夕陽西下？調查報導讓朝日新聞面臨嚴峻挑戰（三）／朱弘川編譯

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

夕陽西下？調查報導讓朝日新聞面臨嚴峻挑戰（二）／朱弘川編譯

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

夕陽西下？調查報導讓朝日新聞面臨嚴峻挑戰（一）／朱弘川編譯

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（一）

　
IT SEEMED LIKE COMPELLING JOURNALISM: a major investigative story published by The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second largest daily newspaper, about workers fleeing the Fukushima nuclear plant against orders.

　
　　看起來就像個了不起的新聞成就：日本第二大日報朝日新聞，發表了一篇有關福島核電廠工人不聽從命令，而逃離現場的調查報導。

　
It was the work of a special investigative section that had been launched with much fanfare to regain readers’ trust after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011, when the Asahi and other media were criticized for initially repeating the official line that the government had everything safely under control.

　
　　在2011年3月，福島第一核電廠反應爐核心三重熔毀之後，朝日新聞和其他媒體被批評和官方口徑一致，認為一切都在政府的控制之中。一個調查新聞團隊則靠著傑出表現，重新得到讀者的信任，而受到許多的讚揚。

　
The team had been producing award winning journalism for three years, but the story on the workers would be the last for some of its ace reporters. And its publication in May 2014 would come to mark the demise of one of the most serious efforts in recent memory by a major Japanese news organization to embrace a more independent approach to journalism.

　
　　這個新聞團隊已經連三年獲獎，但對某些記者來說，這篇關於工人的報導可能會是最難以忘懷的作品。 這篇報導於2014年5月的出版，意味著一家大型日本新聞機構為記者爭取更加獨立的新聞作業方式，所做最嚴肅的努力之一。

　
The hastiness of the Asahi’s retreat raised fresh doubts about whether such watchdog journalism—an inherently risky enterprise that seeks to expose and debunk, and challenge the powerful—is even possible in Japan’s big national media, which are deeply tied to the nation’s political establishment.

　
　　但朝日新聞如此匆忙地退出不免讓人懷疑，這種監督新聞學本身就是帶有風險的事業，不僅揭露事件背後的真相，也挑戰權力，尤其日本大型的全國性媒體，也可能和國家的政治體制有所關連。

　
The editors at Asahi, considered the “quality paper” favored by intellectuals, knew the culture they were facing, but they saw the public disillusionment in Japan that followed the nuclear plant disaster as the opportunity launch a bold experiment to reframe journalism.

　
　　朝日新聞的編輯們認為，「質報」之所以深受知識分子喜愛，就是因為能點出目前社會所面臨的問題。當他們看到福島核災之後日本公眾的失落，認為是時候提出一個大膽的實驗來重塑新聞事業。

 
No more pooches　

不做政府的傳聲筒

　
On the sixth floor of its hulking headquarters overlooking Tokyo’s celebrated fish market, the newspaper in October 2011 hand-picked 30 journalists to create a desk dedicated to investigative reporting, something relatively rare in a country whose big national media favor cozy ties with officials via so-called press clubs. The clubs are exclusive groups of journalists, usually restricted to those from major newspapers and broadcasters, who are stationed within government ministries and agencies, ostensibly to keep a close eye on authority. In reality, the clubs end up doing the opposite, turning the journalists into uncritical conduits for information and narratives put forth by government officials, whose mindset the journalists often end up sharing.

　
　　在能俯瞰東京著名魚市場的朝日新聞總部6樓，2011年10月，朝日新聞挑選了30名記者建立了一個專門進行調查報導的團隊，這在一個媒體習慣透過記者俱樂部與官方維持良好關係的國家來說，算是相對罕見。這些記者俱樂部是記者專屬的團體，成員僅限於幾家主要報紙和廣播機構。他們駐守在政府機構內，表面上密切監督著公權力，實際上，俱樂部做了相反的事情，把記者變成不加批判的工具，以獲得政府官員的消息，官員們也認定記者們會彼此交流這些消息。

　
The choice to head of the new section was unusual: Takaaki Yorimitsu, a gruff, gravelly-voiced outsider who was not a career employee of the elitist Asahi, and had been head-hunted from a smaller regional newspaper for his investigative prowess. Yorimitsu set an iconoclastic tone by taping a sign to the newsroom door declaring “Datsu Pochi Sengen,” or “No More Pooches Proclamation”—a vow that his reporters would no longer be kept pets of the press clubs, but true journalistic watchdogs.

