The First Amendment; Crocker Snow: Japanese Journalism

WGBH Boston in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic communications at the School of Communications at Boston University now presents the 'First Amendment and a Free People', an examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970's. Now here is the director of the Institute for Democratic Communication, Dr. Bernard Rubin. I'm happy to have as my guest tonight two distinguished observers who know Japan fairly well. Professor Ito of course knows it extremely well being born there and raised there. He is now at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy on an exchange between the Fletcher School at Tufts and Keio University in Tokyo where he teaches mass communication most happy to say he's a graduate of the Boston University School of Public communication took his master's degree there. He's worked at the NHK Broadcasting Corporation in Tokyo and has also done much research on mass media and international communications problems of the United States and Japan. My other guest is Mr. Crocker Snow, the eminent journalist who is assistant to the publisher of The Boston Globe. Mr. Snow has worked for

Newsweek has been the former Asia correspondent between 1972 and '74 based in Tokyo traveling widely in that area. He's been off and on in Japan in total I guess six years. And is this year teaching among other duties, uh, of the more strictly press nature teaching of course at the Fletcher School on media and diplomatic work of immigrant foreign events. Gentlemen I want to ask you some questions that deal with Japan and how conscious the Japanese are of press freedoms the job of the press to ferret out the story no matter where the story takes them the attitude of government toward the press and the Japanese course toward the press and so on. I just like to open the program by referring to an article which appeared in the research arm of the Japanese broadcasting

system which appeared in 1972. It was an article entitled 'Mass Consciousness in Southeast Asia and Japan'. One of the things that struck me in that- in dealing with extensive polling of Japanese people in 1971 and 1972, many of them, especially middle class men and middle class women, still get their information primarily from newspapers even though most Japanese households I know are multi television set households multi radio households. They get most of their information from newspapers, rely upon it more for political news- from newspapers for political news. And I'm trying to relate this to one single question that was asked in there, 'What are you most worried about?' [Other speaks] In the Japanese press? [Rubin] In regard to the Japanese psyche, the Japanese conscience, this is about how they get information, and one of the questions asked of them as newspaper people readers and as television radio

people. "What worries you the most?" and they are -- 75 percent of the men said the loss- the possible loss of human feeling. They were most optimistic about science and education and other things but the loss of human- possible loss of human feeling worried them. Enough from me, starting with Crocker Snow. What's your- your feeling about the Japanese and their concepts of press freedoms today? [Snow] Well I think the first thing to be said is- is almost patently self-evident and that is that the- the functioning and role of the Japanese press is symptomatic of the whole society. And there are notable, in my opinion, notable differences between the way the Japanese press works vis-a-vis First Amendment- what we consider First Amendment freedoms and, um, the way we work. And

these differences are primarily cultural, the uh, to start with the broadest generalities first, um, it seems to me that the Japanese press fulfills a role as a communicator in what is distinctly a consensus society as compared to our more- more of an adversary society. The press fulfills the role of communicating changes in -- in thinking, in thought patterns and policies to the broad stretch of the bureaucracy. In other words if a consensus society is going to work properly, everyone's got to know what the new emerging consensus is going to be. One of the roles, in my opinion, of the Japanese press, is to signal that changing consensus and communicate it so everyone can get in line with it. Now this is not to say that they don't fulfill an adversary role, but it was to be specific about one thing and we can get into an awful lot with Professor Ito.

At the time in 1972 shortly after Okinawa reverted to full Japanese control this was, kind of in the Japanese context, considered the definitive distinctive thing that the then-Prime Minister Sato had achieved in his tenure in power and almost immediately upon the full reversion of Okinawa to full Japanese control, the Japanese press began to signal that Sato's reign had come to an end and indeed within a very short order it had. And that is a small, but I think revealing, example of what I was- what I was trying to say, a lot more to be said about this but.... [Rubin] Professor Ito, do you agree that this is the essential difference between the two press comprehensions, United States and Japan? One, the American being the adversary press and Japan being the consensus press? [Ito] Well I do not necessarily agree with that view. I know that, uh, some foreign

observers very often see Japanese systems mutually dependent and labor union and management is mutually dependent and and sometimes they even,uh, doubt that or suspect that -- suspect that there might be some kind of conspiracy between labor and management and government and banking- banking system and sometimes they include mass media. There may be some kind of negotiation and agreement- secret agreement between Japanese mass media and the government. But- but I do not necessarily agree with that kind of view because, well you said, well Mr. Snow told about, uh, the

resignation of Mr. Sato. Then what about the resignation of Mr. Tanaka? Well in that case, apparently, Japanese press and Japanese mass media ousted or expelled Mr. Tanaka from his office and apparently the government led by Mr. Tanaka was not, at all happy about that. [Rubin] This brings up the Lockheed and Watergate scandals, especially as Lockheed applies to both countries. It has been said by some observers that the Japanese press learned much from the American Watergate experience. Would you comment on that, gentleman, perhaps Mr. Ito first and then Mr. Snow? [Ito] Yes I think in the case of Lockheed scandal, apparently there was a, uh, influence from what they learned from the American experience in Watergate.

