BenUriel comments

Posted in: Discord erupts at FCCJ over news agency accreditation See in context

SUVENDRINI KAKUCHI NEW FCCJ PRESIDENT

The following are strictly my own views and do not reflect (necessarily) the views of Ms. Kakuchi, various Board members, the plaintiffs in the ongoing FCCJ staff termination lawsuit or Mr. Schreffler (since the disaffected seem insistent at involving him in everything whether he is involved or not - that sort of hit and run scapegoating and scaremongering have always been their most effective cards). They others I mentioned above are all quite capable of expressing their own views of course and readers should assume that at some point they will do so and not assume out of hand a connection with what I am saying below.

Three months into the new FCCJ board of directors there was a surprising change in government on Thursday (24 September). The FCCJ Board of directors voted under the new rules (given us by the heretofore ruling faction when the FCCJ was taken Koeki last year) to remove Mr. Sims from the Presidency and replace him with 2nd Vice President Suvendrini Kakuchi. The core of the difference leading to the vote appears to be that the Board Members voting for Kakuchi felt that Mr. Sims was not sufficiently responsive to concerns over transparency and failures in governance. Neither the Board Members supporting Ms Kakuchi nor Mr. Sims have yet made more than a cursory statement.

On the contrary. on some of the social networks there has been a lot of angry - and in some cases quite possibly defamatory - discussion by the disaffected of how the change was engineered by such people as the "evil clique" that had sued the FCCJ over massive illegal staff firings three years ago or by the ever popular Roger Schreffler. (In fact neither the plaintiffs nor Mr. Schreffler saw the move coming, were left scrambling, and it appears to have been a decision based entirely on the concerns and considerations of Board Members)

I will not sit in judgment of the main players in this drama here - except to note that the misguided failure of governance in the preceding board and a desire on the part of many -on the old board and off- to defend that at any cost have led to hugely imprudent decisions and created a relatively explosive situation at the FCCJ. I rather think the faction that lost had other plans for the day -none of them very nice for the ultimately successful opposition- but that faction has been so used for so many years to having its way it simply was not prepared for the possibility of a principled concerted successful action against it.

And, sadly, I do think it was regrettable Mr. Sims had to be involved in this train wreck, yet it was probably necessary -certainly something was- to make it clear that that the poor governance and financial reporting and transparency situations would no longer be tolerated. The disaffected and the mongers of rumours and lies on the social media should bear in mind, talk is cheap: proof is a serious matter easily susceptible to misjudgment by amateurs and poseurs, and defamation is one of the lowest places people who would have others believe they have something positive to do with the fourth estate can go. Let us ALL tread more carefully there. For the record I categorically deny whatever the disaffected are saying (I am not sure of all of It but I doubt, knowing the character and intelligence of those involved, journalists and wannabes alike, I can go far wrong ethically or otherwise with a sweeping blanket denial).

For reference, Ms. Kakuchi was the second highest vote getter in the recent election following only Mr. Langan who supported her in the recent action. Ms. Corbet, the secretary was third and Mr. Sims was 4th. There was a 15 vote gap out of 120 votes between Ms Kakuchi and Mr. Sims.*

I regard Mr. Sims as a qualified journalist who did in his own way try to come to terms with the problems of the FCCJ. There is always a certain amount of regret at things like these but I think whether it was the best move or not if the opposition had done nothing things would have quickly become much much worse. We were in a situation analogous to the Seitaigo government of a little more than a century past and a little to the West. Mr. Sims was in the wrong place and the wrong time, picked the wrong horse and stuck with it.

Politics is a rough and unforgiving game. And it is not always the most deserving that feel the lash the most keenly. Don't we in the (former) opposition know it. Many of the scattered forces of the (at that time) opposition have repeatedly been made to feel that same lash, quite unfairly applied at the hands of Mr. Sims erstwhile allies. We sympathize. I hope Mr. Sims will stay with the FCCJ, focus on journalism and his continuing Board duties and one day, when the time is right, make the attempt again. All one has to do is be a solid journalist and I suspect that if good governance can be restored, honors and positions will be there for the taking. There are in the FCCJ so few solid genuine working journalists or foreign correspondents left who are not in some degree retired.

