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June 2009
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Media Reflects Concerns as Lay Judge System Goes Into Effect
The Japanese media has been focusing on a recently implemented reform of the judicial system that brings everyday citizens into the process of adjudicating serious criminal cases. The May 21 entry into force of the Lay Judge Law prompted articles in all main newspapers, covering the developments that led up to the adoption of the new system and delving into the various challenges ahead.
Among the leading Tokyo-based newspapers, the Mainichi Shimbun, the Yomiuri Shimbun, the Sankei Shimbun and the Tokyo Shimbun all carried a byline article by their respective city news editors, all of whom called on lay judges to share their experiences with the media.
The Yomiuri’s Takeshi Mizoguchi wrote, “We aim to transmit the lay judges’ personal impressions to the broader public and thereby share a better understanding of the benefits of the new system so that it can take root in a positive manner.”
The judicial reform was also the subject of a joint statement issued by 13 newscasters and other personalities from key commercial broadcasters who gathered (see photo) at Tokyo’s Meiji Memorial Hall in Moto-Akasaka on May 19. Their message was a call for a “judicial system that is open to society.” They also called for the new system to be implemented openly, asserting that it would be appropriate for the media to convey all information needed to encourage greater public understanding and assessment of the new system as it takes shape. Yuko Ando, a veteran newscaster at Fuji TV, and other participants in the meeting said they would formally ask the courts to ensure “transparency” of the processes of trials conducted under the new system.
In a related event, a panel discussed the issue of how to report on the handling of criminal cases under the new system. The panel met as part of the NSK-organized 49th general conference of the National Consultative Meeting on News Reporting Scrutiny, on May 28-29, in Tokyo (see March 2009 Bulletin). The meeting drew 53 officials involved in news reporting scrutiny from 42 media companies. They discussed new reporting guidelines that the companies have set up for criminal cases processed under the lay judge system.
The first such criminal trial that is due to be judged by a mixed panel of professional and lay judges is expected to take place as soon as early August.
13 newscasters and other personalities from key commercial broadcasters
to issue a joint statement
Newspapers Stick to Facts in Covering Swine Flu Outbreak
Japanese newspapers have been taking care to avoid sensationalism in their reporting on the outbreak of so-called swine flu in Japan. Editors are aiming to provide all the necessary information, along with preventive measures, without promoting unwarranted fears.
On May 9, health inspectors at Narita Airport outside Tokyo determined that three Japanese males returning home from Canada via the United States were infected with the new H1N1 strain of influenza. Their cases marked the first known incidents of the swine flu in Japan. One week later, on May 16, the first homegrown case of swine flu was reported in Kobe in a 17-year-old senior high school student who had never been overseas.
Newspapers nationwide on the morning of May 16 reported that a male student, who had never been overseas, had tested positive. The Asahi Shimbun headline read, “First human-to-human inflection suspected.” The Mainichi Shimbun headline said, “Kobe high school student likely infected.” All of the national newspapers at first withheld the name of the student’s senior high school to avoid stirring fears in local communities before more was known about the case.
However, when the student’s infection was officially confirmed later in the day, the Asahi, the Mainichi and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) all identified the student’s school by name, starting from their evening editions of May 16. The Yomiuri Shimbun and the Sankei Shimbun followed suit in their May 17 morning editions.
An official in the Mainichi president’s office said, “We need to provide accurate and specific information for the prevention of any further spread of the flu. We therefore thought it appropriate to disclose the name of the school upon confirmation of the infection. Otherwise, uneasiness and suspicion might spread among many local communities.” An official at Sankei’s comprehensive planning office said, “We thought that we could contribute to the implementation of preventive measures for nearby residents by specifying the area where the infection was detected.” An official in the Asahi’s public relations section also said the disclosure of the school’s name was necessary to avoid unwarranted fears.
While the government called upon the nation to stay calm via reassuring TV commercials, major national newspapers repeatedly emphasized in their related articles that the symptoms of the new type of flu are as mild as those of any seasonal flu. The newspapers also carried information about “high-fever consultation centers” and about designated medial facilities for infectious diseases.
The Nikkei official said that his newspaper was striving not to impute any blame to the authorities of the school where the infected student was found. “We adhered to objective reporting so as not to give our readers any cause for excessive anxiety,” he added. A Yomiuri official said that the newspaper had made it a rule to report the flu-related news “in a cool-headed manner.”
