Ten-Hour Press Conference of Fuji Television

Fuji Television, one of the major five private key broadcasting stations in Tokyo, held a press conference on January 27thand announced that its chairman and president resigned. After a weekly magazine reported a sex scandal between a pop star and female employee of Fuji, the broadcasting firm has been criticized of its handlings of the scandal. The press conference lasted for ten hours with endless questions hurled to the managers of Fuji.

Weekly Bunshun and other magazines reported in December that the female employee of Fuji had a trouble with a pop star, Masahiro Nakai, in a one-on-one dinner meeting, which had once been planned with multiple participants. Fuji has been criticized as not properly dealing with the complaint of the woman and as kept on using Nakai for its program.

 

Although Bunshun indicated that the woman was introduced to the dinner meeting by her superior in Fuji, it corrected the report that the woman was invited by Nakai. Fuji has been denying the involvement of her superior.

 

In the first press conference on January 17th, it was recognized that the president of Fuji Television, Koichi Minato, did not thoroughly explain about the scandal and management of Fuji. Fuji limited the journalists to only major news organizations and prohibited to record live video of the conference, inviting broad criticism on its handling of the conference.

 

In the second conference on January 27th, Fuji announced resignation of Minato and the chairman Shuji Kano. They explained that they failed in taking care of the woman even after she appealed her mental uneasiness and apologized about inappropriate setting of the previous press conference. They also thought that it was insufficient for them not to have detailed hearing from Nakai and used him as a personality in TV programs of Fuji.

 

Fuji managers insisted on their lack of a sense of human rights in dealing with the appeal of the woman. They also explained that they did not reveal the issue to protect privacy of the woman. One of the reasons of companies stopping their commercial messages for Fuji programs after the first press conference was skepticism on Fuji’s recognition on human rights. Insistence on human rights may be a demonstration of implementing human rights.

 

The second press conference began on 4 p.m. and finished past 2 a.m. of the next day. The journalists persistently asked why the long-time managing leader, Hisashi Hieda, did not appear to the conference. Although Fuji managers explained that Hieda was not there because he knew nothing about the case, the journalists were not satisfied with the reasoning, believing his great influence on Fuji as a whole.

 

Fuji has not fully explained the facts of the suffering of the woman. Third-party committee is going to investigate it and make a report in March. It is concerned that walking away of sponsors from TV programs of Fuji may affect financial management of the broadcaster.

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