1) Peter Langan: 125

2) Suvendrini Kakuchi: 120

3) Mary Corbett: 115 (prof. assoc)

4) James Simms: 105

5) Fukunaga: 98

6) Milt Isa: 97 (assoc)

7) Bob Whiting: 95

8) Otsuka: 94 (assoc)

9) Imad Ajimi: 85

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Posted in: Discord erupts at FCCJ over news agency accreditation See in context

You all have been suggesting that there are seats unfilled. In actuality the Board consists of 6 regular directors and one alternate and 3 associate directors and one alternate. Three Regular Members and one associate failed to obtain any position.

The present president appears to favor the old Board. The other officers except for the treasurer are not affiliated with the old Board.

There were two by-laws changes sought and obtained by the membership

1, Regular Member candidates must demonstrate their affiliation to the satisfaction of the membership committee before being allowed to run for office.

Whereas before, the FCCJ board blocked disclosure of all information other than basic financials (which are in any case required to be disclosed by Public Interest Association law) and allowed only Regular Members to see such FCCJ information and then only when they had 32 signatures of other Regular members, the resolution that was passed made all non-private FCCJ information open to any FCCJ member, associate, professional associate or regular, without any signatures. The old Board, while professing "transparency" opposed this measure and lost. This is a major step forward for FCCJ.

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Posted in: Discord erupts at FCCJ over news agency accreditation See in context

Turbostat:

Please clarify.

Organization appears to be defined most places as a group of people -members or in special cases -employees- of the organization- bound together by some set of principles seeking to achieve some common purpose or purposes. It is very flexible (although press/media might narrow it somewhat) but does not to my knowledge include individuals (Interestingly I think an individual could be justly defined as a business in the case of a sole proprietorship but an organization requiring more than one member cannot be categorized as a sole proprietership). I think the heart of the matter here is that "someone else" overseas -a different person or persons or entity- needs to be hiring the applicant. A person cannot to my knowledge hire himself or be his own agent. The key is somebody -overseas and I would even go so far as to suggest it probably cannot be a "person" since as you pointed out the word "organization" is used- needed to hire somebody in Japan to do journalism. What I think is being argued here is that did not happen in this case.

Yes the person in question has interns in Japan. One can argue whether interns are employees. I am pretty sure they are not. If they were there would be a need to be various interactions with local authorities to make sure their rights and utilization as employees were in order. Nor, I think you will find, are they partners. They are independent contractors -trading experience for labor- and independent contractor's are by definition not members of the organization they are working for.

Even were that the case, the organization, assuming arguendo we can call it that in this case, was not based overseas. There was nobody overseas. It was an entirely Japan operation. At FCCJ that landed a person with Professional Associate status. Not regular member status. So I am not sure what you are getting at. There are a great many other things going on in this dispute and I doubt it will ultimately be settled by the fine print. But I guess the point from the standpoint of argument is how you find an "overseas organization" during the pre "Public Interest" status period of the FCCJ. If you can demonstrate it - and you have picqued my curiosity - I am going to recommend future membership committees read this debate for a deeper understanding of classification problems perhaps with the alleged infringers name blacked out- no doubt the journalist in question will be most relieved and grateful.

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Posted in: Discord erupts at FCCJ over news agency accreditation See in context

Here is a brief comment on a webpage for freelancers and an attempt to do something positive for the condition of Freelance Journalists. From the Society of Professional Journalists.

http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/freelance/2015/06/01/advocating-for-freelancers/

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Posted in: Discord erupts at FCCJ over news agency accreditation See in context

Yes, M3M3M3 I think you have hit the problem on the nose. Two reasons were given for becoming koeki - (1) Preferential tax treatment would possibly increase donations to the FCCJ from third parties - a thought that made the "perennially in the minority of opinion" supremely uncomfortable - we are not a charitable organization as such so what would we do with the donations and what obligations would our members then feel to those who donated?.(2) and your point the membership was repeatedly told "The Nihon Kisha Club has opted for Koeki status. We need to avoid being seen as less prestigious than they are." I was at meetings where senior proponents of koeki asserted this repeatedly. Of the two, your point was far more widely asserted. i do not recall other advantages being asserted.

