TV Asahi’s Toru Tamagawa’s declaration of restarting the field was “manly” or “staged”?

I have been commenting on a variety of news from the studio, but I thought it was time to go back to the basics of visiting the scene, conducting interviews, confirming facts, and reporting them.

On October 19, Toru Tamagawa, a company employee who had been under house arrest, returned to the “Shinichi Hatori Morning Show,” a TV Asahi program hosted by freelance announcer Shinichi Hatori. Tamagawa revealed that he will graduate from being a commentator and start over as a field anchor.

During the 10 days of my house arrest, I kept thinking about the importance of fact-checking and the weight of responsibility in speaking out on TV. And I realized that fact-checking is the foundation of news reporting, and that I should go back to that starting point.”

Mr. Tamagawa appeared not in the studio, but in the so-called “sub-control room,” where production staff monitors the studio during on-air broadcasts. It was as if he was literally “graduating from being a commentator.

The sub room was still a mess, and the files were placed at the foot of the floor, creating a bleak atmosphere. Instead of a glamorous studio with lights and cameras, the staff was standing erect and determined from where they normally worked.

He felt that he was already a member of the behind-the-scenes team, and he was determined to stick to his on-the-spot approach. However, what triggered Tamagawa’s house arrest was when former Prime Minister Kan gave a speech at former Prime Minister Abe’s state funeral, in which he said, “I have also been a director on the production side. Naturally, Dentsu is involved in this. Given this, it is tempting to speculate that this statement of determination may also be a “staged” attempt to start over from a front-line perspective.

While Mr. Tamagawa was under house arrest, there was a common theory among the media that he would be dropped from the board. Since Mr. Tamagawa is 59 years old and will soon reach retirement age, it was widely believed that he would not return to the stage again.

Many people may have been surprised to hear of his decision to “start over from the front lines. However, there was another surprise within the TV industry.

Mr. Tamagawa is 59 years old, and almost all of them, including the head of the news bureau, are his junior. Moreover, for better or worse, he was instrumental in raising the program’s profile and making it a highly rated program.

He could have been selfish and moved somewhere else until retirement and quietly retired, but I felt a certain “manliness” in his unprecedented choice to start over from the field. Normally, pride would get in the way. I don’t think it was a “fake” stunt to have Mr. Tamagawa, who is the face of TV Asahi, apologize as if he had been publicly executed,” said a TV station news staff member.

However, if Mr. Tamagawa waits for the public heat to die down and then returns to being a commentator in the studio, not only Tamagawa but also TV Asahi will be “slammed” by the public. Is Mr. Tamagawa’s seriousness genuine, or is it just a stunt?