Every year, Japans poor press freedom ranking triggers handwringing and defensiveness in equal measure. The countrys 2024 ranking of 70 out of 180 countries in the annual index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) should alarm Japanese citizens, said veteran politician Ichiro Ozawa, who noted that Japan has experienced incredible democratic backsliding.

Not so, countered the right wing news website Japan Forward. Despite being called an index, the RSF study has little to do with scientifically gathered intelligence. The critique questioned why the survey ranked Malta, which was deemed responsible for the 2017 murder of investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia, higher than famously safe Japan. Other RSF critics have also noted that there is no appreciable violence against journalists in Japan.

Japans highest RSF ranking of 11, scored in 2010, was an anomaly. For most of the previous two decades since the early 2000s, Japan hovered in the twenties to forties, falling to its lowest of 51 in 2008. The defeat of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 2009 created expectations that its more liberal rival, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) would challenge or scrap the press club system, which rewards establishment journalists with monopolistic access to sources and discourages and sometimes even punishes independent critical reporting.

The press club system survived and remains a key reason for Japans perennially low ranking. The DPJs handling of the Fukushima nuclear disaster further damaged public confidence in journalism. Much of the mainstream news parroted the official line that Japans leaking reactors were safe and journalists avoided the term meltdown for two months, insisting that partial fuel melt was suspected.

When the LDP retook power in December 2012, it turned its attention to the liberal media. Former prime minister Shinzo Abe installed four conservatives to the 12-member board of public service broadcaster NHK. The LDP also demanded political impartiality from television bosses in 2014. In 2016, then-communications minister Sanae Takaichi threatened to close television stations that flouted rules on impartiality amid a major political row about the near simultaneous departure of three liberal TV anchors.

The controversy over Abes arm-twisting of the media peaked in 2016 when UN Rapporteur David Kaye warned of serious threats to Japans media, highlighting self-censorship, declining media independence and a lack of professional solidarity among media organisations. After interviewing approximately 100 journalists and editors, Kaye found that a significant number of journalists feel intense pressure from the government to conform their reporting to official policy preferences. The official reaction to Kayes report was defensive. Koichi Hagiuda, then-deputy chief cabinet secretary, argued that Kayes findings were based on hearsay.

Yet both Kaye and the RSF have identified structural weaknesses in the Japanese media long bemoaned by domestic critics. One of the biggest news stories in Japan since 2023 has been the admission by the countrys most powerful talent agency that its founder and boss was a serial paedophile. A report published in August 2023 concluded that pop artist Svengali Johnny Kitagawa had repeatedly sexually assaulted young men for almost 50 years.

In the 1980s and 1990s, several of Kitagawas former trainees publicly accused him of sexual assault. In 1999, a weekly magazine published startling accusations by 12 of his former trainees which led to global media coverage and questioning in Japans parliament. But there was little follow up by Japans newspapers and television companies, which relied on the publicity generated by the actors, singers and dancers provided by Kitagawas agency, Johnny & Associates, even after Kitagawa sued and lost a court battle over the magazines claims.

The latest RSF report nods to the reason why Kitagawas actions were enabled by a lack of media accountability. While violence against journalists is almost unheard of in Japan and media freedom is generally respected, business interests often prevent journalists from fulfilling their role as watchdogs. A major disincentive to investigating Kitagawas misdeeds was the commercial interdependence of television with his agency.

The Kitagawa story was nudged into the mainstream by Shukan Bunshun, a weekly tabloid that was shut out of the establishment. But even after publishing multiple interviews with Kitagawas victims, Shukan Bunshun journalists knew there was little chance that the Japanese press would report the issue. A BBC documentary, which interviewed some of the same victims, further weakened the code of silence around Kitagawa. A probe by a team of independent investigators eventually concluded in August 2023 that the company had covered up decades of abuse, despite there being many opportunities to take action, according to the teams leader Makoto Hayashi.

Bunshuns work showed that the media in Japan can be diverse and lively. But self-censorship is rife and taboos linger over swathes of public life. Journalists are encouraged to collude with official sources and shun independent lines of enquiry, leaving many issues including the imperial family, war crimes and the death penalty poorly covered or out of bounds. Social media is used to bash critics, manipulate public opinion and amplify right wing topics. It seems likely that Japan will continue to score badly in media freedom rankings.

David McNeill is Professor of Communications and English at the University of the Sacred Heart, Tokyo, and co-chair of the Foreign Correspondents Club Japans Freedom of the Press Committee.

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Politics puppeteers Japans press freedom - East Asia Forum