For outsourcing itself the additional point was made as I stated above that FCCJ were losing money and would soon encounter financial crisis (see the old Asahi article) if we did not outsource, Of course it turned out to be rather the reverse. Neither outsourcing nor koeki are in and of themselves a bad thing but the point you raise is important. Are they appropriate for an organization like the FCCJ? Additionaly, outsourcing needs to be carefully negotiated and carefully managed. In the case of the FCCJ there was apparently a quarrel (not involving the perennial minority) and the outsourcer that had been introduced to the Membership was unceremoniously thrown under the bus so to speak in favor of a different outsourcer (the Board later told the Membership that it was labor disputes that scared the first outsourcer away). Rather than extend the employment of the-to-be terminated staff, something the Board was determined to avoid at any cost, the negotiation was rushed, the terms and conditions of the outsourcing agreement were much less favorable to the FCCJ than what had been described at the general membership meeting, no additional explanation was offerred to the membership, and disclosure of the terms of the second agreement neither was then or has since been made (except through the litigation) and whereas I have no reason to speak ill of the present outsourcing company - they were offered the Mother of all Bargains and are just carrying out the deal they negotiated - nothing personal, just business - it was a horrible deal from the perspective of the FCCJ. So in addition to terminating 50 employees - half the work force - who did not need to be terminated - the FCCJ received a really bad bargain, This is exactly the kind of inside politics Mr Herman mentioned above. Its just that it was the FCCJ leadership (at least some of them) that were playing it and not the unfortunate perennial minority..** We believe the reason the membership is not more upset is that most of them just do not know (though the number is increasing). And sadly some few who have learned have concluded it is water under the bridge.

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Posted in: Discord erupts at FCCJ over news agency accreditation See in context

“Every member has an opportunity to make their opinions known.”

That simply is not true. The Board has had complete control over what the Membership learns by a one-sided flow of messages through the club’s official communications channel.

Until now, most members haven’t been made aware of the facts of any of the lawsuits. There’s been no back and forth or exchange of views as used to be the case in the in-house No. 1 Shinbun.

"Some of those who have been perennially in the minority of general opinion decided to resort to intimidation and legal actions." This also does not reflect the true situation.

Two of the three current lawsuits were brought by the current and former staff of the club protesting the Board’s labor practices - including the mass firing of longtime staff for what they contend were inadequate or improper reasons.

There were two preceding staff lawsuits, one of which was settled on terms favorable to the staff who filed it (restoration of benefits and positions) and never reported to the membership. In the second, the court indicated that the staff position was correct but that the staff should proceed by normal litigation and not an injunction. Which they did and which again the Board failed to inform the membership.

Clearly the staff are not involved in "the minority of general opinion." but are independent of it and have their own legitimate concerns.

The remaining suit, filed by FCCJ members, was filed not in regard to membership accreditation issues or internal politics as such, but in support of the staff who protested their dismissal and had no voice inside the club for what, were felt by a great many to be unfair terminations. At the time the Membership were told (wrongly the plaintiffs believe) that there was no other course open to the FCCJ if it were to survive.

With the exception of two plaintiffs, an ex president and an ex vice president, none of the other eight plaintiffs (including two other ex-presidents and five associates) had been active in FCCJ "politics" or held Board office for well over a decade.

The sentiment at the time had nothing to do with membership quarrels but, to quote a Board member (and not at all a partisan of the litigants):

"Throughout the two years we have been discussing outsourcing, I and other members of the Board have been consistent on at least one pont: We must protect the best of what we have, especially our staff. The carpet-bomb approached employed by the Board this month risks destroying all that the Club has built up, when what is needed is a surgical strike.

I continue to believe that our staff, even the union that represents over half of them, needs to be part of the solution to our problems. Many of the workers say they are willing to accept pay cuts, longer working hours and early retirement if it saves the Club. The union is on the record as saying that they want to help rebuild the Club's balance sheet and help us achieve public interest status. But instead of negotiation, we have dug ourselves into opposing trenches.

I have many doubts that outsourcing will solve our problems, too many as it turns out to sit on this Board. I also wonder if our associates will stay with a Club that employs demoralized, anonymous staff on 900 yen per hour in a restaurant that serves roughly the same food they would get at the Asahi, the Mainichi or the Yomiuri. Our strength has been in our independence, differences and even our eccentricities, so are we right to sacrifice all that?

Ultimately, however, I oppose this month's decision to end our workers' contracts because as a journalist I feel like an utter hypocrite writing about injustice and corruption while sitting on a Board that is depriving our workers of their livelihoods. Is this the best that the FCCJ, with its unique tradition and history, can come up with? For our sakes, I hope hot."

That statement was made by David McNeil who, like Mr. Herman, was chairman of FPIJ. He resigned from the Board in protest..

