While a lot of attention is on FujiTV now for its handling of the Nakai Masahiro scandal, governance structure, compliance systems, corporate culture and other unpleasant stuff that may have taken within the organisation, the other TV stations are also wary of the scandal's fire spreading to their sides and hurting their reputations and profits. In particular, TBS being the first to announce its internal investigation to uncover possible wrongdoings attracted speculation over whether its swift action was due to its past experience with a huge scandal more than 20 years ago.
This article from JBpress features an interview with former TBS announcer Shimomura Kenichi who is currently a special appointment professor at Hakuoh University and a freelance announcer. Being someone who went through the days when TBS was in the thick of the Aum Shinrikyo video problem back, he had some words of advice and learning points for the FujiTV employees now.
Firstly, what was the Aum Shinrikyo Video Problem? In a nutshell:
- Also known as the TBS Video Problem or TBS Aum Video Problem.
- On 26 Oct 1989, the production staff of TBS "wide show" (later termed as infotainment) programme "3 ji ni aimashou" showed an interview video of lawyer Sakamoto Tsutsumi to executive members of the cult Aum Shinrikyo at their demand.
- These executives viewed the video in which Sakamoto had criticised the cult within TBS' premises.
- This led to the cult leader Asahara Shoko ordering his followers to kill Sakamoto.
- Sakamoto and his family including his wife and son were murdered by 6 cult members on 4 Nov 1989.
And the long story is...
TBS had already planned to air a special about Aum Shinrikyo on 27 Oct 1989 so Sakamoto's interview was supposed to be an add-on to the prepared footage. In actual fact, besides Sakamoto, there were also two other leading figures in the anti-Aum Shinrikyo movement i.e. journalist Maki Taro and anti-cult activist Nagaoka Hiroyuki who were interviewed for this programme. The recording of the interviews took place in the morning of 26 Oct.
Concurrently, the news reporting department's society news team was on site at Aum Shinrikyo's Fujisan base to film Asahara in action. The cult came to know about Sakamoto's involvement (he was known to be anti-Aum Shinrikyo) and questioned TBS' intention of doing such a SP. Although the TBS news team promised to strike a balance between their reporting and the SP, the cult still demanded to watch the interview videos before the broadcast which was agreed to by the producer on duty there so as to resolve the issue on the spot.
In the wee hours of the same day, three executives of the cult came to TBS and insisted on watching Sakamoto's video. The general producer agreed to this only if the cult would let his subordinates continue to interview them for TBS' news reporting. It was then that TBS Vision (now known as TBS Sparkle) showed the edited version of the video tape to the cult executives. One of them was taking notes on paper while watching the video. TBS was also made to promise not to show the interview video.
On 31 Oct, three cult members headed to Sakamoto's law firm where negotiations fell apart and Sakamoto told them that he intended to file a lawsuit against Aum Shinrikyo. 4 days later, the murders happened.
Once the murders of Sakamoto and his family came to light, Aum Shinrikyo was suspected of being responsible but there were no investigative actions taken against them at least until 1995 which led to the case going cold. At that time, TBS did not reveal voluntarily that they had shown Sakamoto's interview video just days before he was murdered which later led to questions over why they decided to keep mum, why they gave in to Aum Shinrikyo's demand to view the video in the first place and if there was a direct link between the video and the murders.
What was even more damning after this episode was the Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack by Aum Shinrikyo which took place on 20 Mar 1995 and led to 13 people dead and more than 6,300 people injured. It was only when investigations into the cult led to the confession of one executive who disclosed the exchange with TBS over Sakamoto's interview. The police and prosecutors then requested for TBS' cooperation in the investigations in September which led to the discovery of the management being aware of what had happened in 1989. However, the TV station didn't think that this was a huge problem back then and only launched an internal investigation committee one month later on 9 Oct.
The prosecutors then asked TBS to produce the interview video of Sakamoto as evidence on 12 Oct just before they found the notes taken by the executive when he watched the video in 1989. However, the cult members were ambiguous about whether they did watch Sakamoto's video and took advantage of the fact that the notes were found on a word processor and not the handwritten version. Later, TBS was raided by the prosecutors on 18 Oct in order to retrieve the interview videos of Maki and Nagaoka but the TV station claimed that they had since been overwritten with other content. It was said then that the raid was conducted due to the prosecutors' distrust in TBS over their conflicting account of events.