As the flu spread, by May 31, Hyogo Prefecture ranked top in the tally of confirmed cases at 195 patients, followed by Osaka Prefecture with 157. Newspaper companies instructed their reporters, particularly in their Osaka head offices, to wear facemasks and to strictly observe hand-washing and gargling procedures after all reporting outings.
Regarding overseas travel, the Yomiuri on April 28 imposed a ban on travel to Mexico, where the world’s first case of the swine flu was found, by any of its employees. The ban was lifted on May 22 as the government eased its own measures against the epidemic. The Sankei had earlier prohibited overseas travel by its managerial employees, but later eased that ban to “voluntary restraint.”
None of the national newspapers recalled any overseas correspondents. The Mainichi and the Kyodo News each have a correspondent in Mexico. Those correspondents are continuing their newsgathering. However, the Mainichi correspondent has relocated his base of activities to his personal residence and is using only his personal car to move around. The Kyodo correspondent stopped commuting by subway and is instead using a bicycle.
Topics.......Topics.......Topics........
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Japan Writers’ Association Settles, to Join Google’s Digital Library Project
The Japan Writers’ Association (JWA) has made a turnaround of an earlier stiff rejection, now saying that it will accept modified settlement terms and join Google Inc.’s ambitious program to scan millions of books and make their text fully searchable on the Internet.
On May 27, JWA Vice President Masahiro Mita said the decision came after Google confirmed that books still considered to be in print in Japan would be excluded from the archive of Google Book Search for displays of selected pages.
On May 26-27, the JWA, which is a plaintiff in a massive class action lawsuit against Google over copyright infringement, consulted with representatives of its co-plaintiffs, the Association of American Publishers and Authors Guild, Inc. The AAP and Authors Guild reached an out-of-court settlement with Google in October 2008.
According to the JWA, the newly modified interpretation of the settlement would guarantee that Japanese books still in print in Japan would not be treated as out-of-print and that their contents would therefore not be displayed in response to queries filed under the Google Book Search program.
President Mita said that the settlement would protect the rights of authors worldwide and that he considered the compromise an achievement, indicating that the association would still urge its member authors to refuse to permit the use of their works for Google display, while accepting the creation of digital copies of their books. The compromise was submitted for approval by a JWA board meeting on June 3.
According to the JWA, the officials of the AAP and Authors Guild reported that under their settlement with Google, any in-print books available in Japan would be deemed equally available in the United States and would be excluded from the Google Book Search for image display.
Their out-of-court settlement stipulates that Google will make settlement payments to copyright holders of books that it digitalizes. However, any books unavailable in “conventional book distribution channels,” would be treated as “out-of-print” books and the digital copies of those texts would be put into the archive for display in response to search queries. Google is to offer users free access to images of three to four lines of a selected portion of a book and up to 20 percent of the entire text of a book. Google will charge users who want to access the entire text of a book. Google and the copyright owners will share any revenues, with 37 percent going to Google and 63 to the copyright owner.
The criteria stipulated in the October settlement had originally angered Japanese authors and copyright owners because they feared that Japanese new titles not available in the U.S. would be treated as “out-of-print” books. If that had been the case, then the digitalized texts of such Japanese books would have been accessible to Internet users free of charge unless their authors or copyright owners had explicitly opted out of the system.
In response, Takashi Atouda, the president of the Japan P.E.N. Club, issued a protest statement on April 24, insisting that the originally proposed settlement agreement could “cast a large shadow on freedom of expression and the development of publishing culture.”
His statement said that:
1) Google's digitization of books represented a clear violation of the right of reproduction as defined by Japanese copyrights;
2) the adoption of the "opt-out" method -- in which people's rights are protected only if they specifically request it -- would serve to weaken the position of rights holders, and might conflict with the Berne Convention, the international rule on copyright law; and
3) there was a danger that permitting a private corporation such as Google to take the lead in this area could result in a de facto monopoly in the field, thus adversely affecting the diversity of information distribution.
On April 15, the Japan Writers’ Association joined with its own protest, saying that the original settlement would amount to the imposition of a one-sided restriction controlled under U.S. domestic law and procedures. “Our rights are exposed to the danger of being trampled upon by Google Inc.’s illegal actions,” the statement said.
Under the terms of the original settlement agreement, Google was calling upon on copyright holders to make it known whether they would either opt out of or entirely reject the proposed settlement by Sept. 4 of this year.
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Story of the Month>>>
Concern Growing over High Libel Awards Against Weekly Magazines
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The recent series of court rulings ordering weekly magazines to pay high compensation for articles judged to have been defamatory prompted heated debate at a media ethics conference and at a symposium held recently in Tokyo.
