Photo/Illutration Hiroyuki Konishi, an Upper House member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, holds up a document he claims shows conversations between the prime minister's office and telecommunications ministry bureaucrats. (Haruna Shiromi)

An opposition lawmaker claims to possess internal documents from when Shinzo Abe was prime minister that show top officials leaning on telecommunications ministry bureaucrats to change how broadcasters are assessed on political fairness.

Hiroyuki Konishi of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan held up about 80 pages at a news conference on March 2 that show exchanges between the prime minister’s office and the ministry from November 2014 to May 2015.

The ministry has long assessed all the programming by a broadcaster in deciding if it was fair to a political party or politician.

But top aides to Abe wanted to use a single program to judge whether a broadcaster was not being fair.

“This internal document shows that a few individuals in positions of authority came up with a new interpretation of the Broadcasting Law that serves as the very foundation of Japan’s liberalism and democracy,” Konishi said.

Internal Affairs Minister Takeaki Matsumoto said at a March 3 news conference that he needs more time to confirm if the document obtained by Konishi is an official document compiled by bureaucrats in his ministry.

“It is unclear who compiled the document and how the document came to be put together,” Matsumoto said.

He said some of the officials quoted in the document were never asked to confirm the contents and that several officials said the contents did not reflect what they actually said.

Konishi claimed the documents he held contain what Abe told his aides in the prime minister’s office, along with comments made by Sanae Takaichi, who was the minister at the time, and Yosuke Isozaki, a special adviser to Abe, in meetings with telecommunications ministry officials.

A record dated March 5, 2015, describes a telephone call between one of Abe’s executive secretaries, who formerly worked at the telecommunications ministry, and a director-general in the ministry.

The executive secretary said any changes to the interpretation about political fairness should only be made after careful consideration.

Then, the official added, “The prime minister has said there are some programs that have problems in terms of political fairness and that situation should be corrected.”

The documents also show various exchanges between Isozaki and ministry officials.

“This is a matter that will be decided by me and the prime minister alone,” Isozaki told senior ministry officials in one of the meetings.

In May 2015, Takaichi said at a session of the Upper House General Affairs Committee that an assessment of whether a broadcaster was being politically fair could be based on a single program.

In February 2016, Takaichi said broadcasters could be shut down if their programs repeatedly breached the political fairness provision.

That comment led to sharp criticism from academics and those in the broadcasting industry.

When reporters asked Takaichi on March 2 about Konishi’s document, she suggested it was fabricated.

At her news conference on March 3, Takaichi did not touch upon the document and abruptly ended the session, saying she had to attend an Upper House Budget Committee session.

In February 2016, the telecommunications ministry released what it called a “supplementary explanation” that said political fairness could be judged based on a single program.

But according to Hiroyoshi Sunakawa, a professor of media studies at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, the view the government put forward in 2016 has not hurt broadcasters because telecommunications ministry officials told the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association there would be no change in how the policy is implemented.

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