While "Caster" has been getting the wrong kind of attention of late due to Nagano Mei's ongoing controversy about an alleged affair with Tanaka Kei, another part of the drama is also being scrutinized for its apparent gaps between reality and fiction. This
article from Pinzuba highlights the key discrepancies that are being talked about among viewers and industry insiders especially with regard to the character and newsroom settings.
To begin with, let's find out more about the key positions in a TV news reporting programme's production team:
- Producer (プロデューサー): Person-in-charge of the entire programme. Manages various aspects such as planning, production and budget control.
- Assistant Producer (アシスタントプロデューサー): Assists the producer in areas including drafting proposals, schedule and budget management
- Overall Director (総合演出): Decides on the direction of the programme, issues instructions to directors and monitors the programme on-site
- Director (ディレクター): Executes the plans from the overall director as well as gives instructions and manages the situation on-site.
- Assistant Director (アシスタントディレクター): Follows the instructions of the director and provides support on-site.
- Desk (デスク): The boss of the reporters who checks the articles and direction of the news reporting, decides on the composition of news topics for the day and time allocated to each story
- On-site Reporter (リポーター・取材記者): Reporting news on site
- Editing Reporter (編集記者): Compiles the information obtained on-site and creates articles to be read during the programme
- Cameraman (カメラマン): The person-in-charge of filming footage at news reporting venues
- Editors (編集者): Edits the information and filmed footage to produce news videos
- Editor-in-chief (編集長): The boss of the editors who considers the quality and direction of the video content along with the viewers' needs and preferences and decides on the content mix
- Caster / Announcer (キャスター・アナウンサー) : The person who reads the news in the programme
- Commentator / Panelists (解説委員): Subject matter experts or panelists to explain the background and meaning behind news topics
- Technical staff (技術スタッフ): Includes those working in broadcast technology, sound, artistic direction and technical support
Note that there may be slight differences in the terms used for the positions and/or segregation and overlap of duties between positions depending on various TV stations but the above more or less covers the key staff members for such news programmes.
If we are to look at the cast lineup in "Caster", the corresponding positions are as such:
Main Caster: Shindo Souichi (Abe Hiroshi)
Sub Caster: Koike Nami (Tsukishiro Kanato)
News Reporting Department Head: Kaiba Kouji (Okabe Takashi)
Producer: Yamai Kazuyuki (Otoo Takuma)
Overall Director: Sakikubo Hana (Nagano Mei)
Editor-in-chief: Ichinose Sakiko (Miyazawa Ema)
Director: Kajihara Koudai (Tamaoki Reo)
Assistant Director: Motohashi Yuusuke (Michieda Shunsuke) / Choi Jae-seong (Kim Mu-jun)
Editor: Ono Junya (Kimura Tatsunari)
Reporter (Society News): Ando Erika (Kikuchi Akiko)
The role and age of the overall director
First of all, one of the most commonly-heard "complaints" was the choice of Nagano to play the role of the overall director and what that position actually involves. This important role is often said to be the second-highest-in-command after the producer and has to manage the entire production personally in the studio while the producer actually spends more time away from the recording/broadcast of the programme doing high-level planning behind-the-scenes.
While the age of Nagano's character was not specified, it is estimated that she should be in her mid/late 20s to early 30s. Considering the fact that she was said to have worked in the variety department for a while and even got the Chairman's Award before, her age should be somewhere in her late 20s at the very least. In addition, the drama did have some scenes where Michieda's character Motohashi referred to her as his senior. This could be in reference to the fact that her position is higher than his or that she is older than him since the time setting of the story is that he is just into his second year of employment with JBN (his estimated age should be somewhere around 25).
Given her age setting, industry insiders pointed out that it was near impossible for someone to be given such an important position especially for a news programme. It would have been more appropriate for her to be a director instead. Moreover, based on what has been shown in the drama, this overall director had hardly done any "directing" within the studio and was often seen outside the studio such as going along with Shindo to film his interviews or get involved in the news reporting process. These are things which the overall director does not do in real life.
The unclear job scope and overlapping responsibilities
There are also seemingly unnatural points about the job scopes of other characters.
