Japan is Falling! America, too! HELP! Save us, Abe-man!
Reporters Without Borders, the press-freedom advocacy group,
released its annual Press Freedom Index on Tuesday, in which the freedom of the press in almost all of the world’s countries is assessed and the countries ranked. Results are determined by tabulating factors such as the number of journalists killed, imprisoned, or otherwise hindered, the amount of censorship to which journalists and media are subjected, etc.
Unsurprisingly, North Korea was at the bottom of the list, coming in at number 168, but it was closely challenged by Turkmenistan (no. 167), Eritrea (no. 166), and Cuba (no. 165.) (Take that, American college faux-leftist hippies. Is it really worth sticking up for Cuba just to justify your trendy, purchased Che Guevara T-shirt or poster?) In North Korea, people who attempt to resolder radios so as to receive more than one station are sent to labor camps, in Turkmenistan, journalist Ogulsapar Muradova was tortured to death. This ought to give you and idea of what the bottom of the list is like.
Equally unsurprisingly, Northern European countries, specifically, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, and the Netherlands tied for number one, with no reports of intimidation of journalists and other good indicators of a free press.
The Land of the Free, on the other hand, has a government that does not like it’s own First Amendment, and is thus is a profoundly disappointing number 53 in the rankings. Not the Land of the Free Press, apparently. The sad part is that America is such a gleefully self-propagandizing nation that many of it’s people argue in favor of these very encroachments upon their own freedoms. Reporters jailed for not revealing sources? Fine. Journalists threatened? No problem. It’s far more important in American discourse these days to complain about the “liberal media.” The United States dropped from its 2002 ranking of number 17 to its current neighborhood, where it shares a plot with such bastions of freedom as Botswana, Croatia, and Tonga, resides next to the Dominican Republic and Uruguay and is only two doors down from number 51. . .
Japan.
Unlike the US, Japan doesn’t have a national identity built upon the idea of being the freest of the free. It does, though, ostensibly have a free press. In terms of political or business news, this seems to mean that journalists are free to go home early after filing as stories the press releases given to them by the companies or government agencies they’re covering.
This is the Press Club system. Reporters go to press conferences and are given handouts. This is not a North Korean-style pre-written article, but apparently, rather, a set of key points. As far as I know, there is no direct pressure on reporters or news outlets to run those stories or agree with those points, but direct pressure is seldom needed in the government or large companies, including news agencies, of Japan. Deep digging is not normally a done thing. Investigation is confined largely to consumer issues or acts of individual malfeasance. Corporate or government scandals have to be massive to get attention from major media. Questions that would seem obvious elsewhere are just not asked for if you get kicked out of the Press Club, you are out of the loop.
Reporters Without Borders’ index also mentions rising nationalism, which has been discussed on Seijigiri, as a concern. The offices of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (or Nikkei), Japan’s counterpart to The Wall Street Journal, were bombed by ultra-rightists (uyoku) and local and regional governments do not seem to enforce noise-pollution, public nuisance, harassment, or public demonstration laws against the uyoku and their infamous black noise trucks. The Tokyo Police Department, though, has defended the offices of the pro-Pyongyang Chongryon group, although it seems they haven’t yet charged those who threatened it. Again, direct pressure and threats not being necessary, knowing that the uyoku are after you and that their behavior is condoned can be all it takes.
Abe-man can save us, though. He can put pressure on lower levels of government to hold ultra-rightists to the same standards as everyone else. When uyoku harass leftist protesters or foreign groups, it is never the uyoku who are forced to leave or the uyoku who are ordered to stay indoors. Rather the targets of the uyoku are kept on buses, indoors, or made to leave, supposedly and believably, for their own safety. Why not remove the troublemakers? Oh, right. They are cut from the same cloth as the PM and almost all of the Government.
Mr. Abe, you’ve taken steps in the right direction in trying to reconcile this country’s differences with its neighbors. How about making Japan a more beautiful country by upholding the ideals set forth on paper in reality?
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Just to make my patriotic American readers feel a little bit better, the US Extra-territorial ranking (for Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, American Samoa, etc.) is 119, which puts us between Kenya and Nigeria. Take pride in your freedom! (Just don’t try writing about much else.)
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