Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who is steeped in what passes for nationalism in Japan these days did put Katsuto Momii an affable and eager-to-please businessman with no media experience in place as NHK’s chairman. But if the chairman had a voice in the newscaster change (he’s not supposed to) there’s been a remarkable job done to prevent leaks to say the least.

Conservative prime minster Abe has also put people of his liking on NHK’s board of governors. They include a private tutor from his childhood But a couple of conspicuous hardliners have also been dropped so things look no worse (or better depending on your point of view) than in 2014.

Besides the governors are pure outsiders with day jobs. Any pressure from these quarters would be even harder to keep from disgruntled employees who would then leak the information to outsiders. Besides even if NHK were to be compromised there would still be the five other major broadcasting networks. Each is part of a giant multimedia group that includes a newspaper company with a national daily as the senior partner.

Japan’s ‘Big Five’ media

The Japanese mainstream media is dominated by the five multimedia groups together with NHK and the two national wire services. (The wire services are important because the local dallies who typically lap up half of the local subscription market rely on them.) Collectively they can impose desirable policy outcomes whenever their vital interests are at stake. Broadcasting was off-limits when commercial bandwidth auctions in Japan were discussed and networks continue to pay only nominal fees for broadcasting rights.

Subscription newspapers will be exempt from the next consumption tax hike if and when it happens. This gives them an advantage over the rest of the print media and Internet operations. (Their subscription-based revenue model has historically cast a pall of ambivalence over their cyber-strategies but this is another story.)

Then there are the “kisha” or reporters clubs where dominant media organizations account for almost all memberships. This gives big media unrivaled formal and informal access to the leadership of most Japan’s public and private “establishment” institutions.

Reporters clubs for example are attached to each government ministry. Such access would be difficult to cultivate independently since reporters are rotated every couple of years or so from club to club. Woe betide to those who challenge their prerogatives.

I harbor the (unproven) suspicion that indifference and in some cases naked hostility to mainstream media priorities on the part of the Democratic Party of Japan and its junior partners was a contributory factor in the near-annihilation of their 2009-2012 regime. For political leaders the mainstream media are there to cultivate not to intimidate.

The real concern

It would be nice if the story ended there. But the institutional bedrock under the government-mainstream media relationship worries me particularly when the leaders of the mainstream media routinely sit on senior government councils and entertain themselves with the prime minister.

The Japanese mainstream media are highly resistant to the hard power and the more coercive means of soft power that authoritarian regimes routinely resort to. But isn’t it also true that the soft power of privilege convenience and yes assimilation will surely take its toll? That should be the real concern of Reporters without Borders and that's another story a story for which I've run out of space.

Jun Okumura is currentlya visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs. He is a 30-year veteran of the Japanese civil service. During his career with the Ministry of Trade Economy and Industry he took part in several bilateral and multilateral negotiations including UNCLOS II and and the Uruguay Round as the lead METI negotiator for trade in services. He headed METI's Trade Finance Division during the Asian financial crisis. As president of JETRO New York he worked with the Japanese consulate and business community to assist evacuated businesses and their employees in the aftermath of Sept. 11 2001.

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