I don’t know what Mr. McNeil’s take is on the current Finance committee NDA resignations is or the current Membership problems - but his letter encompasses the largest part of what moved the plaintiffs off the bench 3 years ago, Mr. Herman, not because they were a perennial disgruntled minority unjustified or otherwise. Allowing that there are two sides to this issue, I do not believe the present Board has covered itself in glory with a "Win at all costs" policy or by gutting transparency or yet by effectively suppressing principled debate.

To the current Board's credit, there is now a "forum" for members to raise or debate matters of FCCJ concern but the Board retains the right to pull comments regarded as "personal attacks" which can depending on how exercised be either a good or a bad thing, and in any case, as yet few members make use of the forum. It is and will necessarily be for some time a pale alternative to the letter to the editor page of the No.1 Shinbun though I believe it is our collective duty to make use of it. For the litigation it is far far too little and far far too late.

In closing, the current membership problem and the lawsuits are very different issues. I daresay there are other problem issues as well, but let us leave those as they are not on the table here. These two issues are being pursued for the most part by different groups of people (a few people belonging to both camps). It would not serve the cause of truth to conflate them. What matters is that the leadership stop mis-characterizing principled and entirely permissible objection as intimidation and venal self-interested social club politics. There are some serious problems at this stage of the FCCJ's history that have not been properly settled and that need to be settled. The Scorched Earth approach so favored by recent FCCJ Boards is not working. Nor will calling opponents bad names accomplish anything. Those are the tactics of repressive regimes and beneath the dignity of an organization like FCCJ that has on occasion stood for truth when it was not a convenient thing to do. This is not the FCCJ's finest hour by any stretch of the imagination.

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Posted in: Discord erupts at FCCJ over news agency accreditation See in context

@zone2surf I think that you have provided us a very sound and beneficial comment.

Actually, we have had credentials crises in the past. We have in fact long recognized the importance of freelancers and many of our more prominent members have "exchanged for a time the sceptre for the trowel and apron" and done stints as free lancers and worked out of our work room while between bureau jobs.

There was a credentials crisis about 30 years ago when one Board tried to make sure all of the Regulars were in fact Regulars. As you can imagine there is a lot of gray in such a problem. There was and is a real problem of free lancers who have moved on to PR or consulting and never bothered to tell the Membership Committee. But there was a lot of resentment and acrimony among people - not just those who should have been reclassified as Associates but also among legitimate free liiancers who found the process threatening (human beings all being the lovely subjective creatures that we are) In the event, the two sides opted to bury the hatchet and remain friends and colleagues. And that is why for thirty years the Membership Committee has not actively investigated the Regular Membership at large. And as some commentators have pointed out that creates the opposite problem. However when a member begins to elicit complaints of not qualifying from colleagues, then they will take the matter up and investigate it. That appears to be what happened here (see Mr. Schreffler above) If the crisis of Mr. Penn accomplishes nothing else it may bring us to examine the way we treat this issue generally. I understand there may be some by-laws action in this regard being discussed. Obviously a viable and useful organization -and that is our goal- succeeds nether by flouting its rules and principles of fairness nor by being in continual turmoil.

Anyway, zones2surf, I did not mean at all to sound critical and your measured thoughtful comments are most appreciated by those of us at FCCJ. This is a bad time for us.

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Posted in: Discord erupts at FCCJ over news agency accreditation See in context

I just thought I would correct some of the facts that inevitably get confused. The FCCJ has about 1800 members A little over 300 of these members are "Regular Members". Of these about 150 are retired for the most part Japanese journalists (A Japanese journalist traditionally could become a regular member if he or she had reported overseas or worked for a foreign press organization. More or less). Of the 150 or so "active correspondent regular members, probably about 50 work inside a large news organization. Of the remaining 100 "free lancers" about half are "affiliated" meaning they are an overseas news organization's "man or woman in Tokyo" but are not formal employees (and can work for other organizations or sell their own stories).

The remainder of the active regular members list themselves as free lancers although my understanding is that an active regular member always has at least one organization to whom they regularly send work. Until recently at least, a regular member had to make most of their income in journalism. There was an exception (The Michner exception) for authors. There are probably about 20 notable "authors" at the FCCJ meaning most of you would recognize their names or what they wrote. Active (non-retired) regular members average in age at a guess at about 50 years old. There are few twenty year olds but the numbers pick up at 30 and there are quite a few in their 40's.

