Instead public debt continues to rise, having soared from 61 per cent of GDP in 1990 to 211 per cent in 2011. At this rate, Japan could follow Greece’s economic collapse, although there are many differences between the two economies.
Amidst this economic turmoil, politicians have been debating a tax increase, with the House of Representatives passing a bill in late June to increase Japan’s consumption tax. Fifty-seven members of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) voted against the bill while members of the two opposition parties, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the New Komeito Party, voted for it. Shortly after that, 49 congress members left the DPJ to form a new political party led by former DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa. They were heavily critical of the DPJ for not having stuck to its 2009 party manifesto that renounced any increases in the tax rate for the following four years. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and his cabinet survived a no-confidence vote from Ozawa’s new party and others, but Noda was obliged to promise to hold a general election ‘soon’ to get support from the LDP after the tax hike legislation passed.
How is the Japanese media reporting the ongoing political debate? And how should the media move when the economic and political risks are high?
The Asahi Shimbun’s editorials have been arguing that, although political manifestos are important, faced with an ever-changing global landscape — including the euro crisis — parties should have the freedom to modify policy to adapt to changing circumstances. And, regardless of electoral commitments, Japan has little choice: with a rapidly ageing society, consumption tax cannot stay at 5 per cent; this is but one reality the nation must accept lest future generations carry too high a burden. The editorials of other national newspapers, including the Yomiuri and Nikkei, are carrying similar arguments.
But these lines run against the grain of public opinion, with popular feeling against the tax increase. One recent poll found that nearly 60 per cent of Japanese were opposed to the levy, and, on TV, many commentators claim the government should cut wasteful expenditure before increasing tax.
Quite a few voices on the internet and some news magazines have also backed Ozawa and his anti-tax-increase agenda. It is possible that support here is in part a rejection of the legitimacy of Japan’s major mastheads. A regularly cited example involves the press clubs in government and political party offices, where reporters from each paper are almost exclusively given the latest announcements from officials, and are provided with a desk within the club to work or wait. This system is an ongoing source of controversy, often viewed as the privilege of big newspapers and criticised as favouring the big media outlets. One reason why Ozawa receives some public support is because he is a very vocal critic of this arrangement. Although reluctant to be interviewed by major newspapers, Ozawa sometimes accepts exclusive interviews from internet-orientated media which provide live coverage through the internet for anyone to observe.
The rise of these new media outlets speaks to a reality that Japan’s traditional media strongholds must face: that newspapers are losing their influence.
At its peak, total newspaper circulation in Japan was 54 million. Now it is down to 48 million. The highest circulation the Asahi ever had was 8.4 million, a number that stands at 7.6 million today. In spite of longer lifespans and greater household numbers, circulations are dropping every year. The young generation in particular are not reading newspapers, with university student readers becoming rare.
In terms of revenue, the drop in advertisements — now halved since its heyday — is sharper than that of subscription numbers. The total number of internet advertisements surpassed those of all newspapers in Japan last year. Faced with such economic hardship, many newspapers are being forced to cut costs, including those that relate to their human resource base.
Still, the Asahi has more than 2000 journalists, a number that compares favourably alongside foreign counterparts like newspapers in the US. Yet clearly the current trends are not promising. To stay competitive in this changing media landscape, new, creative ideas will be needed, and with that current ways will need rethinking.
Supporting the development of any newspaper’s most important asset — its journalists — is of course essential. Well-written, balanced and in-depth coverage is fundamental to retaining readership numbers and important to dealing with the challenges that lie ahead for Japan. Journalists need to be thinking about economic, social and international issues in sophisticated ways if they are to play a productive role, and this may require changes to how journalists work and learn.
Emphasis on continual learning, deepening the knowledge and experience of journalists, is crucial. Thus business practices commonly found in Japanese companies — like the transfer of employees to different divisions or offices around the country, a practice regularly used in national newspapers as well — should be done carefully, so as not to hinder the development of journalists’ skills, including their expertise on specific issues.
More informed economic reporting is also needed in Japan’s media. In a luckier and simpler era, increasing government spending through things like public works projects was a sure way out of recession. Now the economic issues are far more complicated, especially with the development of globalisation. But reading, for example, the content of anti-tax commentary pervading the media, it is evident that much reporting lacks even basic economic knowledge. It is not uncommon to find journalists who fail to even consider what will happen to Japan if taxes are not raised, or what the current problems with the social security system are. History tells us that no country has survived without suffering serious damage if public debt is allowed to increase forever. Keeping lessons like this before the public, so as to contribute to informed public debate and scrutiny of political leadership, is something to which good and responsible media should contribute.
Editorial independence is also at the heart of a newspaper’s legitimacy and, in turn, its business viability. Because of this, the declining respect for, and following, of Japan’s newspapers suggest that some changes in current journalistic practices are needed. The obvious yardstick here is ensuring that newspapers be alert to, and prevent, influences that might compromise the independence of their reporting, whether such compromises are real or perceived as such by the public.
Within this context, one new idea at the Asahi Shimbun has been its feature Sunday supplement, GLOBE, which appears twice each month. Named after its goal of reconsidering Japan from global perspectives, journalists for GLOBE form a team and spend two to six months on investigative reporting before an article goes to press. Instead of attending press clubs, the focus is on diversity of opinion and perspective, thinking and discussing issues from different points of view and conducting extensive interviews in and out of the country. The reporting seeks to present a realistic picture of a question, gained through extensive interviews.
Ideas like this, which place faith in traditional understandings of good journalism and in an intelligent readership, may be a way of reinvigorating the role of newspapers in Japan. While the age of the internet may be presenting new dimensions to journalism, and challenging long-held revenue models, it has not changed the reality that legitimacy and quality journalism are essential to a newspaper’s success.
Takeshi Yamawaki is a senior economics correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun and former Editor-in-Chief of the bi-monthly feature magazine Asahi Shimbun GLOBE.
This article appeared in the most recent edition of the East Asia Forum Quarterly, ‘Japan: leading from behind’.