A day later, NTV reported in their news programme that the suspects had indeed reported the contents of Sakamoto's interview with TBS to their leader. This was the first time that the public and the rest of TBS came to know about what happened.
The immediate reaction of TBS was to protest to NTV for its false reporting and its news programme on 19 Oct denied the allegation vehemently by saying that nothing of this sort had happened and this fact was ascertained through an internal investigation. However, NTV continued reporting the testimonies of the cult members which led to TBS directors calling them multiple times to protest and sending an official letter of complaint.
On 11 Mar 1996, TBS announced the results of their internal investigation about the Aum Video problem. Following the trial of the cult member who took the notes that were revealed in court, Sakamoto's law firm sent an open questionnaire to TBS which held a press conference and replied to them on 19 Mar that the showing of the video to Aum Shinrikyo did not take place.
A managing director of TBS was also summoned to the House of Representatives Judicial Affairs Committee as a witness over this matter who claimed that he was convinced that the video was never shown to the cult after their investigation. Regardless of the prosecutors' office's findings which they refrained from commenting on, TBS firmly believed that their investigation outcome was true and accurate.
Later that year on 23 Mar, the full version of the notes came to light and matched the contents of the Sakamoto interview video. It was then that TBS could no longer deny having shown the video to Aum Shinrikyo and the TV station held an emergency press conference 2 days later. The producer who had made the initial suggestion to show Sakamoto's video to Aum Shinrikyo admitted to the facts and his firing was announced during the press conference. The managing director who had testified at the judicial affairs committee apologised for his statement on 28 Mar and said that new facts surfaced after that hearing so that was why it caused him to provide a wrong testimony.
TBS aired a special programme on 30 April where it announced the findings of its internal investigation and its then-president also appeared in the beginning to address the viewers. A final report was submitted to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications followed by the resignations of the president and several senior management members. As a show of apology, it suspended its broadcast for 5 days during the late night period (from 12 midnight onwards) until 24 May and sent a new response to Sakamoto's law firm to replace their earlier reply.
Several "wide show" programmes were shut down due to the scandal with the first being "3 ji ni aimashou" which was the starting point of this issue. The social reporting department was closed and TBS withdrew from the infotainment show genre from 1996 to 2005. Some of the shows which focused on reporting social trends were inherited by the news department while some had their production shifted to other departments.
TBS was severely criticised for violating journalism ethics by not protecting their information sources and keeping these confidential. In addition, they had kept quiet about their exchange with Aum Shinrikyo when an open investigation was conducted for the Sakamoto family's murders and still denied their involvement for more than 5 months after the notes for the video came to light in court. The action of showing the interview video was widely seen as the catalyst for the killings which also led to an outcry from the public over the TV station's responsibility in this matter. Even while the management knew about the situation, they were believed to have concealed the facts deliberately which reflected poor crisis management on their part.
The investigation committee's effectiveness was also called into question because they did not even know that some employees had given different accounts of events to the prosecutors and the committee. The father of Sakamoto's wife subsequently related how dishonest TBS had been in dealing with the bereaved through a book he wrote and how they had been evasive and dismissive of the bereaved's efforts to get to the bottom of things. Other TV stations were wary of becoming another TBS and stopped interviewing the cult's executives after the problem came to light.
On the other hand, there were also views that TBS' action might not have led to the killings as Sakamoto was already critical of the cult in the media well before his appearance in the TBS interview. Besides, it was a common practice back then for interviewees to request to see the videos before they went to air and the incident was before the terror attacks by Aum Shinrikyo happened. It would not have been possible for the media to predict at that time that the cult would conduct such a series of serious terror attacks. The absence of privacy laws at that time was also raised as a point to argue that it was illegal to fire the producers who leaked the video.
In the judgement for Asahara's trial, there was only a short paragraph describing the events what led to the viewing of the video and the confrontation at Sakamoto's law firm but no mention of the murders nor subsequent impact on parties such as TBS.
Ever since 1996, TBS had avoided using the word "wide show" and only returned to this genre of programmes in 2015 through "Vivit". It resumed using this term which used to be a taboo from Sep 2019.
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In Shimomura's interview, he talked about the situation back then in 1996 when the problem first became public knowledge:
- Only a limited number of people knew about the problem so it was shocking for the rest of the employees to find out about it, including himself.
- Even without a thorough and proper investigation, TBS' approach to deny everything from the start added fuel to fire and led to strong distrust and anger towards the management.
