[Feature: Changing Media and Journalism] Journalism from the Perspective of Disaster-Stricken Areas: In the Age of Data and Networks

2018/06/26

Image: A row of people sitting in the "non-photography area" at the Ishinomaki City "dissertation hearing on Earthquake Ruins," where the treatment of the Okawa Elementary School building was discussed (rear right side facing the stage, taken by Nakajima at Ishinomaki Municipal Iinogawa Junior High School Gymnasium on February 13, 2016).

It is said that we are in an era of "distrust in media." Terms like "post-truth," "fake news," and "masugomi" (a derogatory term for mass media) are flying around, and newspaper and television reporting are being viewed with suspicion. What can I do as a single reporter in such a situation? With these thoughts in mind, I am currently enrolled in graduate school to research communication regarding reconstruction while remaining at the Mainichi Shimbun as a reporter. I have worked as a newspaper reporter for over 20 years, and since 2002, I have been involved in media coverage and digital dissemination in the Arts and Culture Department and the Digital Media Bureau. Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, I have continued participant observation in the Okawa district of Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, recording and analyzing the words, actions, and relationships of various entities involved in reconstruction over time. Here, through examples from two fields—digital and the disaster-stricken areas—I would like to describe the challenges and hopes for journalism as I see them at this point.

On New Year's Day 2007, I rushed back to Tokyo from a trip due to a "flaming" incident on a blog for which I served as the administrator. The blog belonged to the reporting team for the New Year's project "Net Kunrin" (The Reign of the Net), which had started that day and was hosted within the Mainichi Shimbun's reader site, "MaiMai Club." Regarding an article published on the front page that day titled "Internet Bulletin Boards Obstructed Fundraising for Children with Intractable Diseases," negative comments began appearing around noon. By evening, a comment arrived from Mr. G, who had been interviewed for the story, stating, "The content of what I said was used arbitrarily."

"MaiMai Club" allowed users to post if they registered certain personal information to become members, and comments were approved according to regulations (1. No slander against specific individuals, 2. No excessively long posts, 3. No posts unrelated to the article). In addition to Mr. G's comment, a flood of comments like "masugomi" and "impression manipulation" arrived. Some were surprised that "criticism of the mass media can be written on a newspaper company's site," but as the administrator, I believed that responding according to the regulations was the starting point for building trust with readers.

By January 24, 1,358 comments had been posted, and 1,146 (84%) were approved. The fact that the person interviewed complained that their "true intentions were not conveyed," and that a significant number of people who registered their personal information pointed out that "newspapers may not be telling the truth," "reporters are under-studied despite their superior position," and "news selection and article development are arbitrary," were issues that I felt the newspaper company should face head-on.

"MaiMai Club" was established in 2005 as the first interactive site by a national newspaper. The background behind my desire to create such a site during the planning phase was the international campaign "Jubilee 2000" in the 1990s and the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

"Jubilee 2000" was a movement to cancel the aid debts of heavily indebted poor countries that had ballooned under the Cold War structure and became effectively unpayable by the end of the 20th century. At the 1999 Cologne Summit, tens of thousands of people who had called out to each other over the internet surrounded the venue with signatures from 17.2 million people in 160 countries, achieving a debt reduction of $70 billion. The activity also expanded to Japan ahead of the Kyushu-Okinawa Summit the following year. A representative from an international NGO visited Japan and distributed materials explaining, with detailed data, the current situation where debt was hindering the endogenous development of African nations. Working in the Economic Department covering the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), I learned that there was a worldview different from the one seen from Kasumigaseki. Hearing that international NGOs had highly specialized staff working around the world, with systems to aggregate and analyze information sent from the field to influence international politics, I intuitively felt the arrival of the age of data and networks.

In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, I participated in the editing of "Hisen" (Non-War), published with musician Ryuichi Sakamoto at the center. Amidst the overwhelming coverage by the U.S. media, we searched for and collected "voices that were not that" from websites around the world. Through these activities, I developed a strong desire to be involved in the creation and maintenance of a public space where anyone can publish diverse opinions to guarantee democracy, as someone working in the media. Hoping to collaborate with diverse networks, listen to the voices of those involved, and obtain data and new perspectives that existing reporting networks could not fully cover, I planned "MaiMai Club" in 2005 and the reader-participation daily newspaper "Mainichi RT" linked with Twitter in 2010, handling the launch work and initial Twitter account operations.

When the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred in 2011, various discourses flew about. There were posts that differed from the facts and criticisms that "the media is not telling the truth." Are newspapers conveying the reality of the disaster? Are they being helpful to the victims? Walking through the disaster-stricken areas with these thoughts, I found a reality where multiple "facts" were intertwined, making it difficult to discern the "truth." I also saw cases where incomplete information led to suspicion and made the situation more complex. When I thought about what I could do, I felt it was to face each "fact" and record and convey it over the long term. At that time, I felt that further study was necessary to avoid falling into self-righteousness, so I went on to graduate school.