But when Mr. Tanaka was forced to resign because of magazine article, it was before Watergate. And so, so, We can't say that Tanaka was ousted because of Watergate scandal. [Snow] The thing that I feel, I don't mean to give a misimpression, the first place the Japanese press is the freest in Asia and that- that is an underlying theme of everything I say, I want to make that very clear. But And, in my previous remarks were really not critical they were more observational. But on the Tanaka resignation I, uh, I don't interpret it quite the same way. The- Tanaka was indeed the Prime Minister who came along after Sato and the way his resignation actually occurred is that indeed a, uh, aggressive Japanese periodical magazine

uncovered a lot of financial misdeeds, real and suspected misdeeds by Tanaka. That- and- and devoted the better part of an issue to that. The story did not go anywhere in the Japanese press, in real terms, on the basis of this single and explosive article in a Japanese periodical. The fact of the matter is that 3 or 4 major national newspapers in Japan, the Asahi the Mainichi, the Yomiuri, Nihon Keizai did not really pick up on that story. Tanaka's downfall was precipitated by the fact that the Prime Minister in Japan has an annual commitment to a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo which is where I worked and a lot of my colleagues worked. And shortly after the magazine article, he was due for his annual press conference and he duly appeared. The foreign reporters, American and German

particularly, really pressed him on the basis of this magazine article and forced him into making some pretty revealing responses to our questions... [Rubin] You're saying in effect that because he was at a relatively non-Japanese function, in that it wasn't following the Japanese customs, that he was forced out into the open with the foreign press? [Snow] Well I mean to some degree he was, let me continue, what happened then is the American- the Western press then wrote its stories which appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Globe and others, those in turn- and also appeared on the wire services, they then returned to Japan by way of the English-language press and the English-language wire services they used, which forced the Japanese papers in turn to- to report them in the Japanese language. I'm oversimplifying but I think you'll agree with me... [Rubin] That's how Winston Churchill got back to the British people before World War II by broadcasting one or two occasions

overseas and then having his programme come right back by direct, uh, transmission back to Britain because the BBC at home wouldn't let him broadcast. Professor Ito, what is the result now of all of the changes because of the Watergate and Lockheed, in particular, and related problems in Japan? What is the impact upon the average Japanese reporter, has he changed or is he this - still pretty much the same reporter that he was before these events took place, has he changed his attitude toward getting stories? Is he less worried about involving mighty people? [Ito] Yes I think little by little changing, particularly by the events which took place four years ago, the resignation of Mr. Tanaka.

Many newspapers- many reporters were very shocked by the fact that they couldn't do that. I mean- I mean, uh, the article was written by a magazine writer and not a newspaper writer and newspaper reporters tend to think themselves more important than magazine writers in Japan generally. And- and yet they couldn't take the initiative and they had to follow magazine writers. And so they realized that the political reporters of newspapers might have been too close to politicians and there was the kind of reflection that they had. And after the after the then after the Lockheed scandal they were strongly supported by the public- public opinion and also they realized that they might have been, as I think- this is a point- one of the

points that Mr. Snow has been talking about that, eh, Japanese reporters have had the tendency to be very close to politicians. [Rubin] How, gentlemen, do the publishers react- the publishers and editors in Japan to sensitive stories that might be on the very edge of compromising them or perhaps even forcing them to the courts. [Snow] I.. Doctor Ito may know differently, I had- my sense is that they don't react too much differently than publishers here. There are- there are a lot of things to be said however about the cultural differences. Japanese reporters for one are very very aggressive about newsbeats even more than American reporters. There's nothing that rings a Japanese reporter's bells more than if he has a scoop. But by and large these scoops, up until the time of Tanaka and Watergate and Lockheed, that sort of

