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(三)


 
“We were being told that the Prime Minister’s Office disliked our stories and wanted them stopped,” Watanabe recalled, “but we thought we could weather the storm.”


 
  「我們被告知,首相辦公室不喜歡我們的報導,並希望停止,」渡邊誠回憶說,「但我們認為可以撐過難關的。」


 
They may have been able to if the new section had not given its opponents an opening to strike. But on May 20, 2014, running under the banner headline “Violating Plant Manager Orders, 90 Percent of Workers Evacuated Fukushima Daiichi,” the front-page article made the explosive claim that at the peak of the crisis, workers had fled the nuclear plant in violation of orders to remain from plant manager, Masao Yoshida. The article challenged the dominant narrative of the manager leading a heroic battle to contain the meltdowns and thus save Japan.


 
  如果這個團隊沒有讓對手有機會反擊,他們可能過得了這關。 但在2014年5月20日,在一篇名為「不顧廠長命令,90%工人撤離了福島第一核電廠」的頭版報導中,指出在危機高峰期,許多工人不顧廠方的命令逃離了核電廠,只留下廠長吉田昌郎。這篇報導推翻了廠方最初以廠長帶領工人英勇戰鬥,以遏制災情擴大,從而拯救日本的官方說法。


 
The reporters behind the story, Hideaki Kimura and Tomomi Miyazaki, had obtained a transcript of testimony that Yoshida gave to government investigators before his death from cancer in 2013. The 400-plus-page document, drawn from 28 hours of spoken testimony by Yoshida, had been kept secret from the public in the Prime Minister’s Office. Unearthing the testimony was an investigative coup, which the Asahi unabashedly played up in ad campaigns. It might have stayed that way, had not the Asahi opened up the floodgates of public criticism by clumsily setting off a completely unrelated controversy about its past coverage of one of East Asia’s most emotional issues.


 
  負責這篇報導的的記者木村英明和宮崎朋美,拿到了吉田昌郎在2013年癌症死亡前被官方調查的筆錄。這份從吉田昌郎28小時的證詞中整理出400多頁的文件,一直被首相辦公室保管著。這份資料公開就像一次調查性的政變,朝日新聞毫無保留的宣揚他們所知道的一切。如果朝日後來沒有笨拙地引起了一個毫不相關的爭議,讓公眾有批判的機會,朝日也許不會走到今天的下場。


 
That uproar began on Aug. 5, 2014  when the Asahi suddenly announced in a front-page article that it was retracting more than a dozen stories published in the 1980s and early 1990s about “comfort women” forced to work in wartime Japanese military brothels. The newspaper was belatedly admitting what historians knew: that a Japanese war veteran quoted in the articles, Seiji Yoshida, had fabricated his claims of having forcibly rounded up more than 1,000 Korean women.


 
  這起?動開始於2014年8月5日,朝日新聞的一篇頭版新聞提出,報社對於十多篇發表在1980年代和90年代初,關於「慰安婦」被迫在戰時日本妓院工作的報導將提出更正。報紙最終驗證了歷史學家所說的:這篇引用戰爭老兵吉田清治如何綁架了1000多名韓國女人的說法,是不符合事實的。


 
The comfort women retractions appeared to be an attempt by the Asahi to preempt critics in the administration by coming clean about a decades-old problem. Instead, the move backfired, giving the revisionist right ammunition to attack the Asahi. The public pillorying, led by Abe himself, who said the reporting “has caused great damage to Japan’s image,” grew so intense that the magazine of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan ran a cover story: “Sink the Asahi!”


