Sinking a bold foray into watchdog journalism in Japan
夕陽西下？ 調查報導讓朝日新聞面臨嚴峻挑戰（二）
Abe and his supporters on the nationalistic right seized on missteps by the Asahi in its coverage of Fukushima and sensitive issues of World War II-era history to launch a withering barrage of criticism that the paper seemed unable to withstand. The taming of the Asahi set off a domino-like series of moves by major newspapers and television networks to remove outspoken commentators and newscasters.
安倍和他的民族主義支持者恰好抓住了朝日在處理福島事件，和二戰歷史敏感性問題的失誤，發動了一連串的批評和嘲諷，讓朝日無法承受。朝日新聞變得溫順，在幾家主要報紙和電視圈中掀起了骨牌效應，許多直言不諱的評論員和新聞播報員也因此消失了。
Political interference in the media was one reason cited by Reporters Without Borders in lowering Japan from 11th in 2010 to 72nd out of 180 nations in this year’s annual ranking of global press freedoms, released on April 20, 2016.
根據無疆界記者組織2016年4月20日發佈的全球新聞自由度報告，在180個國家中，日本從2010年第11名降至72名，「政治干預媒體」是主要原因之一。
“Emasculating the Asahi allowed Abe to impose a grim new conformity on the media world,” said Koichi Nakano, a professor of politics at Sophia University in Tokyo and a leading critic of the administration on press freedom issues. “Other media know that once Asahi gave in, they were exposed and could be next. So they gagged themselves.”
身為東京蘇菲亞大學政治學教授，同時也是新聞自由議題的評論家中野晃一說：「讓朝日新聞失去影響力，也使得安倍政府確保媒體言論的一致性。」其他媒體知道，一旦朝日新聞讓步，他們也可能是下一個，所以只好進行自我審查。
But government pressure fails to fully explain the Asahi’s retreat. Some Asahi reporters and media scholars say the government was able to exploit weaknesses within Japanese journalism itself, particularly its lack of professional solidarity and its emphasis on access-driven reporting. At the Asahi’s weakest moment, other big national newspapers lined up to bash it, essentially doing the administration’s dirty work, while also making blatant efforts to poach readers to shore up their declining circulations.
但政府的壓力無法完全解釋朝日新聞的退讓。 一些朝日新聞的記者和新聞學者說，政府利用了日本新聞本身的弱點，特別是缺乏專業上的團結，和強調接近使用（access-driven）的新聞模式。在朝日新聞最脆弱的時刻，其他全國性報紙也攻擊它，幫政府做見不得光的事，同時也吸收讀者來支撐他們日漸下滑的發行量。
The knockout blow, however, came from within the Asahi itself, as reporters in other, more established sections turned against the upstart investigative journalists. The new section’s more adversarial approach to journalism had it wide resentment for threatening the exclusive access—enjoyed by the Asahi as part of the mainstream media—to the administration and the powerful central ministries that govern Japan.
然而，這樣的打擊也來自朝日新聞本身，因為其他部門的記者反對新來的調查記者。調查團隊採用對抗性的方法來報導新聞，彷彿主流媒體中只有朝日新聞能享有此特權，擁有特定的消息管道，這也引起了日本的政府機構和中央部門的反感。
Media scholars say reporters in elite national newspapers like the Asahi have a weak sense of professional identity; most did not attend journalism school and spend their entire careers within the same company. Until recently, a job at a national daily was seen as a safe career bet rather than a calling, as the Asahi and its competitors offered salaries and lifetime job guarantees similar to banks and automakers.
許多傳播學者認為，像朝日新聞這樣全國性的精英報紙，底下的記者卻缺乏專業認同感，大多數沒有受過新聞專業訓練，也沒有一直待在同一家公司。 直到最近，朝日和它的競爭對手提供類似金融業和汽車製造業的待遇和終身工作保障，在全國性日報的工作被視為安穩的生涯規劃，而不再是記者天職使然。
This result is that many Japanese journalists are unable to resist pressures that officials can put on them via the press clubs. Journalists who are deemed overly critical or who write about unapproved topics can find themselves barred from briefings given to other club members. This is a potent sanction when careers can be broken for missing a scoop that appeared in rival newspapers. This is what some Asahi journalists in the press clubs say happened to them as the Investigative Section angered government officials with its critical stories.
這樣的結果也導致許多日本記者無法抵抗官員透過記者俱樂部施加的壓力。被認為過於批判，或報導未經批准主題的記者，可能會發現自己被禁止與其他俱樂部交流消息。這是一個有效的制裁，當記者獨漏了一些同業才有的新聞，其記者生涯可能毀於一旦。這是一些朝日記者（在記者俱樂部）的看法，因為調查報導惹惱了政府官員。
“When the chips were down, they saw themselves as elite company employees, not journalists,” said Yorimitsu, who after the Fukushima article’s retraction was reassigned to a Saturday supplement where he writes entertainment features.
