Video News Network Pioneers Internet TV in Japan
Japan Media Review 2003-5-22
By Jane Ellen Stevens
Posted: 2003-05-22
Video News Network Pioneers Internet TV in Japan
Internet pioneer Teddy Jimbo's Video News Network gives him the freedom to cover controversial topics the mainstream press ignores, but is anybody listening? Jimbo spends thousands a month to keep his Internet TV station running, but VNN's alternative programming has attracted just 4,000 subscribers.
Japanese journalist Teddy Jimbo was interviewing residents of a refugee camp in Angola when the idea first hit him: He was doing journalism all wrong. He had to find a better way.
At the end of an interview with a village chief who had fled his war-torn home, Jimbo asked the usual end-of-discussion question: "Is there anything you'd like our viewers to know?"
The chief looked him in the eye and said, "I want your people to be responsible for the actions of your government."
The comment rattled Jimbo and changed the course of his career.
"The chief was saying if each one of us is responsible, then this shouldn't be happening. It changed my image and understanding of what an international journalist means."
High production costs make the television networks a slave to ratings, and make much news coverage superficial and sensational.
What it didn't mean was doing stories so that Japanese would send blankets and money. What it did mean, says Jimbo, was showing how Japan was part of international problems, how Japanese were electing, paying taxes and giving tools to leaders who were contributing to problems.
But doing that type of reporting in Japan, says Jimbo, is "chotto muzukashii" -- complicated. The mainstream press, controlled by five media giants that own most of the large newspapers and TV stations in Japan, shies away from bad-news stories and highly critical reporting, he says.
In Japan, the only medium where Jimbo can tell that story is the Internet, he said.
Jimbo, 41, is Japan's first Internet videojournalist. He makes his living flying to hot spots around the world and doing environmental documentaries that appear on NHK, Japan's public TV network, and political documentaries that appear on commercial networks such as TV Asahi.
Jimbo spends his freelance income on his pet project, Video News Network, a Web site where he netcasts news shows, political commentary and talk shows.
VNN netcasts respected programs that attract well-known politicians and commentators, including "World Report," a weekly news program that features mostly social journalism stories from around the world.
The site also features "Asia Hotline," a report hosted by a Japanese-speaking Chinese who's an expert on Asia and China, and "Confidential," a political show.
Although TV talk shows are the traditional purview of older reporters, Jimbo hosts "Radical Talk on Demand" with Shinji Miyadai, an outspoken and controversial sociology professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University.
"There's not much of a freelance culture in Japan, partly because traditional news organizations hold a lock on access to information and partly because young journalists don't move from organization to organization."
Video News Network has four full-time staffers and four freelance reporters who produce one news program, three talk shows, an e-mail magazine, a print magazine, a book and short video clips for cell phones.
In April 2001, VNN began charging about $4.50 a month. Today, there are 4,000 members. It's hardly a living.
In this media-saturated nation, where six major television networks are faithfully watched by 95 percent of the country's 128 million residents -- where the circulation of daily newspapers is 71 million and Web sites' page views run into the hundreds of millions every month -- VNN's squeak can barely be heard among the roar.
Creating a New Kind of Japanese Journalism
Jimbo's route to the Web was circuitous. He began as a print journalist, but developed video skills while putting together video clips of his rugby team. Later, he sold short video pieces to the BBC and Japanese television stations. By 1996, he was selling short segments to Japanese television. Before and after the segments, he appeared on camera with the news anchor. It was a new style for Japanese journalism.
Jimbo created a news niche mostly ignored by Japan's television networks, which don't have a tradition of documentary programs that focus on what he calls "social journalism." High production costs make the television networks a "slave to ratings," says Jimbo, and make much news coverage superficial and sensational.
Jimbo focuses on environmental and international reporting. He has done stories on Japanese companies illegally cutting forests, on islanders in the South Pacific leaving their homes in the face of higher sea levels caused by global warming, on the Kobe earthquake, the Aum Shinrikyo cult, on a tidal wave in Papua New Guinea, on the Johannesburg Earth Summit and on the land mine issue.
Many of these stories appear on NHK, Japan's public broadcast network, which is government-funded. When Jimbo uncovers stories that involve government funding, such as a case in which the Japanese government bailed out banks with the use of public funds but didn't bring the bank officers to justice, his reports appear on commercial television stations, such as TV Asahi's popular "News Station."