The Okawa district of Ishinomaki City, which I chose as my research subject, is an area composed of nine settlements in the northern part of Ishinomaki City at the mouth of the Shin-Kitakami River. The pre-disaster population was 2,489, of whom 418 died or went missing in the earthquake. Almost the entire area of the four settlements near the river mouth was designated as a disaster hazard zone (uninhabitable), and about 400 households were forced to move to developed land about 15 km inland. At Ishinomaki Municipal Okawa Elementary School, located about 4 km from the river mouth, 84 children and staff lost their lives, and 23 of the bereaved families have filed a lawsuit against the prefecture and the city.

I had visited this area in 2004 for a serialized report. I felt a sense of empathy for the beauty of the inland waters of Nagatsura-ura, surrounded by broad-leaved forests, and for the people living rooted in nature and trying to convey the charm of the region. I also had a desire to stay close to the process of how the people who suffered catastrophic damage here would cultivate networks with the community and supporters to achieve reconstruction.

Looking back at the reporting from that perspective, it was hard to say that sufficient information was provided for the reconstruction of lives at each stage. While newspapers and television in 2011 conveyed the broad policies of reconstruction and political movements, the information required on the ground was "translated" to a living level: what would happen to the land of their homes, which was more advantageous between moving into disaster public housing or rebuilding on their own, when electricity and water would be restored, and so on. From 2012 onwards, reports that made the speed of "reconstruction" an issue, such as "XX completed" or "Delay in XX plan," increased. Meanwhile, on the ground, a plan for an 8.4-meter-high seawall was explained, and fishermen concerned about the impact on fishing and the landscape were looking for ways to change the plan. What was needed was time and information to think about their future lives and the state of the community.

Voices of distrust in the media grew louder in the Okawa district between 2014 and 2015, during the debate over the preservation or demolition of the Okawa Elementary School building, which had been catastrophically damaged by the tsunami.

In an attempt to secure a budget during the reconstruction period set by the government, city officials sounded out the resident organization "Okawa District Reconstruction Council" on a policy for preserving the school building. At that time, they presented three options: "Demolish the building and view images via AR (Augmented Reality)," "Leave some facilities," and "Leave all facilities." Bereaved families who saw this material expressed their displeasure, saying, "The city is trying to demolish the school building to destroy evidence," and "Viewing images on a smartphone is like an amusement park." Weekly magazines reported these words with embellishments as the "Okawa Elementary School Theme Park Plan," causing unrest in the community.

Looking at the minutes of the meetings held in each settlement during this period, opinions on "demolition" and "preservation" were almost evenly split. In the Kamaya settlement, which lost nearly 40% of its pre-disaster population, there were many opinions such as "I don't want to see the school building that brings back sad memories." While the treatment of the school building was being discussed, young graduates of Okawa Elementary School raised their voices saying "Save the school," and newspapers and television reported this extensively.

Around this time, receiving points from residents that "the media is biased," I searched for articles from various companies that included comments from the Okawa Elementary bereaved families up to the end of 2015 and tallied who was reported and how many times. Out of 456 articles, 93% of the articles adopted comments from the 20 most frequent individuals. On a family basis, the top four families accounted for 56% of all articles; all four families were in favor of preserving the school building, and three families were plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

At a dissertation hearing held by Ishinomaki City on February 13, 2016, regarding the treatment of the Okawa Elementary school building, the back three rows on the right side of the gymnasium were designated as a no-photography area out of consideration for residents who wanted to avoid cameras. More than half of the residents who visited concentrated in this area, and city officials responded by bringing out auxiliary chairs. While many media outlets covered the event, the handling of the "voiceless voices" of people who did not wish to be interviewed emerged as a challenge.

In 2016, amidst this situation, a movement occurred. Residents who wanted to "preserve the memories of the region" gathered, and the "Okawa District 'Town of Memories' Model Restoration Project" began, reproducing the disaster-stricken settlements in diorama models. In collaboration with a network of architecture students centered on the Osamu Tsukihashi Laboratory at Kobe University, workshops were held for one week each in November 2016, March 2017, and August 2017. Participants colored and wrote memories on white models that reproduced the pre-disaster area at a scale of 1/500. Through interviews by 43 students from four universities, a 39-square-meter model was completed, and 2,700 memory testimonies were recorded.