 
  對慰安婦新聞的更正,似乎是朝日新聞想先發制人,搶先政府面對公眾輿論,處理這個幾十年前的問題。但事與願違,這給了修正主義者攻擊朝日新聞的機會。 由首相安倍晉三領導的支持者說,該篇報導「對日本形象造成嚴重傷害」,甚至日本外國記者俱樂部的雜誌,還因此出了一期封面故事:「讓朝日倒下!」


 
It was at the peak of this maelstrom, when the Asahi was on the ropes, that criticism of its Fukushima scoop erupted. In late August, the Sankei Shimbun and the Yomiuri Shimbun, both pro-Abe newspapers on the right, obtained copies of Yoshida’s secret testimony, and wrote reports challenging the version of events put forth by the Asahi. “Asahi Report of ‘Evacuating Against Orders’ At Odds With Yoshida Testimony,” the Yomiuri, the world’s largest newspaper with 9 million readers, declared in a front-page headline Aug. 30. Other media, including the liberal Mainichi Shimbun, followed with similar efforts to discredit the Asahi.


 
  這場大災難的當下,朝日新聞也得面臨抉擇,外界對其福島報導的批評也一口氣爆發。 8月下旬,右派且親安倍政府的日本產經新聞和讀賣新聞,獲得了吉田清治的證詞的影本,並撰寫報導對朝日新聞提出質疑。「朝日有關福島員工撤離的報導,與吉田昌郎的證詞大相逕庭」,擁有900萬讀者的讀賣新聞在8月30日的頭版標題中這麼說。其他媒體,包括自由派的每日新聞,隨後也以類似的手法抨擊朝日新聞。


 
According to these stories, the Asahi’s epic scoop had gotten it wrong by implying that the plant workers had knowingly ignored Yoshida’s orders. The newly obtained copies of his testimony showed that his orders had failed to reach the workers in the confusion. The other newspapers accused the Asahi of again sullying Japan’s reputation, by inaccurately portraying the brave Fukushima workers as cowards. (Whether the Asahi got the story wrong is debatable, since its article never actually stated that workers knowingly violated Yoshida’s orders; however, it did fail to include the manager’s statement that his orders had not been properly relayed—an omission that could lead readers to draw the wrong conclusion.)


 
  從這些事件可看出,朝日新聞這篇報導是有誤的,暗示著工人刻意忽視吉田的命令。 從吉田昌郎的證詞影本顯示,許多工人在混亂之中未能接收到他的指示。 其他報紙指責朝日新聞再次玷污了日本的聲譽,將勇敢的福島工人地描繪成懦夫。 (朝日的報導是否正確,仍存在著許多爭議,因為報導中從未真正指出工人故意違反了吉田昌郎的命令,但也沒有提到廠長的命令沒有被正確傳達的說法。一個疏忽,也可能導致讀者得到錯誤的結論。)


 
The fact that two pro-Abe newspapers had suddenly and in quick succession obtained copies of the Yoshida transcript led to widespread suspicions, never proven, that the Prime Minister’s Office leaked the documents to use against the Asahi. True or not, the newspapers seemed willing to serve the purposes of the administration, perhaps to improve their access to information, or to avoid suffering a similar fate as the Asahi.


 
  事實上,兩家親安倍政府的報紙突然之間獲得吉田證詞的影本,引發廣泛的懷疑,但卻無法證明這份洩漏的文件是用來對抗朝日新聞的。不論事實與否,報紙願意配合執政當局,也許是為了增加得到消息的機會,或避免遭受與朝日相同的命運。
 


The other papers also saw the Asahi’s woes as a chance to steal readers. The Yomiuri stuffed glossy brochures in the mailboxes of Asahi subscribers, blasting it for tarnishing Japan’s honor, while praising the Yomiuri’s coverage of the comfort women. This attempt to poach readers ultimately backfired as both newspapers lost circulation.
 


  其他報紙也把握機會,趁機吸收朝日的讀者。讀賣新聞在朝日新聞的訂閱信箱裡塞滿了誇大的廣告,批評朝日玷污日本的聲譽,同時讚揚自己有關慰安婦的報導。 這種拉攏讀者的做法,最終因為兩家報紙發行量下降而被迫失敗。
 


“Rather than stand together to resist government pressure, they allowed themselves to be used as instruments of political pressure,” said Jiro Yamaguchi, a political scientist at Tokyo’s Hosei University.