"I can see the potential of the Web. I can?t say that it will take over conventional media (but) for sure it will be a big part of the next generation?s media."
Sitting in a tiny studio packed with cameras, tripods, lights and shelves of tape, Jimbo seems stuck between a rock and a hard place. Japan's television networks give him a lot of money, but not a lot of freedom. The Web gives him freedom, but not a lot of money. "If Internet TV will somehow grow into a type of medium where I can maintain the freedom offered a journalist and be able to finance it, it would be great," he says.
There was a moment when Jimbo thought his dream had a chance. He had founded Video News Network as part of the videojournalism movement that began in the United States. Michael Rosenblum, a former CBS reporter stationed in the Middle East, had started Video News International and was training scores of print reporters, photographers and TV producers to become independent videojournalists.
In 1996, satellite TV came to Japan. Many people, including Jimbo, thought it would break the hold that traditional news organizations had on the country. In 1997, Jimbo's VNN joined forces with CNBC to obtain one channel on SkyPerfect, a satellite TV service. They operated jointly for two years, but SkyPerfect didn't get enough customers. Jimbo and CNBC merged with Nikkei (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a large financial news organization), which had an economic channel.
VNN was getting lost among the giants and, more importantly, found little opportunity to do its type of storytelling. Jimbo decided to sell his spot in the satellite channel and launch his Web site.
VNN faces challenges unique to the culture of Japanese journalism. The site has trouble charging users because though most Japanese have credit cards, they don't use them routinely. If they can't pay for something with cash, Japanese aren't likely to buy it. Jimbo says he can't afford to set up a billing system that mails invoices to subscribers.
Second is access to information. The media oligarchy here has a lock on news sources through the restrictive press clubs that bar anyone who doesn't represent Japan's 16 top newspapers and TV stations from attending press conferences.
Another problem is media literacy, says Jimbo. "Because we don't have a multichannel culture, we haven't developed a taste for other channels," he explains.
The TV news culture, oriented to young girls in short skirts delivering the news, is also a barrier. "People ask me why I don't have a good-looking young lady on the show," says Jimbo. "I tell them that's entertainment, not news."
There's not much of a freelance culture in Japan, partly because traditional news organizations hold a lock on access to information and partly because young journalists don't move from organization to organization once they graduate from college and snag a job.
"It's unthinkable to leave and start something like this," says Jimbo. "All the talent is sucked into an internal system where the problems are integral part of the system and journalists become defenders of the system rather than reformers."
Still, he sees cracks in the system. The younger generation of journalists is beginning to want something different, he says. "I get 200 to 300 resumes every year from people who want to work for me."
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to Video News Network's financial success is Teddy Jimbo himself. Even though Jimbo is Japanese, he's considered an outsider. He was born and raised in Japan, but spent several years with his family in New York City, where his father taught at Columbia University's Teachers College.
Jimbo went to college in Japan, but earned a master's in journalism at Columbia University. He's never worked for a Japanese news organization; instead, his resume is filled with American and Canadian companies: the Christian Science Monitor, Associated Press, the Globe and Mail and Newsday.
Jimbo has fans throughout the journalism community. "I admire Mr. Jimbo," says Yomiuri Shimbun's Tadashi Matsui, a reporter who did a story about the maverick journalist. "He is the only man who established a company for videojournalists and is really independent. It is amazing! I wish I could make programs on our channel as he is, but in a big company like Yomiuri Shimbun, there are many barriers to doing so."
Jimbo concedes his venture -- like most Internet news sites -- is losing money and attracts a woefully tiny audience.
Since videonews.com launched in 1999, Jimbo says he has spent about $340,000 keeping it going. The site costs about $170,000 a year to run; revenues now cover about 85 percent of those expenses, Jimbo said. Income is increasing by about 5 percent a month, and Jimbo predicts the site will become profitable in about six months.
"It no longer requires heavy financial support ... although I still need to put in a few thousand yen a month" to cover costs, he says.
Though VNN struggles mightily for just a sliver of a percentage of the market share, Jimbo believes Internet news stations like his will eventually find a market here.
"I can see the potential of the Web," he says. "I can't say that it will take over conventional media. It may affect their culture and something different may come out of it. For sure it will be a big part of the next generation's media."
July 15, 2003