「到了最後，他們把自己看作是精英公司的員工，而不是記者。」依光隆明這麼說。在福島的報導被撤回之後，他被分派到周末副刊版，負責撰寫娛樂新聞。
Unable to weather the storm
不可預知的未來
It was a bitter reversal for a section that had been launched with high expectations just three years before. Yorimitsu described the new section as the newspaper’s first venture into what he called true investigative journalism. He said that while the Asahi had assembled teams in the past that it called “investigative,” this usually meant being freed from the demands of daily reporting to take deeper dives into scandals and social issues. He said the new section was different because his journalists not only gathered facts, they used them to build counter narratives that challenged versions of events put forward by authorities.
這對一個才創立不過三年，又被寄予厚望的團隊來說，是一個難以接受的挫敗。 依光隆明認為，調查報導是朝日新聞當初的一次冒險，他稱之為「真正的調查新聞」。 他說，雖然朝日過去曾組織了一個名為「調查」的團隊，但只是從日常新聞的需求中解放出來，以便更深入地討論醜聞和社會議題。 但這個團隊不同，因為記者不僅收集事實，還使用這些事實建立反敘事，挑戰官方所發佈的版本。
“Until 2014, the newspaper was very enthusiastic about giving us the time and freedom to expose the misdeeds in Fukushima, and tell our own stories about what had happened,” recalled Yorimitsu. “We were telling the stories that the authorities didn’t want us to tell.”
「直到2014年，朝日新聞非常熱情地給我們時間和自由揭露福島的不當行為，並讓我們知道背後的真相」依光隆明回憶說。「我們所說的，都是執政當局企圖掩蓋的。」
Yorimitsu had been hired in 2008 in to take charge of a smaller investigative team that the Asahi had created in 2006, when it was first starting to feel the pinch from the Internet. From a peak of 8.4 million copies sold daily in 1997, the Asahi’s circulation had slipped below 8 million by 2006, according to the Japan Audit Bureau of Circulations. (By late 2015, it had dropped to 6.6 million.) The team of 10 reporters was an experimental effort to win readers. “We realized that in the Net era, independent, investigative journalism was the only way for a newspaper to survive,” said Hidetoshi Sotooka, a former managing editor who created the original team.
依光隆明在2008年時被聘用，負責一個朝日新聞在2006所建立的小規模調查團隊，也是第一次開始感覺到網際網路的衝擊。根據日本發行公會的數據，朝日新聞的發行量從1997年每天的840萬份，到2006年已經不到800萬（至2015年底則是660萬）。這個由10名記者所組成團隊，靠著實驗性的精神贏得讀者的認同。「我們意識到在網路時代，獨立的調查報導是報紙生存的唯一方法」，當初建立原始團隊的外岡秀俊說。
However, it was not until Fukushima, Japan’s biggest national trauma since its World War II defeat in 1945, that the newspaper wholeheartedly embraced the effort, tripling the number of journalists and elevating it to a full-fledged section, putting it on par organizationally with other, more established parts of the paper.
然而，直到福島事件，這起二戰戰敗以來日本最大的國難，讓朝日新聞抓住了機會。朝日將記者的數量足足增加了三倍，並將其提升為一個成熟的部門，使其在報社內與其他部門有同樣的位階。
Under Yorimitsu, the section’s crowning achievement was an investigative series called “The Promethean Trap,” a play on the atomic industry’s early promise of becoming a second fire from heaven like the one stolen by Prometheus in Greek mythology. The series, which appeared daily beginning in October 2011, won The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association Prize, Japan’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, in 2012 for its reporting on such provocative topics as a gag-order placed on scientists after the nuclear accident, and the government’s failure to release information about radiation to evacuating residents. The series spawned some larger investigative spin-offs, including an expose of corner-cutting in Japan’s multi-billion dollar radiation cleanup, which won the prize in 2013.
在依光隆明的帶領下，該團隊的代表作是一個名為「普羅米修斯陷阱」的系列報導，靈感來自於早期原能產業將核能，比做希臘神話中普羅米修斯從天堂偷走的「第二把火」的構想。該系列報導於2011年10月開始出版，2012年獲得了日本新聞協會大獎（等同於美國的普利茲新聞獎），報導了核能事故後科學家被要求不得任意對外發言，和政府未能及時發布輻射的消息疏散居民等爭議性話題。該系列衍生出更多的調查報導，包括2013年獲獎的，以揭露日本數十億美元的輻射清理工程，其背後偷工減料的報導。
These were promising accomplishments for a new section, but they also led to resentment in other parts of the newspaper, where the investigative team was increasingly viewed as prima donnas, and Yorimitsu’s “no more pooches” proclamation as an arrogant dismissal of other sections’ work.
這個新聞團隊獲得了許多殊榮，但也導致了報社內其他部門的不滿，調查團隊被認為愈來愈以自我為中心，而且依光隆明的「不再做看門狗」的宣稱，被視為傲慢不看重其他部門的舉動。
At the same time, the Investigative Section also was making powerful enemies outside the newspaper by exposing problems at Fukushima. This became particularly apparent after the pro-nuclear Abe administration took office in December 2012, when other media started to cut back on articles about the nuclear accident.
與此同時，調查部門也因為揭露了福島的問題，而在報社外部樹立了許多的敵人。尤其擁核派的安倍政府2012年12月上台後，其他媒體開始減少有關核事故的報導時，這一點甚為明顯。
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作者：Martin Fackler
編譯：朱弘川
原文網址： http://www.cjr.org/the_feature/asahi_shimbun_japan_journalism.php