- Considering that the impact of the action most likely led to the loss of 3 lives, it was naive and irresponsible to insist that "we knew nothing about it" as a way to get away from the scandal.
He felt that the current employees in FujiTV are in a similar situation as he was with the rest of the TBS employees back then and thought that there were three points of consideration which he wanted to convey to them:
- FujiTV employees including the announcers should not be making comments like "we are also frustrated at the developments" and "we want to see the truth come to light as soon as possible" during their shows. This seems to create the faint impression, whether intended or not, that they think of themselves as "victims" in the whole scheme of things and distant themselves away from the responsibility that FujiTV needs to shoulder in the Nakai incident. It could have been better if they pledge to say that they will do their best in getting to the bottom of things and making the findings known within the limits of their abilities and capacities rather than simply show that they are waiting for others or the third party investigation committee to do that for them.
- While FujiTV employees may be given a gag order for now and told not to speak freely to the media, this refusal is a slap in their faces as well because they are also in the business of interviewing and filming people with cameras and microphones. As such, it would not be wise to do this. To protect the victim's privacy and avoid adding fuel to speculation, there is also the need to answer with the utmost honesty and prudence. On the other hand, he also hoped that the rest of the employees would not view those who speak out with animosity. Back then when TBS was in trouble, FujiTV and Shuukan Bunshun had both interviewed him and he was frank and open during the interviews. However, it turned out that FujiTV's ambush interview was aired nationwide the following morning while Bunshun had misrepresented some of the things he said. Despite this experience, he still doesn't regret speaking to the media because he would not have been able to carry on with his job of being a journalist and interviewing others if he had rejected the interviews back then when his employer was in hot soup.
- Although the fire of this scandal is still continuing and has the likelihood of getting bigger, it is also the time to think about how to restore faith in FujiTV and rebuild from the ashes. If there is no resolution and resolve to repent, change and revamp the corporate culture, nobody will believe their words and concrete actions should be taken rather than pay lip service. For example, the TV industry may have been pushed to the brink due to the uprise of the Internet and online streaming and that sponsors are gone due to the scandal. This might be the perfect opportunity to adopt a reverse mentality by exploring challenging and unconventional programme genres which can only be done now rather than lament the current dire situation. At the risk of being ridiculed for this opinion, he said that even if the sponsors aren't likely to return for the quarter between April and June, it's time to look forward and see what can be done with the current manpower and do programmes with extremely low budgets. Whether and when the sponsors will return is anyone's guess (most likely won't be back at the pre-scandal level in the near future), it's better to seek a breakthrough rather than play safe and stick to the old ways.
With regard to the point that FujiTV executives have been sticking to i.e. concealing the incident since it was reported to the management for the sake of protecting the victim's privacy:
- It is understandable that the victim did not want everyone to know about such an incident of a sexual nature especially if she wanted to return to work some time in the future and did not want the incident to be an issue for her career.
- However, based on what has been known to date, it is not clear if there were efforts to contain the information about the incident from getting out to those beyond her immediate circle i.e. the people who she relayed the incident to, the friends she may have confided in and her medical team.
- Despite the claims to protect the victim, the developments so far do give people the impression that ultimately, FujiTV is more interested in protecting itself rather than the victim.
- It is important for the third party investigation committee to ascertain if it was really the victim who did not want to disclose this incident or she was forced to keep quiet about it or else the controversy and speculation over FujiTV's true intention will continue.
As for the reason why Nakai was still engaged to host its shows after the incident, FujiTV's explanation was that they didn't want to agitate and provoke the victim but this was really hard to believe. At least to him, he felt that the decision was really in FujiTV's interests and not for the victim as claimed. This is also something which the third party committee will have to clarify in its investigation.
The point about Hieda Hisashi being blamed for everything that happened may not be entirely true. While the senior management did say that Hieda doesn't decide everything that goes on in FujiTV, perceived and indirect influence should be considered beyond actual influence in the organisation. Based on what he had found out from some FujiTV employees, a large number of people in the TV station were obviously mindful and wary of Hieda's influence which was highly unusual. In fact, there were views held by employees who felt that they didn't know who is in Hieda's faction, believed that they would be transferred or lose their jobs if they speak up and that if you pledge allegiance, you will be duly rewarded. As such, this kind of fear influence will cause the organisation to "shrink" inwards and the employees to practice self-censorship. For the sake of the company's survival, it might be best to give the idea of Hieda stepping down some serious thought or else FujiTV won't be able to make a fresh and proper restart.
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