the screen, but on scale that is becoming very noticeable" a media insider told Xinhua, requesting anonymity.
