Freedoms of Press and the Costs in Okinawan Media

by Mariko Hirata

The conference of the Liberal Democratic Party, which today leans politically to the right, was held on June 25^th 2015 by various members of the National Diet. In attendance was a famous author Naoki Hyakuta who had been invited to deliver a lecture but who subsequently created some serious political turmoil among those gathered. During the conference, he made some rather outrageous observation about Okinawa: “Both Okinawan newspapers should be brought down,” and “Okinawa isn’t truly a victim because landowners who lease their land to the U.S. military receive huge sums of money.”

Another member added to the turmoil by offering suggestions on how to crack down on Japanese media that take critical positions against the current ruling Party. After his controversial statement was covered by various other national media, he explained that his opinion was just a joke he had told in unofficial small talk, but he still maintains his criticism of the behavior of Okinawa’s two major daily newspapers and officially expressed his desire to see the papers closed down. In other words, this supposed defender of democracy and freedom of speech is happy to close media that disagree with his political positions. He developed his personal opinions and attempted to create the public impression that the Okinawan situation was self-incurred. As one of NHK’s top leaders, Hyakuta chooses to ignore the facts that an extremely small minority of local people actually benefit from the base leases. Huge amounts of money are concentrated in the hands of a very few people.  The lead editors at the Ryukyu Shimpo and Okinawa Times reflected on his careless statements about the totalitarian necessity to suppress freedoms of expression by publishing their own views on Hyakuta’s strange call for a ban on speech.

On the free internet chat board known as Channel Two, significant numbers of participants think that Hyakuta’s statements were improper, but surprisingly some people express the opposite opinion. Some people expressed the opinion that Hyakuta is also a citizen of Japan, so he has every right to say something, negative or positive about Okinawa. However, I wonder if such people have thought about the great power of influence that Hyakuta already has by virtue of his position as a powerful bureaucrat. What he says publicly or privately can seriously influence the public because they see that a powerful person in society believes, however wrongly, that Okinawa exists in a certain condition, even though it is not true.

Nevertheless, Hyakuta’s confusion about his own influence and power over perceptions of the people have still led many people to take a great deal of interest in the U.S. military base issue in Okinawa.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun’s data, the penetration rate for households that receive daily newspaper delivery are dominated by three major dailies (especially the Yomiuri). In spite of frequent reports published by local media in Okinawa about base problems, people who live in the mainland of Japan never actually know the full detail of basing situation here. This level of domination by national corporate news connects to a decreased concern about Okinawa and its many problems. The paucity of stories about Okinawa in the national news landscape creates the impression that Okinawa is actually some kind of foreign country.

It should also be pointed out that both major Okinawan newspapers feature the same direction and coverage of the base issues. That is, the enthusiasm with which the base issue is covered is different than other typical newspapers in mainland Japan. Itaru Yoshioka describes clearly those unique features about Okinawan newspapers: “the mainland newspaper and Okinawan newspapers are more different than might first be surmised; it isn’t dogma or domineeringness of newspaper’s publisher, but it is actually a reflection of public opinion of Okinawans.” This kind of reflection of the public’s will must illustrate the level of trust that people have in Okinawa’s two major papers. This must be the best relationship between a readership and a publication. The reason why local newspapers and the local people are close is that the papers manage to communicate facts about the real damage done by the U.S. bases as well as the true indignation that people toward Japan’s central government for its long history of discrimination against the island.