Japan Press Weekly

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2017 January 5 - 10 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Commercial TV program slanders Okinawans opposing US base construction

“Those who are opposing the construction of U.S. military facilities in Okinawa are hired to do so.” It has come to light that a commercial TV program was spreading this vicious rumor early in the New Year.

A news magazine program aired on January 2 by Tokyo MX took up the issue of the construction of the U.S. Osprey pads in the Takae district in Okinawa’s Higashi Village. Under the title of “The unreported truth”, the program referred to the local residents protesting against the construction as “violent extremists”.

In addition, false stories were propagated one after another, such as “These protesters are paid 50,000 yen a day,” and “They are ‘working’ there under a five-day workweek system.” The narration added, “Among the extremists are Chinese and Koreans.”

Article 4 of the Broadcast Act requires broadcasters to report based on facts and make the point clear from different angles in dealing with controversial topics. There is a strong possibility that those reports are in violation of this article.

In that program, a male reporter stopped his crew from going into a local tunnel, whispering, “Getting closer to them is dangerous!” However, that tunnel is located tens of kilometers away from the construction site in Takae. From beginning to end, the TV show continued depicting local protesters as “extremists” without bothering to talk with them.

As the Abe government is carrying out anti-people policies, media bias is being called into question.

Past related article:
> Okinawa court rejects provisional injunction request on US military helipad construction in Takae [December 7, 2016]