Photo/Illutration Hanako Yasuho, second from left, a senior director at Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK), and other company officials apologize at a Sept. 2 news conference. (Pool)

Japan’s grueling work culture is again under the spotlight after the death of a journalist at Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) due to overwork.

The man, who was in his 40s, died from what is termed “karoshi” in October 2019, according to NHK officials at a Sept. 2 news conference. He headed a team of reporters covering the Tokyo metropolitan government.

A younger reporter who worked in the same beat died from karoshi in 2013, prompting the public broadcaster to implement measures intended to provide counseling for those found to be putting in excessive overtime hours. But those steps failed to prevent the second death.

“We are gravely accepting the certification of a labor accident at the same workplace,” Hanako Yasuho, a senior director at NHK, said at the news conference. “While we tried to take various measures, clearly they were insufficient.”

The Shibuya Labor Standard Inspection Office in Tokyo certified in August that the male reporter’s death was work-related.

NHK officials said that in the five months before his death, the reporter put in overtime in excess of the threshold for determining karoshi. The threshold is either 100 hours overtime a month or 80 hours overtime on average over the previous two to six months.

The man was found dead at home by family members.

In the month before his death, the man clocked up about 74 hours of overtime, but the five-month average came to 92 hours.

Toshio Horibe, an NHK official, explained that the reporter was busy covering the preparations for the Tokyo Olympics, the Upper House election and damage to the Tokyo metropolitan area from a typhoon.

In 2013, Miwa Sado, a 31-year-old reporter also covering the Tokyo metropolitan government, died of congestive heart failure and the same labor standard office certified it as karoshi.

But NHK did not announce the death until four years later. Since 2017, NHK has increased the number of reporters covering the Tokyo metropolitan government and implemented rules regarding overtime and consultations with doctors.

The rules obliged the male reporter to see a doctor, but he never did.

He was not alone. Only 4 percent of those working at NHK’s broadcasting center in Shibuya who were urged to see a doctor due to long work hours actually did so. The low figure led the labor standard office to call on NHK to improve the situation.

The bereaved family of the male reporter issued a statement through their lawyer urging NHK to revise its corporate culture to prevent a recurrence.

Sado’s father, Mamoru, said it appeared NHK learned nothing from his daughter’s death.

Hiroshi Kawahito, a lawyer who has handled many karoshi cases, said, “While the ages of the reporters are different, there are similarities in their situations.”

Noting that they were both deeply involved in election coverage prior to their deaths, Kawahito asserted that “the same thing happened because no structural analysis was conducted.”

Overwork has long been an issue for those working in broadcasting, newspapers, advertising and other arms of the media industry.

In 2015, rookie employee Matsuri Takahashi, 24, committed suicide after finding herself unable to cope with the grueling work hours at advertising giant Dentsu Inc.

The media industry was included in 2018 as one in which further studies should be conducted for individual karoshi cases.

The same year, a survey by the labor ministry of 4,280 workers in the media industry found 54.3 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed to a question asking if they worked long hours.

(This article was written by Ayano Nakazawa, Hiroki Hashimoto and Takehiko Sawaji, a senior staff writer.)

 

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