The Press

...The resolution reads, in part, as follows: "The new Pact opens the road to militarization of Japan and increases the danger of war in the Far East...

...He expressed dissatisfaction with a press which isolated the last scene from the whole drama and emphasized its unpleasant aspects...

...But it is abundantly clear that the editors frequently do not share the ideas and opinions of owners and managers...

...A medical examination showed that there were no "bloody" bruises on her body, nor indeed any scratches...

...In traveling from one department of a newspaper to another, the original story is often changed by injection of personal opinion...

...Nevertheless, the press reports read as if she had been bludgeoned to death by police riot sticks...

...Abruptly, a mood was created suggesting that Kishi bear all responsibility for the political uproar and any means were approved to bring down his regime...

...He appealed to Socialist representatives more than 30 times by loudspeaker from his office...

...This happened each time a demonstration or strike took place...

...Asahi was simply dead set on creating an anti-Kishi atmosphere and apparently had no scruples in resorting to a fabrication...

...The manner in which Asahi handled the whole affair was significant...

...On June 4 and 22, the National Railway Workers Union staged nationwide strikes against Premier Kishi and the new Security Pact, in each case in the early morning and of short duration...

...Ryuichi Kaji, a former staff editor of Asahi, speaking on television on June 17, referred to the bloody riot in the Diet compound on June 15 and stated that the news reports supporting the June 4 strike actually invited the violence around the Diet...

...But all hope disappeared once again, when, on the night of June 15, rioting students forced their way into the Diet compound and, in the ensuing furious clash with police, a girl university student was trampled to death...

...There was no chance of saving her...

...Shoriki vehemently attempted to refute this charge, if indeed his violent outburst may be called a refutation...

...It is not Time alone which holds the Japanese press responsible in this matter...

...In it, Kiuchi asked all the newspapers why they had not reported and probed the earlier violence by Socialists...

...These people, in turn, have no opinions of their own, but believe that they should oppose any party in power for the sensational value this invariably has...

...It is a duty of the press to take a stand against government at any time...

...Who, therefore, is more responsible for bringing on a crisis in parliament, the Liberal Democrats, who hurried the vote, or the Socialists who obstructed the vote by violence...

...Time also pointed out that, with the sole exception of the Communist Akahata, all Japanese papers seem to lack definite principles and significant differences in their editorial policies, and that they were all united in attacking whatever government happened to be in power...

...Time welcomed the statement and agreed that even the most difficult circumstances did not justify resort to violent means...

...He accuses the Government and the Liberal Democratic party of approving the new Security Pact immediately after having voted a 50-day extension of the Diet session specifically for more time to debate the Pact...

...As a result, what reader could doubt that police violence had victimized the Socialists...

...Nevertheless, "what he thought he had extirpated remained there unexpectedly, persistently, and shot roots deep into the soil...

...Speaker Kiyose seriously bruised his left leg, which was temporarily paralyzed...

...These two organizations have played a very important and active role in the anti-Pact campaign—from within the mass communication media—and they are primarily responsible for the one-sidedness and bias for which the press is being criticized...

...Asahi’s headlines show how exaggerated and biased its reporting the anti-Kishi demonstrations was...

...In short, JCJ comprises the Left elite in journalism, radio and television...

...That can hardly be called sober, fair reporting...

...The Asahi newspaper was used as an example: Just after the ratification of the new Security Pact in the Diet, Asahi attacked the move as "an act of majority dictatorship" and even suggested that violence might be a natural reaction...

...A tiny student in white blouse and blue slacks, she was rushing into the compound with other students, when she was felled by the bloody blow of a police cudgel...

...frequently they display a kind of negative impartiality by adopting the attitude that "the Government is bad, but the opposition is no good either...

...Properly speaking, state railway workers are not permitted to strike under the Public Corporation and National Enterprises Labor Relations Law...

...In this way, the press gave the impression that, because of Kishi’s wickedness, the majority of the nation had even come to approve the railway workers’ illegal actions...

...Privately, they supported Kishi and his party, but their newspapers followed a line which failed to reflect their owners’ opinions...