era, these scoops have been relatively minor partly for the reason Dr. Ito said. As far as the publishers go, and this- I'd I don't want to suggest there's any collusion with the government here, there is not, it's a competitive market, but on the other hand you have a very centralized island with a very homogeneous people who tend to think alike and tend to react alike to similar external and internal events. A case in point is, uh, by American standards, pretty shocking situation in the Japanese press which still to some degree exists concerning what Japanese reporters would be allowed to report from Peking. And after the after the Nixon shocks and even before that, as a matter of fact, it was considered a great plum for the major Japanese newspapers to have a reporter in Peking, for obvious reasons. It would be

considered a great plum by our own. In order to get their reporter in Peking they- it's quite clear, um, definitely agreed to certain ground rules for the kind of coverage that they would apply to China. The Chinese made it very clear 'Thou shall come to Peking only if you abide by certain ground rules'. One of the ground rules being that you not mention Taiwan in your news story, other ground rules being that in general terms that your reporting is favorable about Peking, and so forth. They were the kind of inhibitions on full and fair reporting that American papers would never, or American publishers, would never have accepted. And this was finally, by a Mainichi editor, was exposed to the public, and amazingly enough the public didn't do anything about it, and the press hasn't done anything about it. And that, to some degree, is still the case. [Rubin] How do you react to that, Professor Ito? [Ito] Oh, I think it is, uh, true. Um, uh,

to a great extent, but it is not necessarily cultural but I would say it's rather structural. Of course it's hard to say which comes first- first, structural or cultural. But I mean when I say structural I mean that, uh, the basic difference- there is a big difference between American newspapers and Japanese newspapers system itself. I'm simply saying American newspapers or press system, is basically local, whereas Japanese press system is national. For example in this country there are 1,750 daily newspapers published, but in Japan the number is only 10 percent, 170 or so and. And maybe only

national newspaper, in this country is Wall Street Journal. But in Japan there are five big national newspapers and they altogether occupy more than half, about, 56 or 57 percent of newspapers sold all over Japan. And the top 2, Asahi and Yomiuri sell 7 million copies each. And, uh, so this, uh kind of- this fact, some observers poi- point or cite this structural feature as a weakness of Japanese press industry. And some of the reasons why some of the things that Mr. Snow has just mentioned occurred is because of such monopolistic systems.

[Rubin] Now with a monopolistic system like that. [Ito] Yeah. [Rubin] I'd like to get back to the finding of this 1972 NHK Japan Research Service survey that at least 75 percent of the - of the middle class men, and these would be the successful people of Japan, when surveyed about their worries, worried about the loss of human feeling. Is there anything in press coverage- in the lack of press coverage and a lack of press insight that can, now, then equate that survey result to the fact that most of the Japanese get most of their news from the print press? Is there any correlation there or are these just two distinct things? [Snow] Well we may have very different answers. My answer is, um, I, that that's a new figure to me, but I don't see any correlation. It seems to me that the Japanese in the first place are public opinion poll mad. [chuckles] They have

polls all over the place, and the prime minister's office has certain polls, but that's an aside, but I would interpret that particular one to mean that the Japanese are living under intense pressure of a- of a highly crowded, highly industrial, highly successful nation and these kinds of , uh, the pressures of prosperity that the Japanese are experiencing have in a very rapid period of time have undermined a lot of the traditional values and mores and standards of the society and I think any Japanese that I know personally has a split personality about this, he is very worried about the loss of Japanese tradition and Japanese aesthetics, particularly in a city like Tokyo with 11.7 million people. And I think this really more reflects the external environment and the pressures of that versus the traditional cultural past. I have no idea whether you would agree with me. [Rubin] Professor Ito. [Ito] Loss of sense of human, uh, [overlap] feeling. Well that's hard to, uh,

well I've never thought that, I've never correlated these two things. But I just wanted to add to my comment. But I just wanted to say that although the newspaper system- newspapers industry is quite monopolistic, or oligopolistic in a sense that there are five big national newspapers occupy more than half of Japanese newspapers as a whole. But we have many, uh, very aggressive, and very active weekly magazines. I think this complements the structural weakness or vulnerability of press industry. [Rubin] Tell me how impressed are the Japanese with what they read about, let us now talk about the newspaper elite itself, to get in a very small group, what they read about our First Amendment rights here in the United States, of

freedom of press, speech, petition, and assembly. Is this something still very very foreign, very luxurious, or is it something that is taken quite quite importantly for domestic... [Snow] By the Japanese public.... [Rubin] Well no, by the Japanese press people in particular, by the newspaper men, the editors, the publishers, television people? [Snow] Sure I don't- I don't make a distinction between the press people and the public in this sense I think- I think it is a - it's a quality that is admired by the Japanese. It's a quality of the American system that is highly admired but indeed they have much of it themselves. I do think that the Watergate, the Watergate situation here was something that really intrigued and fascinated the Japanese as it did a lot of the rest of the world and had a tremendous impact on them that we could so openly and so compulsively and so persistently wash our

