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The Press Club System

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Press club is a group of big news organizations such as national daily newspaper and key TV stations that cover stories at the government offices and industries. They have special powers that they get to get information first handed. They also get to attend press briefings because it is their privilege to do that. They are also given space in government and industry buildings like in the ministries, polices and local government. It is quite difficult to become a member of them if you do not have a good relationship with the member inside because you have to be recommended by at least two press club member organizations to be considered for membership at the general assembly of the press club. When a member breaks the press club’s rules, for example, a member writes a story totally different from the meeting with the members and government officials, the member of the organization might be temporarily kicked out from the organization. Everything has their own advantages and disadvantages. It seems that the disadvantages of the press club are more. First, the press club allows specific companies or broadcasting company to have the monopoly on reporting, it is to make it easier to manipulate the information they get from the main source. Smaller media companies, free lance journalists and foreign press are blocked frequently from joining the press club which only exists in Japan. These causes press clubs receive a lot of bad criticism in Japan and overseas because of their lack of openness to the outside. This is a very dangerous situation to the society. It is because if the press club chose to cover up the story from the mass, for example about the infamous nuclear plant in Fukushima, media cover up most of the seriousness of the situation. Japanese does not know if the nuclear plant had really been calmed down. The mass have the right to know what is really happening in reality. Next, there is a system in how reporters get their s

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