November 7, 2015

A third-party organization in the broadcasting community which handles issues related to ethics in journalism published a statement on November 6 criticizing the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for having put pressure on NHK in connection with one of its TV programs.

A documentary NHK aired in May 2014 which dealt with a fraud case has turned out to have contained some staged scenes.

In April this year, the LDP summoned NHK executives in order to “question” them about this. Following that, the communications minister gave the public broadcaster a “stern warning”.

The statement issued by the Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization (BPO) points out that the behavior of the government and the ruling party violates the Broadcast Act which guarantees broadcasters’ autonomy and that their action amounts to a threat to media.

BPO executive Kawabata Yoshiharu said at a news conference, “The governing party has no legal authority to summon them. It’s inappropriate to place the broadcaster under such political pressure.”

Past related article:
> Ex-NHK producer: Abe’s pressure changes role of public broadcasting [February 25, 2015]