The characteristic of this project is that it was realized through a network of many residents, external supporters, and experts. The executive committee's secretariat, the General Incorporated Association Nagatsura-ura Umi-hito, was established in 2013 as a non-profit organization aiming for regional revitalization after local fishermen discussed the future of the beach following the seawall issue. In the background is the knowledge of a network of architects working to support town planning in disaster-stricken areas. Resident participation was called for by people who serve as hubs for local networks, such as the "Okawa District Reconstruction Council," neighborhood association heads, chief representatives of temple parishioners, and class reunion organizers. Young people who had campaigned to "save the school building" also joined, taking charge of public relations using social media.

Simultaneously with the model, the "Town of Memories Archive" (Town of Memories Archive: Ishinomaki City Okawa District), which plots testimony data on a digital map, was created in collaboration with Hidenori Watanabe, an Associate Professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University (now a Professor at the University of Tokyo Graduate School). In Professor Watanabe's previous project, the "Hiroshima Archive," local high school students collected data through repeated interviews. A movement is now emerging in the Okawa district to follow this example by collecting and adding photographic materials and memory testimonies. If realized, it has the potential to grow as a medium for conveying regional memories originating from residents.

Based on these cases, when reconsidering journalism in the digital age, the basics such as "conveying the truth" and "conveying diverse information that supports democracy" have not changed. Rather, in a situation where even the statements of politicians and official documents are doubted for their authenticity, I have a strong feeling that the role is increasing further. However, if we ask whether media such as newspapers and television are fully fulfilling that role, I think the case of the Okawa district offers two reflections.

One is the reflection on whether information was being sent according to the internal logic and customs of news organizations regardless of local needs, as Professor Hiroshi Oishi of Keio University criticized as "political situation reporting" (2013, "Political Situation Reporting and Policy Reporting: Focusing on '3.11 Disaster Reporting'" in Media & Communication No. 63, Institute for Journalism, Media & Communication Studies). The other is the reflection on whether we were cutting out and conveying "facts" that fit our own storylines, as residents pointed out as "bias."

There are various "facts" in the Okawa district. Above all, there is the heavy fact of the deaths of 74 children under school supervision. At the same time, there is the fact that 418 residents lost their lives. It is a fact that there are bereaved families who want to clarify the responsibility of the administration, and it is also a fact that there are people who want to convey the lessons of the earthquake and memories of their beloved "hometown." Previous research on disaster reporting has pointed out that "reporting on by mass media has a narrative structure of [Ordeal] → [Sadness/Suffering] → [Hope] → [Regeneration/New Departure]" (Hideki Endo, 1999, "The 'Narrative' Structure of Mass Media regarding the Category of " in Sociology of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Vol. 1, Showado). In the reporting on the Okawa district, cases were seen where interviews concentrated on minors with a "story," or where "facts" that did not fit the "story" were discarded.

On the other hand, I think challenges and hopes unique to the present have also become visible, now that social media has lowered the threshold for information dissemination and digital technology is enabling more diverse expressions.

Social media facilitates connections between individuals. Disaster victims sometimes gain connections with celebrities. The fact that Mrs. Akie Abe frequently visits the Okawa district is also due to the creation of interactions with bereaved families on Facebook. While there are good aspects, social media has a function to pick up and spread only a single fact. As influential people disseminate specific "facts" and these are shared among people with the same orientation, there is a tendency for only one side of things to be noticed and symbolized. After the Sendai High Court ruling on April 26, some politicians tweeted, replacing the issue with the responsibility of former Vice Minister Kihei Maekawa, who was a senior official at the Ministry of Education at the time, and numerous retweets were made. Such political use of "symbols" can also occur.

In a flood of information, what the media should do is once again face diverse facts with humility and make an effort to carefully decipher the background. Recently, there has been a movement in newspaper companies to reduce the number of reporters in the field for management reasons. Cases have also been heard where editorial executives stated in public, "Miscellaneous impressions are uploaded to Twitter" and "You can't write scoops in the field." However, "voiceless voices" cannot be picked up on social media. There is always a danger of picking up loud "facts" without looking at the background while excluding other "facts." It is fresh in our memory that there was a report that a Fukushima activist who had a dialogue with a TEPCO executive at a certain company's media event had received a large amount of money from the power industry around the same time.

Twenty years ago, I looked forward to the arrival of the age of data and networks. That feeling has not changed. I believe in the possibility of accessing "facts" that cannot be covered by existing reporting networks through collaboration with diverse networks. As seen in the model project, it has become possible for those involved to spin data themselves and connect it to society through new media expressions. Research to better read qualitative and quantitative data is also progressing in the academic world. The possibility of fact-checking organizations that judge accuracy with transparency based on standards, like "PolitiFact" in the U.S., growing in Japan has also become visible. I believe that facing "facts" carefully while standing in the field and collaborating with diverse entities is exactly what is required of journalism today.

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of writing.