Dogs and Demons_ Tales From the Dark Side of Japan - Kerr [50]
All this should come as no surprise – it's the natural consequence of Japan's political structure, which puts officialdom more or less above the law. What is surprising is that the media, in a democratic country with legally mandated freedom of the press, collude in these deceptions. It comes down to the fact that the press is essentially a cartel. Reporters belong to press clubs that specialize in police or finance or politics, and so forth (which do not admit foreigners), and these clubs dutifully publish handouts from the police or the politicians in exchange for access to precious information. If a reporter shows any true independence, the agency or politician can exclude him from further press conferences.
Shinoda Hiroyuki, the chief editor of Tsukuru magazine, says, «Investigative reporting isn't rewarded.» In fact, it is often punished. Kawabe Katsurou is the reporter who in 1991 led TBS Television to investigate the trucking company Sagawa Kyu-bin's connections to gangsters and politicians. By 1993, prosecutors had filed charges against Kanemaru Shin, one of the nation's most powerful politicians, and soon thereafter the government fell. But far from rewarding Kawabe, TBS transferred him to the accounts department in 1996, and eventually he quit. Today, he survives precariously as a freelance journalist. «Many journalists have become like salarymen,» Kawabe says. «They want to avoid the difficult cases that will cause trouble.»
In the old days, the populace waited for their feudal masters to issue the O-sumitsuki, the Honorable Touch of the Brush, a written proclamation against which there was no recourse. The function of the press today is to publicize modern O-sumitsuki issued by major companies and bureaucrats. It means that you must read the newspapers with great care, as it's easy to mistake official propaganda for the real thing. Okadome Yasunori, the editor of the controversial but widely read monthly Uwasa no Shinso (Truth of Rumors), says, «With such a close relationship between the power and the media, journalists can be easily manipulated and controlled. Just study the front-page articles of major Japanese dailies. They are almost identical. Why? Because they just print what they are given.»
For example, Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) is Japan's leading economic journal. Nikkei gives out technology awards every year, and in 1995 its winners included, along with Windows 95, NTT's PHS handphone and Matsushita's HDTV. Though both were notoriously unsuccessful-PHS is an enormous money-loser, and one could fairly say that HDTV (high-definition television with an analog rather than digital base) ranks as one of the biggest technological flops of the twentieth century-both are favorites of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, so Nikkei dutifully celebrated them.
The most entertaining rooms in the press wing of the Hall of Mirrors are the television studios where producers cook up documentaries. So common is the staging of fake news reports that it has its own name, yarase, meaning literally «made to do it.» Japanese television is filled with faked events. In a mild version of yarase, villagers dress up in clothes they never wear to enact festivals that died out years ago. For truly sensational effect, television producers will go much further, as in reports of young girls tearfully admitting to being prostitutes – in what turn out to be paid acting stints. In November 1999, one of the longest-running and most elaborate yarase came to light when it was revealed that Fuji Television, over a period of six months had paid prostitutes and call girls ¥30,000 per appearance to act as wives on its supposedly true-life series, Loving Couples, Divorcing Couples. Nor is yarase limited to television. In 1989, the