政府と新聞の関係：英日の比較（英文）

The Relationship between the press and the government: a comparison between Britain and Japan　

“Japan might describe themselves as ‘a country with a first-rate economy and third-rate politics,’ but many would also add ‘a second-rate media’ to this list” (McKinley, 2001). This is because the press does not function as ‘watchdog,’ which is able to oversee the government carefully. This problem is thought to be caused by “The Kisha Club (Reporters Club).” This essay will examine what is the Kisha Club, the difference between Kish Club and the British ‘Lobby’ system, and the problem of the Kisha Club system, followed by revealing what is an ideal Japanese press.

First of all, two aspects of backgrounds of Japanese Press will be examined; culture and sales. Japan has a unique culture. In spite of accepting Western culture after losing the Second World War, the Japanese have been able to maintain their traditional values; “social harmony,” which means “individuals are expected to function within society”(McKinley, 2001). Therefore, traditionally, society tends to protect individuals, and organizations want to shelter the staff. For instance, Japanese workers, even journalist, expect to continue their job without a big success, such as a sensational scoop, if they do not make a mistake and keep doing routine works. There is another cultural feature; homogeneity. Japanese people prefer being the same as others to being the difference. Hence Japan’s homogeneous audience is willing to read normal opinion more than sensational. As a result, “the readership is not segmented by region (as with many paper in the U.S.), nor by class or educational level (as with many papers in Britain), nor along political lines (as with many European papers).” (Krauss, 2003)
The second aspect of background is sales of newspaper. There are over 150 papers in Japan, and daily circulation is 575 papers for every 1,000 person, which is the highest per capita newspaper distribution rate in the world (Krauss, 2003). Japanese three biggest national newspapers, the Yomiuri (morning circulation, about 10 million per day), the Asahi (over 8 million) and the Mainichi (over 4 million) rank three biggest newspapers in the world (Krauss, 2003; McKinley, 2001). Because the Japanese read newspaper everyday, people can be influenced by the press easily. For example, most of the Japanese will tend to believe that the politician is extremely bad, when major newspapers start a campaign to blame one politician. However, despite the huge amount of circulation and the big effect on the Japanese nation, the Japanese newspaper has little impact internationally. Some Japanese newspapers are written in English, but they are not valued as an authorized publication. On the contrary, British quality papers have a higher reputation, although their circulation is less, for example the Times, one of the most famous quality British newspapers, is just 0.6 million copies per a day in 1998 (Iwase, 1998).
The reason of Japanese newspaper’s international unpopularity is obvious. This is because the boring contents written only for domestic interests. These backgrounds are considered to relate to the protection of the Kisha Club.

The question to be considered is what the Kisha Club is. “The Kisha Club (Reporter’s club) system is similar to the White House Press Corp or the British ‘Lobby’ system.” The Kisha Club is managed by the member of Nihon Shinbun Kyoukai (Japanese Newspaper Association), which is organized by newspaper companies, press agencies and TV stations. The main role is a mediator between the government and the Press. It is said that Kisha Club was founded in 1890. At first, several newspapers cooperated with each other in order to be against for media access to parliament and organize press conference. Although the government had been unfavorable for this Kisha Club, it realized it would be easier to work with them rather than against them, and came to consider how to deal with the Kisha Club (McKinley, 2001). In other words, the government tried to make use of the Press to control public opinion. Though this control had been moderate before the world war started, it was compulsory during the war. Newspapers were controlled by the government and incited the nation to madness. Therefore it is natural that GHQ (General Headquarter), which was USA’s military organization for occupation of post-war Japan, asked the Kisha club to dissolve itself, because of the fault of its censorship. However, the function has not been changed since pre-war period, because the club has deceived its title.

The Kisha Club has several advantages for both journalists and the government. For journalists, the Kisha Club could provide easy access and facilities. Originally, the government and other authorities are reluctant to reveal information. However, if a journalist call them and tell, “I am a member of the Kisha Club,” officials seldom refuse the interview (Tase, 1995). In addition, only members of the club can join press conference, which the government holds. Therefore, the club member of the club can cover wide and deep range of news. “This extensive amount of knowledge has helped the Japanese trust the media” (McKinley, 2001). Not only the access to information, but club correspondents can receive facilities from the public authorities. Moreover, the public organizations furnish the press with facilities. For instance, there is a luxurious room for the Kisha Club members on the sixth floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office. In this room, correspondents can write drafts, read materials, and receive explanation by the press office of the Metropolitan Government. Besides, in 1996, more than 530 million yen (about 2,500 pound) was supplied with each the Japanese ‘Big Three’ newspaper by the public agency (Iwase, 1998).
For the government, the Kisha Club is useful and efficient, because new policy can be spread all over Japan by one briefing for the Club. “The news-club system has provided the Japanese public with a great deal of in-depth information about its bureaucracy and policy-making process, . . . , delivered to the reader in an unsensational and seemingly unbiased style”(Krauss, 2001). Furthermore, the government does not worry about what kind of reporters joins the conference (Iwase, 1998).