My guess is that active regular members are about evenly split between Japanese and Foreign. Participation on Boards is heavily skewed to foreign active 40-50ish in age Regular Members with, in recent years, more freelancers than bureau people. The idea that the bureaus or their members feel besieged is wrong. Most of the most intense conflicts among Regulars these days are among free lancers about other issues. This class of people is a great deal more media savvy than the above commentators seem to realize. I know of several Regular Members (some are pro-Mr. Penn and some are anti-Mr. Penn) who are quite good at such things.

Next there are (I am guessing) 150~200 professional associates. These are genuine journalists and near journalists who work for a Japanese news organization or do not work for an overseas organization they could get to sponsor them. About half Japanese and half Foreign. This class essentially has the same rights as the associates below. There has been some resentment and, to the FCCJ's credit, some movement to provide them more active participation on the professional side.

The remainder of the members are "Associate Members" essentially local business people, attorneys, PR people, diplomats and the like. They are over 1000 strong, joined originally in the 1950's when after the first "brush with irrelevance" a contingent of the American Club (I think it was - Where is Ernie when we need him) offerred to join and by their patronage as associate (non-voting members) stabilize the finances of the struggling press club. Together with the Professional Associates provide close to 90% of the FCCJ's income through dues and restaurant and bar revenues. They can attend press conferences and ask questions when journalists have none left to ask and have long been able to serve on various committees (but not on the PAC or the membership committees) About 15 years ago, the Associate Liaison Member Committee began to lobby for Board participation largely to provide business expertise (finance) that was easier to draw from a pool of 1500 associates than 150 active regulars. The campaign was not acrimonious and when the FCCJ became a Public Interest Incorporated Association last year the rules were changed to allow 3 directors to be chosen from the Professional Associate and Associate ranks. These "Associate" directors cannot hold the office of president. but can hold other offices.

There are probably 2 and perhaps 3 foreign journalists living and working in Tokyo who are not members for every one who is a member. Younger journalists or journalists here for a short stay in large organizations do not need the facilities when they have good facilities at their bureaus and the dues are something that may be pricey at a starting salary level. And to start with as I mentioned there are few 20 year olds among our Regular members to begin with (I think there are a very few).

There has been in the recent past some very intense, and to be fair principled, infighting over whether to move to Public Interest Status or not (A referendum among Regular Members was held to determine whether it should and it was passed) Ancillary to that the Membership was told that both to solve serious financial problems and to meet criteria for Public Interest Status, the food and beverage operation (Restaurant and Bar) would have to be outsourced. To do this they terminated 50 employees (out of about 100 - some of whom had been long term). The result of this was lawsuits by the employees and the employees union and additionally a lawsuit by some Senior Regular and Associate Members seeking reversal of the outsourcing resolution in solidarity with the terminated staff. These lawsuits continue after 3 years and create a certain amount of the acrimony perceived in today's FCCJ.

I welcome correction of anything I have written above by anyone wiser in the rules (and there are many) and not that my explanation reflects the rules until last year when Public Interest status brought about some significant rule changes. But the membership classes and demographics remain largely the same.

I suspect FCCJ insider has already made some points about the finer details of the recent article concerning Mr. Penn and the controversy behind it and Mr. Penn is quite able to -and the most appropriate person to- speak to those points as he thinks best so I offer no additional information in regard to that matter.

I just thought the discussion might benefit from a bit more precision as to what the FCCJ is and who comprise it and what they do.

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Posted in: Is black voter support for President Obama racist? See in context

This is true. Mr. Obama's background is quite different in many respects from most of the African American community in the US. To suggest that people would only vote for him because of skin color I think badly fails to appreciate the political acumen of African Americans. I think it is fair to say he scored well there far more because he is liberal and democratic, both popular with the African American demographic. Had he been conservative and Republican (at least in 2012) as Mr. Cain's experience suggests he would not have automatically been able to count on African American support except for that of the part of the African American community that supports conservative viewpoints or rhte Republican party (and I am being neither pedantic or stupid, that demographic does exist and is increasing in significance). The only thing I would allow that unifies African American voters, the conservative minority and the liberal majority included, in a certain way is that they are unlikely to support a candidate with racist views or connections and that is certainly understandable. None of this diminishes Mr. Obama's significance as the first US president to break the color line. But let us give our voters black and white alike a little more credit.

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