Japanese news media should make greater efforts to shed light on collusive ties between politicians and bureaucrats in the wake of revelations of close relations between lawmaker Muneo Suzuki and the Foreign Ministry, members of an advisory committee to Kyodo News have said.

The committee on media and newspaper readers held its fourth meeting Saturday at Kyodo's Tokyo headquarters on recent news including the sacking of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka and the sharp decline in the public support rate for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet.

The committee consists of three intellectuals from outside organizations.

Takeshi Tsuchimoto, a former public prosecutor in the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office and a Teikyo University professor, referred to the close relations between Suzuki and the Foreign Ministry.

"A Japanese Communist Party lawmaker investigated the case and pursued it at the Diet, but news media should have made efforts to highlight these kinds of improper relations between politicians and bureaucrats," he said.

Suzuki testified Thursday at the House of Representatives Budget Committee over allegations that he pressured the Foreign Ministry to exclude two nongovernmental organizations from an international Afghan aid conference in Tokyo in late January.

During the hearing, opposition party members attacked Suzuki over the NGO issue as well as his involvement in alleged bid-rigging related to an official development assistance project.

Also at the Kyodo gathering Saturday, critic Katsuto Uchihashi urged news media to scrutinize the state of reform plans by the Cabinet in reference to the recent decline in public support.

"Some people say the decline in the support rate may hinder the reform plans, but I have strong doubts about the assumption that the plans are the right thing to do in the first place," he said.