With more than 100k tweets, #“I don’t want to pay money to (public broadcaster) NHK anymore” is now trending in Japan. Why is NHK facing this wave of antipathy? Users criticize that in the current debate on links between LDP and Unification Church 1/7 #もうＮＨＫに金払いたくない
https://twitter.com/mas__yamazaki/status/1554697125908611072
NHK is trying to keep the issue on a very low profile and once it is mentioned “by the way”, coverage is taking sides with LDP by just reporting official statements without any proper contextualization. On top of that, parliamentary debates on the issue are “hidden” by simply 2/7
not live-broadcasting it (as done usually). In fact, #agendacutting like this has happened repeatedly in the past. I documented one case in the run-up to the #TokyoOlympics when NHK news cut the #Covid19 risk in Tokyo. The Games had to be saved from cancellation/postponement 3/7
at any cost as too much was at stake for businesses, media, and the government (Abe/LDP). One may ask who NHK actually wanted to protect in that health crisis? For details see the recent study here 4/7 journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
Similar question can be asked now: What role is NHK playing this time? Informing the public and investigating collusion or protecting those in power? Don’t get me wrong. I believe in the importance of public media and I am convinced that with its financial prowess NHK could 5/7
potentially play a key role for Japan’s democracy. NHK would need to return to its original mission as public media whose primary role is to serve its licence fee payers, i.e. JP citizens. When this mission is fulfilled in people’s eyes, acceptance of licence fees will rise 6/7
On a final note, interestingly, the legitimacy of public media is in a crisis elsewhere as well, as seen in Germany where harsh criticism under #Staatsfunk and #GEZabschaffen is trending right now. So by no means a Japan-only issue! 7/7
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