Abstract
The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute carries a series of articles “Research Report: The Current State of Journalists—the Quest for Trusted Media” on its website to explore what journalists and media organizations should change and maintain amidst a dramatically changing media landscape. The series looks at the frontline of news reporting and program productions of the Japanese mass media, not limited to NHK, and presents the current status of journalism and the quest for its future. This paper is a republication of the seventh installment with partial additions and corrections.
This month, the author focuses on Megumu Okino, video editor of the NHK Kanazawa Broadcasting Station, and his endeavor for the reuse of the footage archived at a local station. Mr. Okino digitalizes old films and utilizes them for an information program’s short segment that presents the history of the area. He also maintains and develops the video archives to make them easier to reuse in the future, by interviewing people involved for the better understanding of each content, recording the data, and compiling a database. In the process, he has found the potential of archives to benefit the community more directly. The Okunoto area was severely damaged by the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake that occurred on January 1 and by the heavy rain disaster in September of the same year. The broadcast archives that capture the town as it used to be have become more valuable. Mr. Okino’s efforts show that the broadcasters need to further recognize the value of their own archives and promote their use in local communities, and, to achieve this, they definitely need to invest in the human resource development for the archives within each broadcaster.
