Where Japanese politicians used to dismiss TV with disdain, in the past several weeks the new generation of younger and media-savvy politicians has clamored for guest spots on the hot round-table shows like Tahara’s “Sunday Project” and the late-night “News Station.” The leaders of the two conservative splinter groups, Shinseito’s Tsutomu Hata and the Japan New Party’s Morihiro Hosokawa, both telegenic men whose parties lack the LDP’s grass-roots political organization and money, have milked such programs and the three main morning talk shows for all they are worth. In the week after leading the Parliament revolt that brought down Miyazawa’s government, Hata managed to fit in 35 such appearances. This is smart politics. Like Bill Clinton, Hata and Hosokawa understand the value of free television and the access it gives them to an electorate disenchanted with “politics as usual” and bored by the sensorious and self-censoring political coverage of Japan’s newspapers.
If television has been the new political parties’ best friend, giving them exposure and legitimacy, it has been the LDP’s worst enemy. One LDP leader after another discovered to his distress during the election campaign that television had learned to ask the tough question. And in the week after the election, as the LDP fought to hold on to office, television’s unforgiving lens showed an arrogant, aging leadership of frustrated, stubborn old politicians. “The big TV coverage was a great disadvantage to us,” said one top LDP official. “The media tried to paint the election black and white, and we were black.”
It was a reasonable charge. Hard-charging television executives in the midst of a brutal ratings war were less interested in political reform than a good political free-for-all. “We want a hot program. The sharper the question, the hotter the program,” says NHK network spokesman Koichiro Shoda. Last week’s events also showed that there are limits to television’s impact on political discourse. The tube only magnified traditional aspects of Japanese politics, such as the importance of personalities, to the detriment of substantive discussions of issues. Welcome to the TV age.
