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★阿修羅♪
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(回答先: 英紙ガーディアン 番組改ざん問題を詳報 “中立だという前提が打撃受けた” （しんぶん赤旗） 投稿者 月読 日時 2005 年 1 月 18 日 09:13:17)
紅白歌合戦の視聴率が40％を下回ったことがNHK離れの象徴的出来事だと評している。
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1390743,00.html
Getting a bad reception
Beset by political and financial scandal, Japan's public broadcaster is under pressure. Justin McCurry explains
Friday January 14, 2005
After almost 60 years in the business, Japan's public broadcaster, NHK, must have become accustomed to mixed reviews.
To its many supporters, the broadcaster is synonymous with accuracy and probity, a cerebral alternative to the daily diet of pap offered by its commercial rivals.
Its critics, however, see only a self-satisfied monolith that shies away from challenging cultural and political norms - and all at the viewer's financial expense.
But even those opposing factions can agree that NHK is facing one of the most troubled periods in its history. The broadcaster is reeling from a series of embezzlement scandals involving employees, and charges that it has handled the ensuing fallout in a high-handed manner.
This week, it faced fresh allegations that it had buckled in the face of political pressure over a documentary about the Japanese army's wartime brothels.
The public expects better from an organisation that offers respite from inane chat and variety shows with a mixture of news, sport, documentaries and educational programmes, and which is not beholden to advertisers and - in theory at least - to politicians.
However, the most recent revelations threaten to blow that last assumption apart. On Wednesday, Shinzo Abe, a senior figure in the ruling Liberal Democratic party, admitted that he had urged NHK officials to alter the contents of the documentary on wartime sex slaves.
He had learned in advance that the programme would devote airtime to a mock trial, conducted in 2000, that found the wartime emperor, Hirohito, guilty of permitting the sexual enslavement of tens of thousands of Asian women by the Japanese imperial army during the second world war.
"I found out that the contents were clearly biased and told [NHK] that they should broadcast from a fair and neutral viewpoint, as they are expected to do," Mr Abe, who was the government's number two spokesman at the time, said.
The programme that went out failed to mention the guilty verdict against Hirohito, and reduced the time originally allotted to testimonies from former sex slaves and repentant ex-soldiers.
Rumiko Nishino, a leading member of the women's rights group that conducted the mock trial, said NHK had been guilty of "an extraordinary act that sold the soul of journalism".
The group filed a lawsuit against NHK and two outside production companies over the cuts. Last March a court exonerated the public broadcaster, but ordered one of the production companies to pay compensation. All the parties involved have appealed.
On Thursday, the pressure on NHK intensified when the programme's senior producer said there had been political interference. "We were ordered to alter the programme before it was aired," Satoru Nagai told reporters. "I would have to say that the alteration was made against the backdrop of political pressure."
His statement contradicts earlier NHK claims that the programme's editor had made the cuts at his own discretion. Crucially, he said the editorial changes had been made with the full knowledge of the NHK president, Katsuji Ebisawa.
But Mr Abe today denied applying pressure to programme makers. NHK, too, denied that it had been forced to alter the contents of the programme and demanded an apology and correction from the Asahi Shimbun, which ran the original story. The Asahi said it was sticking to its version of events.
A second LDP politician, the trade and industry minister, Shoichi Nakagawa, said he had spoken to NHK executives only after the programme was broadcast.
Meanwhile, viewers are engaging in an unprecedented display of civil disobedience over NHK's handling of the embezzlement scandals.
The broadcaster depends on license fees for almost all of its funding, which last year totalled 678.5bn yen (£3.54bn). As of the end of last November, more than 113,000 households had refused to pay their license fees, worth a total of 1bn yen. Two months earlier, rebel viewers had numbered just 31,000. Many said they would pay up if Mr Ebisawa resigned.
They may soon get their way. The 70-year-old recently hinted that he would quit after drawing up the NHK budget for 2005, which is likely to include staff wage cuts to offset the dip in funding from license fees. Members of NHK's 8,500-strong union have urged him to stand down and take responsibility for tainting the broadcaster's reputation.
Mr Ebisawa's brash personal style is also at issue. He apologised for the embezzlement scandals, but NHK's refusal to air parliamentary hearings in which he was questioned about them smacked of arrogance and aloofness.
The broadcaster's woes have given rise to a certain schadenfreude in sections of the press. The Asahi has given the subject a generous airing, saying of the beleaguered Mr Ebisawa: "If he is serious about reforming NHK, he should turn the organisation over to new management as soon as possible instead of waiting until March."
Even NHK's noble attempts to placate the public have backfired. Last month, it took the unusual step of airing a special programme in which viewers and panellists were invited to quiz Mr Ebisawa directly. But the attempted mea culpa did not work: after the show the number of license-fee refuseniks went up.
Perhaps the biggest symbolic blow to NHK's cultural pre-eminence came on New Year's Eve, one of the biggest nights of the year on Japanese television. Viewer ratings for its annual red and white singing contest, which regularly exceeded 80% in the 60s, dipped below 40% for the first time in its history.
The public has spoken - now it is up to the country's public broadcaster to respond.
題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。