While surfing for coverage of the most recent NHK scandal on commercial television, I naturally had my radar tuned for expressions of schadenfreude, especially on the wide shows, where commentators enjoy a little more freedom to be critical. But there hasn't been much gloating. Last Monday, the host of TV Asahi's "Super Morning" said, "Actually, TV Asahi isn't perfect, either."
All broadcasters have their share of scandals. As one commentator put it, the embezzlement-type improprieties that have been revealed at NHK since last July are "organizational" in nature, meaning that the perpetrators take advantage of operational practices that are easy to take advantage of.
The fraud for which NHK producer Katsumi Isono has been accused seems to be more serious than most because he was arrested on Dec. 4. According to media reports previous organizational misdemeanors within NHK were handled internally. Isono set up an outside company with a friend to carry out the fraud, and this company supposedly received scriptwriting fees from NHK, much of which was kicked back to Isono. The ease with which NHK allocates funds to outside contractors and their lack of oversight is what made the fraud easy to pull off.