dirty linen in public was sort of an object lesson in the role of the free press as the Fourth Estate in a democratic society. And I certainly agree with Dr. Ito that- that this did have an impact on the subsequent coverage by the Japanese press of the Lockheed scandal. And it is certainly fair to say in this context that the Japanese press have done a much better job, inestimably better job in covering the the sordid parts of the Lockheed scandal than has the American press. We have been pretty blase about the whole thing because we've got similar scandals in Chile and Greece and Italy and everywhere else where American corporate payoffs have been involved. The Japanese... [Rubin] The pursuit of Mr. Tanaka by the press is something new and unusual is it not? Not- not that he fell from grace. That's quite typical in Japanese history, people fall from grace but that he is still being pursued by the press, he's a hot story.

It is this is something that is going to be retained with other figures, are- are politicians more afraid of the press now? [Snow] I'd rather have you answer that, I'd - Tanaka is a special case. I mean, he was and he is an unusual man - he's in the Japanese context he is much more of a personality than most prime ministers. He comes from a non-elitist background so... [Rubin] self-made man, economically... [Snow] Self-made man, not a Todai graduate, and a lot of other things and so I I wouldn't draw too many generalities from the Tanaka experience, but as far as the other, I don't know how you feel. [Rubin] Reading the Japanese press the last couple of months, do you find any local or immediate stories that show that this trend is starting or beginning again, to investigate people aggressively? [Ito] There was one case in which Governor was, uh, Governor of Fukushima was expelled and ousted from his office for the same - almost the same reason. And,

well, this may have an impact on, uh, on such fears. [Rubin] How do the courts react if a reporter gets a story and, as in the United States, the politicians begin to put the pressure on the- on the newspaper or whatnot? How do the courts react in Japan to a defense of newsman's rights? [Snow] Well that's a very very critical case that arose with a Mainichi reporter and the foreign ministry about 4, uh, 3 years ago. Why don't you mention that? [Ito] Well that's but that's a very complicated. [Snow] It is, and you only have two minutes to complete the discussion. [Ito] Yes, but uh, I would say it's a very complicated case. But anyway through that scandal, uh, Japanese people began to realize the importance of right to know and in 1969 for the first time Japanese Supreme Court admitted a guaranteed right to know. And uh, um, well

the case itself is a leak of important confidential paper to the mass media and the opposite.. [Rubin] Something like the Daniel Ellsberg leak? [Ito] Yes, yes, a little more complicated. [Rubin] More complicated? [Ito] Yeah it was a little more complicated more complicated than the Daniel Ellsberg leak. [Snow] It even had some sex in it. [Ito] Yes yes that's why. [Rubin] I'm glad to hear that, a more complicated story indeed. Well gentleman do you want to perhaps give one last word to our audience about how you think the relationship between the Japanese press and the American press on the First Amendment are? Any tips that you might have as to what we should expect? [Snow] Well for my part, I think it's important to bear in mind that the Japanese press is, and obviously will continue to be, 1, the most competitive and 2, the freest, and 3 probably the most aggressive press in Asia probably east of - anywhere east of the Mediterranean. I think that's very important to bear in mind. The nit-picking

that I have made is more, in my opinion, as I said at the outset, is more because of the cultural environment than anything else. [Rubin] Professor Ito? [Ito] Yes. I agree with him and, just, Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and assembly and freedom of speech and so forth and there is no doubt that this was - this Constitution itself was made under the very strong American influence or even guidance. But- but at the same time I want to say that we have a his- we have experience. We learned not only from the United States but also from our prior experiences before World War II, 1930s and '40s, and so I think that this is not just a copy but I think we have our exp- it's based on our experience, so I think that this would be very strong. [Rubin] Well thank you gentlemen, I haven't been intruding too much on your points because I fell in love with Japan on my first visit 30 years ago and I've been in love with it ever since. I hope that the

cultural differences remain and I hope that only the better parts of press freedoms are held in unison by our two countries. Thank you Professor Ito of Keio University in Japan and Mr. Crocker Snow, the journalist from The Boston Globe here in Massachusetts, this is Bernard Rubin saying good night. [Tones and Music] WGBH radio in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic communications of the School of Communications at Boston University has presented 'The First Amendment and a Free People,' an examination of civil liberties and the media in the 1970s. This program was produced in the studios of WGBH Boston. [music]