However, the Kisha club has more disadvantages. Firstly, because information is passive, articles are lack of investigation. Even though it is easy for journalists to get information, the government announcing policy to the Kisha Club endlessly may have journalists lazy and deprive them of motivation and ability to find problem, and report voluntarily. (Tase, 1995; 102) For instance, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced policies over 4000 times a year. It might make journalists difficult to do research by their will (Iwase, 1998; 49). The result has been revealed in their boring articles. Certainly it had met “the homogenous nature of the paper’s audience.” (Krauss, 2001) Yet, readers came to discover it is not interesting, and they have distrusted mass media. “The differences that exist on the news pages are subtle. Between newspapers, there are slight variations in the selection and placement of the article in pages one (and) the choice of language” (Krauss, 2001). What is worse, if the press is always passive, the government can control the press as same as one during the war. According to Ellis Krauss,
“The press in Japan is rarely an agenda setter in the sense of independently raising and pursing issues; it is much more an ‘agenda fitter,’ merely providing information about the activities of the government officials who really set the agenda. Sometimes it can be an ‘agenda sitter,’ keeping political elites in track when they seem to be straying from their intended purpose or what the public expects.”(2003)
For example, in the 6th floor of the Metropolitan Government Office, which the Metropolitan Government has provided for the Kisha Club for free, the public officers explain what the organization to be intended to the press. As a result, most of the space on newspaper is filled with the government’s announcement or date which is advantageous to the government.
Secondly, there has been collusion between the press and the government. Since the Kisha Club receives big amount of benefits form the government, it must not be easy to blame the government. Consequently Japanese media has not so much as been a ‘watch dog’ (McKinley, 2001; Krauss, 2003). It is regarded as “guide dog” that “serves as an … informer of the Public” (McKinley, 2001) or “lapdog”(Guardian, 2002).
Thirdly, the club is too exclusive. The European Union called on Japan to abolish its Kisha (Reporter) Club system in order to remove an obstacle on the free trade in information (BBC, 2002). This is because “foreign correspondent who until recently were completely exclusive from them [the Kisha Club], and today are only accepted on a case-by-case basis”(BBC, 2002). It means, for the long time, foreign (as well freelance) journalists who are not the Kisha club member could not join the government’s spokesman’s public briefing, and even now few can participate in it, and they cannot be admitted to ask questions. “According to the EU, the Kisha clubs are not only a ‘de facto competitive hindrance to foreign journalist’ but they also serve to ‘diminish the quality of information available to the public.’”(BBC, 2002)

In order to evaluate the Kisha Club system, there is a further point that needs to be clarified. That is the difference between the Kisha club system and the Lobby system.
Before that, it is necessary to explain what the Lobby system is. “The Lobby system is the organization representing political correspondents who work at the British House of Parliament” (Jones, 2003). In 1882, the Westminster Lobby was organized. Its role is the same as the Kisha Club’s one, which is newsgathering from the government office (BBC, 2003). It used to be described as “the last closed shop in British journalism,” because it used be exclusive. One British journalist, Nicholas Jones said, “as a newspaper correspondent in the 1960s it took me two years to qualify to join the Lobby. And the Lobby rules were so tight that until I had full access I was not even allowed speaking to members of Parliament.” (Jones, 2003) This situation is similar to Japanese one. However there are three big differences between the Kisha Club and the Lobby system.
The first distinction is foreign journalists’ admission to conferences. Even now it is almost impossible for foreign journalists to join the Kisha Club. Once the Lobby also used to reject foreign correspondents, the situation has changed after Blair became the Prime Minister in 1997. His press secretary, Alastair Campbell, opened up a new and larger briefing room and allowed reporters from foreign news agencies to attend the Lobby briefings (Jones, 2003). The admission may stimulate domestic journalists and improve quality of newspapers.
The second one is scale. The Lobby system is called “No 10 Lobby,” because its briefing room is located in 10 Downing Street. It means only one organization same as the Kisha club. On the other hands, there are the several Kisha Club in every Ministry, prefecture office and public authorities. Additionally, in foreign countries there are Kisha Clubs permanently or temporally (only after incidents happen), because correspondents wish to obtain information from government easily. Consequently, Japanese journalists tend to depend on such release from authorities more than British journalists, therefore their articles may be similar with the government’s reports.
The third difference is independence from the Lobby system. In Britain, there is one newspaper that rejected reports of the Kisha Club’s style from the beginning. The newspaper company is the ‘Independent’, which started in 1986. Skilled journalists, who had quested what journalism should be, moved from the Times, Guardian or Daily Telegraph to the Independent. The general manager of an editorial department of Independent said, “The less dependence on conferences a newspaper become, the harder we must work. Individual journalists keep news sources and cherish the relationship. That is to say, we have to do proper work as journalists” (Tase, 1995). On the other hands, Japan does not have such kind of newspapers, although 74% of the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association blamed the Kisha club system and more than half felt that the system made it easy for the authorities to manipulate information (Guardian, 2002).
However, there should be one indication of the first difference. It means both purpose do not differ from each other. Like the Kisha Club, the Lobby system has been advantageous for the government. Certainly Alastair Campbell opened up the Lobby system and provided access to overseas journalists and especially to the foreign press. The reason is not for journalism but only for the government. He believes their newspapers are often more responsible than the British press. Therefore when newspapers in France, Germany, the USA, Japan comment favourably on Tony Blair's achievements this can be used to good advantage in the United Kingdom (Jones, 2003). The Japanese Kisha Club is also for the government. Even if the openness for foreign journalists is different from Japan and Britain, the purpose is same. It might be wrong to praise the Lobby’s openness for foreigners freely.

In conclusion, Japanese journalism has two big flaws; quality of article and quality of a journalist itself caused by the Kisha Club system. However, abolishing the system might be untimely. This is because 90% of present Japanese Newspaper is come from the announcement (Iwase, 1998). Above all, it will become difficult to gather and cover information. It may be obvious that British journalism offers a key to solve the weakness of the Japanese journalism. At first, the Kisha club should welcome questions and participation from foreign correspondents for its strengthening its competitiveness. Next, the economic collusion should be diminished for rebuilding healthy relationship between the government and the press. Although it might be difficult to make Japanese journalists give up vested privilege, excellent journalism could make nation excellent. Japanese journalist and audiences should reconsider what journalism should be.

（Bibliography）

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