This morning’s NHK proved to be as dreary and as uninteresting as usual.

Huckabee playing Christian rockThis morning’s NHK proved to be as dreary and as uninteresting as usual.

After a long 6 minutes on reporting the weather, reporting how beautiful the mountains look in the sun and how there was nothing to report on traffic, they spent a hasty couple of minutes briefing the audience on the presidential elections in America.They started the package with a brief introduction of Mike Huckabee and it was surprising how nice they could be about the evangelical former Baptist minister who calls global warming a “biblical issue” and wants to replace the income tax with a sales tax.

Of course, NHK should be impartial and factual. But the only two vox pops they had talking about Huckabee was one old man saying how “I think Huckabee is nice and I like him” and another lady saying “well, it’s not too late to become contender.” They also kindly showed Huckabee’s presidential campaign ad as part of his introduction as well as a clip of Huckabee playing the guitar in a Christian concert with the news reporter saying “he even has a license to practice as a minister,” implying that he was therefore a good candidate to head the world’s most powerful country. Perhaps I failed to see NHK’s subtle satire but in reporting this issue it seemed to me like pretty partial coverage. But then again, what else can we expect from the LDP’s official public mouthpiece?