For example, the editor-in-chief played by Miyazawa Ema should be busy enough dealing with news stories and making decisions on what to include for the day's broadcast. However, she had been depicted multiple times to be wearing an intercom headset and giving instructions to the staff during the broadcast which is what an editor-in-chief does not do. It also appears as if the story treats the role of the editor-in-chief to be equivalent or similar to that of the desk because she did refer to herself as the desk but the official cast chart shows her job title as editor-in-chief.
Likewise, Otoo Takuma's producer character should have been focusing on the management of resources and budgets instead of getting involved heavily in what goes on during the broadcast. As such, his actual job scope in the drama seems to deviate from reality too.
The unnatural / nonsensical news reporting process
In real life, there will be reporters in charge of designated areas/topics in the TV station's news reporting department. They are the ones who actually go out to report on news and pass the footage and information to the editors who create videos and other content used for the broadcast.
However, "Caster" hardly features any reporters doing this. In fact, the assistant director Motohashi and the overall director Sakikubo go outside the TV station to do the reporting while there is a noticeable absence of a reporter on site each time. Having an AD to confront a interviewee with proof of wrongdoing as featured in Ep 3 was also something that could never happen in reality. Moreover, a key component of the reporter's work i.e. negotiations with the production team on how much of the content is shown during the broadcast is sorely absent from the drama.
Spoiling the exclusive scoop
In Ep 3, when Motohashi exposed the professor's wrongdoing, he had done so in the presence of representatives from other media outlets even though this was an exclusive scoop he secured due to the evidence given to him by his friend. The thing is, nobody in the news reporting circle would spoil their own exclusive scoop like this because your rivals would just take the same information and report it. As such, the usual practice is to secure confirmation from the target in private without letting your competitors know.
Employment matters are not decided on the fly
In Ep 5, the director Kajihara was suspended from work and told that his contract expiring at the end of the month would not be renewed due to an issue which cropped up for a report he was doing. The head of the news reporting department Kaiba said that since Kajihara's contract happened to be near the expiry date, the TV station would use this as the perfect excuse to give the latter his marching orders. However, this is not what happens in reality because there will be at least a two to three-month notice period when it comes to contract renewals especially if you factor in handover procedures. In addition, Kajihara is the chief director so for an important position like this, it is impossible to treat his contract in such a manner.
Trivalising the impact of a senior employee's brush with the law
In one episode, the director of JBN's societal news department was arrested for a criminal offense. However, JBN continued to operate as per normal as if nothing had happened. For a scandal like this involving a senior employee and in a position that deals with law enforcement authorities and the government bodies, the TV station couldn't have gotten away with just a simple apology on air. In extreme cases, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications can even issue a broadcast suspension as punishment because this is considered a significant breach of trust as a TV broadcaster.
While it is obvious that the drama prioritises entertainment over reality and tries really hard to portray Shindo as a super news caster who seems to do no wrong (until the rest of the characters do seem quite silly at times), these gaps with reality, conflicting settings and unrealistic developments make it more difficult for viewers to immerse themselves fully into the story. Although there were clear attempts at using real-life incidents as the base of these news stories featured in the drama (perhaps to boost the reality factor and gain more eyeballs by tapping on these big cases), it was also evident that the drama could not delve too deeply into these because of the potential negative impact on the actual persons and entities involved. In the end, this became a vicious cycle where the story ends up in the middle of nowhere.
Based on the episodes I've watched so far, I must say that the points raised in the article are indeed valid to a large extent. Personally, I wouldn't say that I have enjoyed all episodes of this drama to date because the quality seems to fluctuate a fair bit and the gap with reality does bug me to a large extent. And at this stage, most of the episodes can be considered to be fillers until the main plot/background story surfaces in the second half of the season so it's probably no wonder that the quality of the story seems to be a bit lacking at the moment. Coupled with the distraction from Nagano's scandal - somehow when she tries to be self-righteous and criticises Abe's character, it just comes across as uncomfortable to watch and less impactful as it should have been. This inevitably causes the impact of the drama and the message it is trying to convey to be weakened too. While I'm hopeful of better developments to come, I think it will take a major improvement in the second half of the drama to make up for the underwhelming first half in more ways than one.
