In a recent report on an NHK documentary criticized for staging part of its content, a third-party organization that promotes ethical standards in broadcasting said the public broadcaster committed a "serious violation of broadcasting ethics." NHK and other broadcasters need to take the judgment seriously and disavow any behavior that undermines the trust of viewers. At the same time, the panel severely lashed out at the Abe administration and the Liberal Democratic Party for taking NHK to task over the issue, expressing a sense of crisis that those in power are threatening freedom of broadcasting. Freedom of the press is a pillar of democracy. The administration and the LDP should refrain from trying to control the media.

The program "Close-up Gendai," aired in May 2014, featured scams in which brokers collude with Buddhist temples and turn people with multiple debts into monks through a brief ritual. These "instant monks" take advantage of a system under which monks can easily change their given name in their family register. With a new name, they can take out new housing loans. Meanwhile, the brokers receive a fee from these "instant monks" for the service.

The program included a scene showing a meeting between a broker and a man with multiple debts. But the person appearing as the broker said in a weekly magazine published in March that he had been told by NHK to "act" the part. The Broadcasting Ethics and Program Improvement Organization (BPO) interviewed 11 NHK staffers, as well as the "broker" and the debtor, and its conclusion is a harsh verdict against the broadcaster. Although the scene gave the impression that the debtor happened to come to the broker's office for the first time while NHK was interviewing the broker, it turned out that the two men had known each other for years. The reporter for the program had also known them both for some time, and the location of the encounter had been prepared by the debtor with the reporter's knowledge.