Japan Press Weekly

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2011 January 5 - 11 [ECONOMY]

Media encourages consumption tax hike

“Mr. Kan, as a prime minister, are you determined to tackle the challenge to increase the consumption tax rate after achieving the controversial reduction in the number of Diet seats?” – on the January 5 TV Asahi nightly news program, “Hodo Station,” Japan’s well-known anchor Furutachi Ichiro asked Prime Minister Kan Naoto if he is working to realize a consumption tax increase and a cut in the number of Diet seats.

Furthermore, Furutachi encouraged Kan to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement for free trade. The program seemed to serve as a government PR program pushing for a consumption tax hike and Japan’s participation in the TPP.

Japan’s major dailies also took the same position as TV Asahi.

Following Kan’s New Year speech on January 4, Yomiuri Shimbun in its editorial of January 5 stated, “It is commendable that the prime mister again changed his position to one supporting the consumption tax increase discussions.” Regarding the issue of the TPP, it also stated, “The prime minister should take the lead in convincing opponents of the need for the TPP.”

Asahi Shimbun’s January 5 editorial stated, “We share the same opinion as the prime minister when he focuses on the issues of a consumption tax increase and the TPP as important goals of his administration.”

If the media were acting as watchdogs guarding against misgovernment, they should criticize Kan’s intention to increase the consumption tax as a case of his turning his back on public opinion. It is inexcusable that the media provide news coverage supporting such an intention. The media should also question the prime minister about the inconsistency between the government promise to increase the nation’s food self-sufficiency rate and its intent to participate in the TPP.

The media will degenerate into a propaganda organ if it throws away its function to monitor power and volunteers to support the Kan administration following in the footsteps of the discredited Liberal Democratic-Komei administration.