NHK has released a statement on the Johnny’s Jimusho press conference

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A lot of major networks in Japan are under scrutiny for not reporting about the sexual assault caused by the late Kitagawa Johnny, former president of Johnny’s Jimusho. NHK has released the following statement:

Johnny & Associates has admitted that the late Kitagawa Johnny committed sexually assault. We take seriously that malicious sexual assault on minors has been carried out for a long time at a company that we do business with. According to the investigative report by Johnny & Associates’ special recurrence prevention team, ‘Because there is no criticism from the mass media, Johnny & Associates has strengthened its cover-up without demonstrating its self-cleansing ability, and as a result, This issue has been frequently reported in weekly magazines, and the Tokyo High Court’s ruling recognizing the fact of sexual assault was finalized in 2004’.

At that time, NHK had little awareness of this problem, and even after that, it did not cover it in depth and did not feature it in news or programs. While many minors were victims, NHK did not fully fulfill its role as a media. We are self-reflecting that we didn’t do it. We will reinforce our stance of trying to get closer to the truth and work on interviews and program production. At NHK, we have selected people who are suitable for the content and production of the program, but from now on, we will also consider the stance of respecting human rights of the affiliated office. We would like to ask Johnny & Associates to provide a detailed explanation of the future measures to help victims and prevent recurrence, and we will continue to carefully monitor the implementation status. As a public media and NHK, we will further strengthen our efforts so that the idea of ​​respecting human rights will be more permeated in the broadcasting industry”.

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