　
　　要能勝任這個新團隊的主管得要有異於常人的特質：依光隆明，一個看來粗獷，帶有低沉嗓音的局外人，過去並不為朝日新聞服務，而是在一個較小的地區報紙展現調查報導的本領而被相中。 依光隆明一反傳統的在記者室門上貼了一個標語：「不做政府看門狗」（Datsu Pochi Sengen或No More Pooches Proclamation）。依光隆明對外宣稱，他的記者不再是新聞俱樂部的寵物，未來將實踐真正的新聞監督。

　
The new section gave reporters a broad mandate to range across the Asahi’s rigid internal silos in search of topics, while also holding to higher journalistic standards, such as requiring using the names of people quoted in stories instead of the pseudonyms common in Japanese journalism.

　
　　新團隊給了記者一個使命，不僅要革新朝日僵硬的內部文化，以找尋報導主題，同時也抱有更高的新聞標準，像是要求在報導中引用受訪者的真名，而不是日本新聞中常見的假名。

　
The Investigative Reporting Section proved an instant success, winning Japan’s top journalism award two years in a row for its exposure of official coverups and shoddy decontamination work around the nuclear plant, which was crippled when a huge earthquake and tsunami knocked out vital cooling systems. The section’s feistier journalism offered hope of attracting younger readers at a time when the 7 million-reader Asahi and Japan’s other national dailies, the world’s largest newspapers by circulation, were starting to feel the pinch from declining sales.

　
　　這個調查報導團隊，因為揭露了官方掩蓋的黑心去污工程，導致核電廠遭遇地震和海嘯時，冷卻系統卻失去功用的真相，連續兩年贏得日本新聞獎肯定。正當擁有700萬讀者的朝日新聞和日本的其他日報，在這個有著世界上最大的報紙流通量的國家，為了銷售量下滑而感到痛苦時，如此充滿活力的新聞改革讓年輕讀者看到希望。

　
“The Asahi Shimbun believes such investigative reporting is indispensable,” the newspaper’s president at the time, Tadakazu Kimura, declared in an annual report in 2012. The new investigative section “does not rely on information obtained from press clubs, but rather conducts its own steadfast investigations that require real determination.”

　
　　「朝日新聞認為，這種調查報導是不可或缺的」，當時的報社社長木村伊量在2012年的年度報告中表示。新的團隊「不依賴記者俱樂部獲得的消息，而是以真正的決心來實行堅定的新聞調查。」

　
That is why it was all the more jarring when, just two years later, the Asahi abruptly retreated from this foray into watchdog reporting. In September 2014, the newspaper retracted the story it had published in May about workers fleeing the Fukushima plant against orders, punishing reporters and editors responsible for the story, slashing the size of the new section’s staff and forcing the resignation of Kimura, who had supported the investigative push.

　
　　這也是它為何令人不安的原因。僅僅兩年的時間，朝日突然退出了，又回到政府看門狗的角色。 2014年9月，報紙收回了5月份關於工人違反命令逃離核電廠的報導，懲處了與報導相關的記者和編輯，同時削減了新團隊的規模，並迫使當初支持調查報導木村伊量辭職。

　
A newspaper-appointed committee of outside experts later declared that the article, which the Asahi had trumpeted as a historic scoop, was flawed because journalists had demonstrated “an excessive sense of mission that they ‘must monitor authority.’”

While the section was not closed down altogether, its output of major investigative articles dropped sharply as the remaining journalists were barred from writing about Fukushima.

　
　　一家報紙指定的外部委員會指出，這篇被朝日新聞視為有重大意義的報導，因為記者必須監督權威而表現出「過度的使命感」，所以仍有許多缺陷。雖然這個部門沒有完全被關閉，但因為剩下的記者被禁止報導福島核災的新聞，以致於調查報導的產出急劇的下降。 

　
Emasculating the Asahi　

朝日神話不再

 
The abrupt about-face by the Asahi, a 137-year-old newspaper with 2,400 journalists that has been postwar Japan’s liberal media flagship, was was an early victory for the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which had sought to silence critical voices as it moved to roll back Japan’s postwar pacifism, and restart its nuclear industry.
　

　　朝日新聞擁有137年的歷史，擁有2,400名記者，是戰後日本自由派媒體的代表，如此突然的轉變，被視為首相安倍晉三的一個早期勝利，因為安倍政府試圖讓許多批判的聲音消失，重塑日本戰後的和平主義，和重啟核能工業的發展。

　
“In Japanese journalism, scoops usually just mean learning from the ministry officials today what they intend to do tomorrow,” said Makoto Watanabe, a former reporter in the section who quit the Asahi in March because he felt blocked from doing investigative reporting. “We came up with different scoops that were unwelcome in the Prime Minister’s Office.”

　
　　「以日本新聞業來說，獨家新聞通常只意味著，從政府官員口中得知明天打算做什麼」，因為感覺到被禁止進行調查報導，而在3月離開朝日新聞的記者渡邊誠這麼說。「我們有許多不同的獨家新聞，但在首相辦公室是不受歡迎的。」

 
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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