...In its May 20 evening edition, it printed comments by Tanzan Ishibashi and Kenzo Matsumura, opposition leaders, criticizing Kishi and his "main current" faction...

...The Tokyo metropolitan police, however, estimated the number at no more than 60,000, on the basis of careful calculations made on the spot...

...In addition, there are about 150 independent members, consisting of Leftist professors, commentators, writers, actors, artists and so forth...

...Students were equipped with bolts, nuts, ropes, stones and even organized into storm-troop contingents...

...All too often, they fail to note essentials and tend to magnify sensational details, but on the whole, when violence does occur, editorial writers are prepared to speak out against it...

...I was an exception...

...In the shoving and pushing, a sore on my leg was opened...

...He was hospitalized for a month and will need three years to recover completely...

...They have literally handed their papers over to hundreds of young "liberal" intellectuals on the various editorial boards...

...Time, in its June 27 issue, had severely criticized the Japanese press for the role it had played during the "anti-Pact" demonstrations of May and June...

...According to Shoriki, MacArthur was alarmed to see things go that far, then ordered the purge of Communists and undertook to suppress strikes...

...Nevertheless, we could not help but campaign for the overthrow of the Kishi regime...

...In his words, "Yomiuri had stood for revision of the Security Pact for years...

...Instead, they reported: "Fierce Police Storm Socialist Representatives," "The police destroyed barricades amid wild cries corresponding to the screams of crazy Liberal Democratic representatives...

...The next day I was sent to Sugamo Prison as a war criminal...

...News stories usually are edited, trimmed, altered and abridged...

...Nevertheless, the fact could not he ignored, Time added, that the Japanese press was very much responsible for the violence which had already taken place and which it was now denouncing...

...Its owner, Matsutaro Shoriki, a former Minister of State in the Kishi Cabinet, published a long statement on August 24 attacking Time magazine...

...He proudly described his labors since 1924 in building a small newspaper into today’s giant Yomiuri, confiding that he himself owns only one-third of its capital, with the rest distributed among its employes...

...On the second page, much space was given to the opposition party’s and Sohyo’s demands for Kishi’s resignation...

...JCJ has 22 chapters in various Japanese newspapers and magazines...

...Unfortunately, they are also in a position to carry their bias and lack of responsibility to the Japanese public at large...

...No doubt the owners and managers of the Japanese press, including Shoriki, are gentlemen of conservative views who understand the public nature of the press...

...The union, which is called the National Federation of Newspaper Employes (Shimbun Roren) has a 34,000 membership, comprising almost all organized labor in the leading newspapers, and is affiliated with Sohyo...

...Campaign Demanding Kishi’s Resignation and Dissolution of the Diet is Gaining Momentum—National Council Against the Security Treaty Will Mobilize 150,000 People Around the Diet Building" (May 24) ; "Citizens Joined Demonstrators, Whose Enthusiasm Infected the People on the Street" (May 27) ; "Babies Join the Demonstration" (May 30...

...they moved on the Diet building with a great deal of tact...

...Yet, the next morning the newspapers carried headlines such as: "Who is Responsible for the Confused Fighting?—Provocative Counter-Attack by Police," "Police Assault Fallen Students...

...This is an absolute fabrication...

...After the incident involving U.S...

...Often these editors are set in their ways and their outlooks are broadly similar...

...Clearly they believed in justifying the violence employed by the Japanese Socialist party in the Diet, and in the demonstrations and strikes which took place in May and June...

...In point of fact, the police did not storm the Socialists...

...On June 17, leading newspapers in Tokyo, including the Big Three, had issued a joint statement, printed on their front pages, which denounced all violence and spoke up in defense of orderly parliamentarianism...

...Kashiwa, a Socialist representative who was injured, remarked later that "the policemen apparently refrained as far as possible from resorting to drastic methods...

...I resisted all pressure to the last—and succeeded in settling the strike on my own terms...

...The articles below the headlines were scarcely different in tone...

...The facts notwithstanding, the whole press hastened to accuse the Liberal Democrats while paying little attention to the Socialists’ violent tactics...

...And they are not only interested in making money while leaving their newspapers to be run by young Leftist-minded editors...

