Moves To Abolish Kisha Clubs
At a national level, in 1994, Ichirō Ozawa, the head of the Japan Renewal Party, undertook a groundbreaking experiment by allowing magazine reporters not in the kisha club to participate in press conferences, but this never took off, in part due to disagreements between Ozawa and the media.
In 2002, the then head of the Democratic Party of Japan, Katsuya Okada, introduced a format of press conference where all types of media, including sports newspapers, weekly magazines and foreign media organizations, could take part. Until then, only media in the kisha club for opposition parties (野党クラブ, Yatō Kurabu?) could take part.
Some heads of local public bodies, business or financial groups have also closed press rooms, having realized the disadvantages of the kisha club system.
In June 1993, the Kabuto Club (兜倶楽部?), the kisha club for the Tokyo Stock Exchange, reformed its rules, which until then had restricted membership to Japanese media organizations, to include "foreign media organizations which perform media work equivalent to that of the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association", a move which in practice opened the door to foreign media organizations.
In April 1996, the city of Kamakura, Kanagawa stopped using the Kamakura kisha club (鎌倉記者会, Kamakura Kisha Kai?), which had six companies as members, including national newspapers and the local Kanagawa Shimbun, and opened a "Publicity media center" which could be used by any media organization registered with the city. The then mayor, Ken Takeuchi, formerly of the editing committee of the Asahi Shimbun, and currently head of the internet newspaper "janjan", stated that this was done as it was felt that "it was not reasonable for a city institution funded by tax money to be monopolized by a kisha club which represented only one section of the media".
In March 1999, the Keidanren Kikai Club (経団連機械クラブ?) was closed, at the request of Keidanren, the organization controlling it. This kisha club was focused on reporting related to industrial work such as electrical machinery, shipbuilding, semiconductors and automobiles. There was debate between the media and the companies making announcements about continuing with the kisha club, but as no breakthrough solution was found, the club was dissolved. It is thought that the root cause of this event was that electrical makers had been conducting open press conferences, and using press releases and e-mail, so there were no longer advantages to using a kisha club. The automobile industry, wanting to keep a kisha club active, opened an automobile industry kisha club as part of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (日本自動車工業会?), but the Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi and Nikkei newspapers refused to join, in effect depriving the club of its function.
In July 1999, NTT's kisha club, Aoi Club (葵クラブ?) was closed as a result of structural changes at NTT. This club had in the past been subject to criticism for the fact that it was a club dedicated to a single private company, but after the restructuring by NTT, a group of economic editors assembled from the different media companies agreed not to accept the Aoi Club as a kisha club. NTT accepted this and closed the club, with the aim of opening the press room to organizations other than club members, including magazines and the overseas media.
On August 6, 2001, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government requested that the Kajibashi/Yūraku kisha club pay charges for using the Tokyo government offices, but later retracted this, instead requiring only lighting, heating, water and telephone charges to be paid. The Governor of Tokyo, Shintarō Ishihara, also questioned the policy of not allowing magazines or foreign media organizations to participate in press conferences.
On March 30, 2004, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a written request to the central government offices, the offices of each prefecture, the police and other bodies, asking them to allow foreign reporters to participate in press conferences.
On March 14, 2006, due to the harsh financial circumstances it was facing, the Hokkaidō government decided to request payments for lighting, heating, water and other costs, totaling approximately 2.5 million yen, from the Hokkaido government kisha club (道政記者クラブ?), starting from the new financial year.
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