 
  東京法政大學的政治學教授山口二郎說,「與其站在同一陣線抵抗政府的壓力,不如讓自己做為政治壓力的工具,」


 
Despite peer pressure, Asahi journalists say the newspaper initially intended to defend its Fukushima scoop, going so far as to draw up a lengthy rebuttal that was to have run on page one in early September. As late as Sept. 1, Seiichi  Ichikawa, the head of the Investigative Section at the time, told his reporters that the newspaper was ready to fight back. “The government is coming after the Special Investigative Section,” Ichikawa said in a pep talk to his team, according to Watanabe and others who were present. “The Asahi will not give in.”


 
  先不論同業的壓力,朝日新聞的記者認為,報社最初打算捍衛有關福島的報導,並期望在9月初的頭版予以反擊。 直到9月1日,當時調查團隊主管市川清一告訴記者,一切已準備就緒。「政府是衝著調查團隊來的」,根據渡邊誠和其他在場人士表示,市川清一在和團隊的談話中提到。「朝日新聞決不會讓步。」


 
The rebuttal was never published. Instead, President Kimura surprised many of his own reporters with a sudden about face, announcing at a press conference on Sept. 11 that he was retracting the Fukushima-Yoshida article. Reporters say the newspaper’s resolve to defend the piece crumbled when journalists within the newspaper began an internal revolt against the article and the section that produced it.


 
  但這篇報導終究還是沒出版。相反的,社長木村伊量的立場大變,在9月11日的新聞發布會上宣布,準備撤回福島事件中有關吉田昌郎的報導,這令朝日的記者感到不解。 許多記者表示,就當報社記者開始思考因應對策,捍衛自身的報導的同時,為報紙辯護的決心也崩潰了。


 
This was compounded by a sense of panic that gripped the newspaper, as declines in readership and advertising accelerated markedly after the scandals. Fearing for the Asahi’s survival, many reporters chose to sacrifice investigative journalism as a means to mollify detractors, say media scholars and some Asahi journalists, including Yorimitsu.


 
  這種情況加劇了朝日新聞的恐慌感,同時讀者的流失和廣告量的下降在醜聞後更加顯著。也因為擔心朝日新聞的未來,許多記者選擇放棄調查報導來減輕批評者的聲浪,許多傳播學者和一些朝日的記者也跟進,當然也包括依光隆明。


 
The Asahi’s official line is that the story was too flawed to defend. The paper’s new president, Masataka Watanabe, continues to talk about the importance of investigative journalism, and some current and former Asahi journalists say investigative reporting will make a comeback.


 
  朝日新聞的官方說法是,整起事件有太有疑點而無法辯駁。報社的新任社長渡邊正孝仍強調調查報導的重要性,許多離職的記者和朝日現有的記者表示,調查報導終將重現。


 
However, scholars and former section reporters say the setback was too severe. They say the Asahi’s decision to punish its own journalists will discourage others from taking the same risks inherent in investigative reporting. Worse, they said the Asahi seemed to lapse back into the old, access-driven ways of Japan’s mainstream journalism. “The Asahi retreated from its experiment in risky, high-quality journalism, back into the safety of the press clubs,” said Tatsuro Hanada, a professor of journalism at Waseda University in Tokyo. Hanada was so dismayed by the Asahi’s retreat that he established Japan’s first university-based center for investigative journalism at Waseda this year. “It makes me think that the days of Japan’s huge national newspapers may be numbered.”


 
  然而,許多學者和離職記者表示這樣的挫敗令人難以接受。他們認為,朝日新聞做出懲罰記者的決定,將讓有心從事調查報導的人感到失望。 更糟糕的是,他們認為朝日的做法,似乎回到日本主流新聞傳統的、接近使用導向的模式。東京早稻田大學新聞系教授花田達朗說:「朝日新聞從高風險的,高質量的新聞報導的實驗中,回到了記者俱樂部的舒適圈。」花田達朗對朝日的退縮感到非常失望,他今年在早稻田大學建立了日本第一所調查報導機構。「我對日本大型全國性報紙的未來感到悲觀。」


 
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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