2020/8/3
“Are Freelancers Really Journalists?” — From the final column in the latest issue of Shukan Shincho, written by Masayuki Takayama
He is the one and only journalist of his kind in the postwar world.
Are Freelancers Really Journalists?
Half a century ago, I aspired to become a newspaper journalist and applied to several companies.
The competition rate was nearly three digits.
By some miracle, I made it onto the waiting list at Sankei Shimbun—but that’s when the real struggle began.
Even after joining, further selection awaited.
Only one in five recruits would be assigned to a regional bureau—the first real step toward becoming a reporter.
The rest were sent to departments like copy editing or general affairs.
This arrangement came with an implicit threat: “If you don’t perform, you can be replaced anytime.”
So we couldn’t utter a word of complaint.
From morning to night, we made our rounds of police stations, prefectural police headquarters, and courthouses.
While doing that, we learned how to write copy.
I didn’t get a single day off for the first six months.
Newspapers are published every day.
Each day was like an exam, as your work would be compared to reporters from rival papers, and if you wrote poorly, you’d feel humiliated the entire day.
Some reporters couldn’t take the pressure and burned out.
When I was at the Mito bureau, a Yomiuri reporter committed suicide.
Later, after transferring to the main office, a peer and a senior colleague hanged themselves.
It was a workplace with a lot of deaths.
You couldn't make it unless you gave everything.
Within our bureau’s territory was Tōkai Village—a place no one else bothered with.
I went regularly and studied nuclear energy.
After three years, I came upon a uranium enrichment experiment using the centrifuge method.
Rows of cylindrical machines resembling washing tubs, just like those used to build the Hiroshima-type atomic bomb at Oak Ridge in the U.S., were lined up.
North Korea is now desperately spinning the same thing.
It was the fruit of walking the beat.
Only after stacking up such efforts was I allowed to move up to the Tokyo headquarters.
Being promoted meant access to elite press clubs with high specialization.
I was assigned to the aviation club.
Soon after, Lockheed invited us to Los Angeles for the unveiling of a new model aircraft.
At their press conference, I was stunned to see reporters from other companies asking pointed technical questions about the new aircraft without needing an interpreter.
Only seasoned pros like that are qualified to cover aviation accidents and write informed analysis.
The press club was not a place you could survive by coasting.
You had to study everything from basic aircraft knowledge to air traffic control, or the briefings would go over your head.
Back then, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways still had prewar-generation pilots.
You could hear living aviation history from them.
One such pilot told me a secret story: “I was hired by the U.S. military to infiltrate deep into Soviet and Communist Chinese territory to parachute in spies.”
One of the pilots who flew those missions was Junri Nakao, then the director of Haneda Airport.
That was a spine-chilling scoop.
Across the economic, political, and other sections, press clubs were gatherings of hardened veterans, and press conferences were quiet battlefields.
Today, there are 20,000 reporters registered with the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association across 129 companies.
Only about 5,000 of them are front-line reporters actively writing articles.
Of those, only about 10 percent are assigned to core press clubs in Tokyo—fewer than the number of national Diet members.
During the Heisei era, there arose a call to “open up these closed-off press clubs.”
This demand originated from the Foreign Correspondents' Club, which is infamous for spreading anti-Japanese disinformation.
Freelance reporters jumped on the bandwagon and made a fuss.
But they had no intention of engaging in the same rigorous fieldwork as real reporters.
Their only goal was to attend press conferences under the auspices of the press club.
It was like sending untrained recruits into battle.
At the time, I thought it was a joke.
The Asahi Shimbun supported opening up press conferences.
That’s because Asahi reporters don’t actually do fieldwork or rigorous training.
They write stories based on hunches and shallow thinking.
Katsuichi Honda’s “Travels in China” and Takashi Uemura’s comfort women reports are prime examples.
On rare occasions, they do write something factual—usually off-the-record political tidbits.
The rest of the time, they just sit around waiting for a politician to make a gaffe.
In that sense, their level is indistinguishable from freelance journalists.
There was a freelance reporter who repeatedly pestered Reconstruction Minister Masahiro Imamura with ignorant, drawn-out questions.
Even if that had been an Asahi reporter, it wouldn’t have felt out of place.
Thanks in part to Asahi’s efforts, we now have foreign and freelance reporters playing make-believe journalist at press conferences.
At the press briefing after the Monju nuclear accident, these people caused such a scene that two officials involved committed suicide.
During the TEPCO Fukushima disaster, one of them shouted, “So who’s going to kill themselves next?”
We've gone from an era where reporters themselves committed suicide under pressure, to one where reporters drive others to their deaths.
Recently, there was a prime minister’s press conference during the COVID crisis.
Just as it was about to wrap up after more than an hour, a group of freelance reporters started making a racket.
Twelve of them stood up and bombarded the room with questions even more meaningless than something Kiyomi Tsujimoto would ask.
It’s no longer about journalism—it’s about making people angry or pushing them to the brink.
Press conferences today have changed dramatically.