...The gate and fence of the Diet compound were pulled down, and a score of trucks serving as an improvised barricade was destroyed and burned...

...In the May 21 evening edition, Sugano, a Minister in the Kishi Cabinet in charge of the Economic Planning Board, was "quoted" as saying: "There is no way of saving the political situation except by Kishi’s resignation...

...Unheeded, he was finally forced to call the police...

...I was imprisoned there for one year and nine months without any reason...

...Yet, at the same time, he freed all Communists from prison and encouraged strikes in all newspapers in order to oust their prewar staffs...

...Police Handcuff Injured Students," "Police Suspected of Abuses" (in Mainichi), "Police Attack Retreating Students" (in Asahi), "Police Cudgels Rain on Rioting Students," "A National Victim—Professor Kamba Mourns His Dead Daughter" (in Yomiuri...

...Other students fell over her one after another...

...The answer seems simple and clear...

...In this connection, attention should be directed to the trade union organized by editors in active service and to the Japanese Congress of Journalists (JCJ...

...Since readers are more interested in news reports than editorials, those involved in processing news stories can easily misguide the public if they choose to do so...

...We commit many mistakes...

...Yet, all the newspapers carried the Council’s claim, but none reported the police authorities’ estimate...

...But we can only feel revulsion against those gentlemen who forget their own faults and preach to other people as if they were self-righteous sages...

...Speaker Kiyose was compelled to seek refuge in his office for six hours...

...In order to oppose the Pact we shall do our best, through the work of each member, to tell the nation what the Government intends to accomplish in this Pact...

...Thus, objective reporting, one of the most precious principles in journalism, is apt to be lost...

...They not only support violence by the opposition, but frequently join the rioters...

...Nevertheless, the National Council Against the Security Treaty undertook a demonstration on June 15 because it probably saw this as the dissident students’ last chance to disrupt a situation which was already showing signs of improvement...

...When the leading newspapers’ joint declaration denouncing violence appeared on June 17, executive members of JCJ lost no time in calling on each newspaper management to protest against the declaration...

...Nobutane Kiuchi, an economic critic, published a long article in the May 31 Yomiuri, entitled "Saving the Situation and the Role of the Press...

...Time noted that the Japanese press had consistently attacked Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, had demanded his immediate resignation and dissolution of the Diet, thus consciously and systematically encouraging an atmosphere of crisis...

...To support its argument, Time quoted a leading paper as saying, "We will attack all governments, including a socialist one...

...With editorials featuring headlines such as "Dirty Diet Ignores Democratic Procedures," "Undemocratic Action of the Government and Its Party," and "Prime Minister Kishi Must Bear All Responsibility," they blasted the Government and the Liberal Democrats day after day...

...White House Press Secretary James Hagerty on June 10, the situation improved somewhat...

...The Asahi chapter has 242 members, Yomiuri 49, Mainichi 73, Akahata (Red Flag) 21, and Chuo Koron 30...

...On the eve of President Eisenhower’s projected visit a political truce between the opposing parties seemed to be in sight...

...The newspapers also failed to mention the Speaker’s futile efforts to restore order...

...All of them abruptly launched an anti-Kishi campaign just after May 20, as if in response to a pre-arranged signal...

...Hokkaido-Shimbun did not participate in the June 17 joint statement which denounced violence as an enemy of democratic parliamentarianism...

...The JCJ was organized in February 1955 on the initiative of the Communist International Organization of Journalists (IOJ) which has its headquarters in Prague, Czechoslovakia...

...In its morning edition of the next day, Asahi printed an expanded editorial entitled: "We Demand Kishi’s Resignation and a General Election," which appeared at the top of the front page, though editorials are usually in the corner of the second page...

...There is, in fact, no effective management control over the personnel of the newspapers concerned...

...There were few casualties on the Socialist side while 41 policemen were injured, mostly the result of kicking...

...Order in the Diet must be preserved and the Speaker is entrusted with this job...

...Worse still, the final product is presented to the reader in the guise of objective reporting...

...And that is precisely what happened during May and June...

...The press took no note of the strikes’ illegal nature, but did report that the strike was conducted in an orderly manner and that passengers did not complain because they supported the strikers’ slogan of "Down With Kishi...

