is a Japanese businessman who was elected as

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

's 21st Director-General on 20 December 2013. He worked for Mitsui & Co. from 1965 until 2005. From 2005 until 2011, he worked as President and representative director of

Unisys Unisys Corporation is an American multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. It provides digital workplace solutions, cloud, applications, and infrastructure solutions, ...

Japan.

NHK

On 25 January 2014 at his first interview with the press upon being appointed Director-General Momii caused controversy by playing down the issue of comfort women and whether they were forced to work in Japanese military brothels during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. On taking the helm of Japan's public broadcaster, he also announced that NHK should support the Japanese government in its coverage, telling his inaugural press conference: "We cannot say left when the government says right." During the

2016 Kumamoto earthquakes The were a series of earthquakes, including a magnitude 7.0 mainshock which struck at 01:25 JST on April 16, 2016 (16:25 UTC on April 15) beneath Kumamoto City of Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu Region, Japan, at a depth of ...

, Momii instructed NHK's journalists that their coverage must be "based on official government announcements" to prevent them from making unapproved reports about the safety of a nearby nuclear plant. He also told NHK to adhere to the official Japanese government line in its coverage of territorial disputes with China, Taiwan and South Korea. It was subsequently reported by Kyodo News that on his first day at NHK Momii asked members of the executive team to hand in their resignation on the grounds that they had all been appointed by his predecessor.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Momii, Katsuto Japanese businesspeople Living people 1943 births People from Fukuoka Prefecture Kyushu University alumni Japanese corporate directors