August 9, 2020. This article examines criticism published by THEMIS concerning Governor Yuriko Koike’s COVID-19 measures, including the Tokyo Alert, infection numbers, PCR testing, Go To Travel, and her confrontation with the national government, asking where policy ended and political performance began.
Was Tokyo’s COVID-19 Response “Political Performance”?
2020-08-09
Were Tokyo’s COVID-19 measures truly being conducted solely for the benefit of its residents?
Or was political calculation and political performance also involved?
After subscribing to the monthly magazine THEMIS, I found myself considering that question again.
For years I had seen its advertisements at the bottom of newspaper pages and thought about subscribing, but because it was available only through a regular subscription I had kept putting it off.
When I saw the lineup for this particular issue, however, I decided that I had to read it and signed up for six months.
When the issue arrived, one thing struck me immediately.
For Japanese citizens who genuinely want to know the truth behind events, publications of this kind are essential.
Report what should obviously be reported.
Do not merely repeat the words of those in power.
Investigate what may lie behind them.
That is what journalism is supposed to do.
The THEMIS article was extremely critical of Governor Koike’s COVID-19 policies.
It stated:
“Even the ‘Tokyo Alert’ amounted to little more than lighting up buildings, and despite thresholds being exceeded, nothing was actually done. It was performance.”
It also quoted a reporter covering the Tokyo Metropolitan Government as saying:
“Tokyo’s coronavirus measures are, frankly speaking, a performance.”
According to the article, a reporter at the July 17 press conference even asked whether infection numbers were being intentionally increased in a way that heightened public anxiety.
Koike reportedly replied that “18 percent of patients are asymptomatic” and that although hundreds of positive cases might shock people, the numbers themselves could serve as a warning.
The article then quoted the reporter as saying:
“PCR testing used to determine positivity has an error rate of 30 percent. I sense an intention behind what she is doing.”
The issue is not merely the infection number itself.
The question is how a political leader presents that number and what impression that presentation is intended to create among citizens.
THEMIS further argued that Koike had shifted the political axis from “Tokyo versus the bureaucracy” to “Tokyo versus the Prime Minister’s Office.”
Her criticism of the national government over Go To Travel.
Her response to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga’s statement that COVID-19 was “a Tokyo problem.”
And developments surrounding LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai, who had been regarded as one of Koike’s political supporters.
The magazine interpreted these not simply as policy disagreements but as part of political pressure being applied to the Abe administration.
It went even further, stating:
“The question is when Koike will abandon the Tokyo governorship.”
It also introduced the testimony of a Tokyo government source who claimed that after her reelection Koike abruptly ended an interview after being asked whether she intended to fulfill her campaign pledges during the next four years.
The possibility that the Tokyo Olympics would be reduced in scale or cancelled.
Her political ambition to become prime minister.
For whom, then, is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government supposed to exist?
What is the purpose of its COVID-19 policy?
Surely investigating questions of this kind is precisely the responsibility of the mass media.
Simply repeating a politician’s announcements is not journalism.
Journalism acquires meaning only when it investigates the intentions and calculations that may lie behind those announcements.
Reading THEMIS once again confirmed for me that very obvious principle.
The original and definitive version of this article is published on the official website.