The Tokyo regional branch of the National Federation of Consultative Assemblies for the Enhancement of Mass Media Ethics took up the issue at a meeting on May 18.
Three experts invited to the meeting discussed the theme “Magazine Journalism in a Critical Situation and High Libel Awards against Weekly Magazines.” Hideo Shimizu, an honorary professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, Masahiko Motoki, a former editor of the mass-circulation Shukan Gendai weekly magazine, and attorney Yoichi Kitamura outlined the issues at stake.
Commenting on the recent court rulings ordering magazines to pay high compensation in libel lawsuits, Kitamura said that compensation in civil suits is designed, in theory, to make up for any damages or loss of reputation on the part of the plaintiffs. “It is wrong for the court to award compensation for the purpose of imposing punishment for malicious reporting,” he said.
Referring to a controversial Tokyo District Court ruling on Feb. 4 that ordered the president of the publisher of the popular weekly magazine Shukan Shincho to pay compensation in a libel suit over alleged match-fixing in Japanese sumo, Kitamura said the president’s responsibility has nothing to do with redressing the plaintiffs’ losses. “I suspect that the court aimed at causing a chilling effect (on the magazine),” he said, arguing that magazines should stick to the principle of reporting events freely nevertheless (see May 2009 Bulletin).
Aoyama Gakuin’s Shimizu referred to a clear distinction between defamation in criminal cases and unlawful acts in civil suits. But Shimizu said, “There is a prevailing atmosphere in judicial circles to translate some sort of punishment in a criminal case into a civil suit by ordering the payment of higher compensation.” He criticized the judges’ tendency as constituting “a double punishment.”
According to Shimizu, public figures in the United States are expected to assume the burden of proof if they file a libel suit against the media over allegedly defamatory articles. In Japan however, the trend is tilting toward higher compensation awards while the burden of proof still rests on the media to prove their own innocence. “These developments are having a depressing effect on news reporting,” he stated.
Shimizu pointed out that the Tokyo High Court had once handed down a ruling in a libel suit that could be interpreted as urging the plaintiff to assume the burden of proof, as is the case in the United States. He said the media need to insist on that shift in the burden of proof, and should focus on contesting those libel lawsuits in which the odds are most in their favor.
On May 15, a symposium on the future of weekly magazines held at Tokyo’s Sophia University featured discussions by journalists, magazine editors and others. The panelists included veteran journalist Soichiro Tahara, nonfiction writer Shinichi Sano, Sophia University professor Yasuhiko Tajima and the former or current editors of 10 weekly magazines. They discussed the difficult situation facing weekly magazines, as reflected by the continuing series of shutdowns of publications, the steep decline in circulation, and the increase in libel lawsuits that are now coupled with the recent series of court awards of higher amounts of compensation to successful plaintiffs.
Tahara said one of the missions of weekly magazines is to write about things that major newspapers and TV broadcast stations simply do not write or air. On the other hand, Sano sternly criticized the Shukan Shincho, a mass-circulation weekly magazine, for publishing false articles. He was referring to a sensational memoir by a man who claimed responsibility for a fatal 1987 shooting at the Asahi Shimbun's Hanshin bureau. The magazine carried the four-part serial in February, based on the man’s accounts, but apologized in April for running what it eventually determined had been false memoirs. Sano warned that such lax editorial performance had undermined reader trust in weekly magazines, contributing to the severe loss in readership plaguing the industry.
Sophia University’s Tajima said that since the latter 1990s, the principal focus of regulations such as the personal information protection law has been shifting from “media organizations to individuals” and from “news reporting to the sources of information.” He said the “tendency is more perceptible in weekly magazines than in newspapers and TV stations.”
He referred to a court ruling in which not only the editor but also the president of a publishing house were held responsible for damage compensation, warning that there are growing moves in the courts to order magazines to publish a full retraction of an offending article, instead of the conventional simple apology.
Commenting on court rulings ordering higher libel compensation, Kazuomi Yamaguchi, the editor of the Shukan Asahi, said the court apparently intended to force magazines to “be silent” or “not to write,” rather than to make magazines cover the actual cost of any damages. He said that he made it a rule these days to instruct his staff writers to prepare fully for any potential libel suits while engaging in newsgathering activities.
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Nihon Shinbun Kyokai
The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association
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Tokyo100-8543, Japan
bulletin@pressnet.or.jp
Copyright 2008 Nihon Shinbun Kyokai
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