...This campaign rapidly brought about a critical situation and created an atmosphere which, if not condoning violence, at least was tolerant of unlawful and violent actions...

...The press picked out minor details and treated them emotionally and sensationally, and the essentials were lost in the process...

...Such an attitude on the part of the press," he said, "is mainly responsible for the present political disorder...

...The situation was aggravated when all the other newspapers followed Asahi’s lead...

...Hokkaido-Shimbun is often charged with a Leftist bias, and though there may be something to this accusation, this statement remains an honest self-criticism of the Japanese press as a whole...

...Policemen were depicted as demons assaulting innocent students, obviously to arouse public indignation against police...

...He was right...

...They definitely planned a desperate onslaught and succeeded in creating an incident which led directly to cancellation of Eisenhower’s visit...

...About 180 Communists are active in the Federation, which belongs to the most radical wing in Sohyo, and their influence is obviously reflected in selecting, editing and reporting the news...

...Sugano has personally told me that this was a fabrication and he said nothing of the kind...

...Now they are reprimanding the opposition parties as well as the Government for their extremities...

...On closer examination, however, the most important and decisive aspect of the dramatic scene from midnight May 19 to early morning of May 20 was the fact that the Socialist representatives impeded parliamentary procedures by resorting to violence and the use of barricades so that Speaker Ichiro Kiyose was compelled to call the police to the Diet to end Socialist obstruction...

...At its annual convention in June 1959, JCJ adopted a resolution denouncing the new Security Pact...

...The National Federation followed suit and issued a statement to the same effect...

...Shoriki touches on this point in his protest and explains why his paper participated in the campaign...

...He said: "It is true that freedom of the press was granted by General MacArthur...

...I was not injured by the police...

...By way of explanation, Time concluded that the owners are very much interested in making money and are, therefore, mere puppets of popular Japanese journalism...

...Only the day before, Sohyo leaders had decided not to station demonstrators on the air-field and along the road to the city center on June 19, the date President Eisenhower was scheduled to arrive in Japan...

...The National Council Against the Security Treaty claimed that 150,000 to 170,000 people were mobilized in the May 27 demonstration...

...Their attitude was gentlemanly...

...Even today, after peace and independence have been restored, Red influence persists in every sphere of our national life...

...EDITORIALS GENERALLY represent a newspaper’s position and are written by veteran editors who have been journalists for many years...

...The reason given by its chief editor was: "The whole press was encouraging anti-Pact demonstrations and strikes...

...Then, abruptly, after the bloody incident around the Diet building on June 15, they changed their tune...

...Yomiuri described the death scene of the girl student as follows: "Miss Kamba was killed when the furious fighting began...

...This is harsh criticism which might very well have offended Shoriki...

...Other voices have called the responsibility of the press into question, but before referring to them, let us see how the newspapers behaved in those months...

...What, in fact, had Time said about the Japanese press...

...This is not true of those who write news stories...

...We believed it was the duty of the press to safeguard Japanese parliamentarianism against the undemocratic attitude of the Kishi Cabinet...

...Time had also made some comments on freedom of the press as provided for by the Constitution "imposed" by General Douglas MacArthur, concluding that the Japanese press has taken this freedom as license to oppose all authority...

...Little of this was reported in the newspapers and no paper condemned the use of violence at the time...

...Soon after my arrest the Yomiuri newspaper became dominated by Communist elements and fell under their control...

...Ironically enough, Time continued, all papers, including the Big Three (Asahi, Mainichi and Yomiuri), are owned and managed by rich conservatives...

...Kiuchi’s criticism went deeper than Time magazine’s, and if Shoriki were to claim that it was fair of Yomiuri to run the article, it would have to be added that this article was treated as a personal opinion having nothing to do with the tone and color of the rest of the newspaper or the rest of the press...

...Indeed, he declared that it had been insulting in the extreme, and went on to explain how he had worked hard to create and develop a free press rather than to make money...

...Old staff members of leading newspapers were forced to retire...

...I should like to emphasize that we Japanese have been trying hard to build up healthy journalism, encourage democratic development and to extend freedom of speech...