The Guardian, said the kisha club create a problem of "watchdogs becoming lapdogs" because "the kisha-club system rewards self-censorship, fosters uniformity and stifles competition." In its 2018 rankings of World Press Freedom, the non-governmental group Reporters Without Borders singled out the kisha clubs as a major reason that it ranked Japan 67th out of 180 countries, saying, "journalists find it hard put to fully play their role as democracy’s watchdog." Smaller media companies, freelance journalists and foreign news organizations are often blocked from joining kisha clubs, leading to one of the most common criticisms, that the clubs foster opaque, exclusive ties between government officials and member journalists, who become overly reliant on their sources for information. There have been cases when members of kisha clubs have been subject to penalties, such as being forbidden from attending the kisha club, for reporting information that was supposed to be kept secret, or that challenged the official narrative of the government agency where the club was based. In 2009, reporters for the Tokyo Shimbun, a regional newspaper, were banned from talking with Tokyo prosecutors for three weeks for naming a governing Liberal Democratic Party politician in their coverage of a political corruption scandal, when prosecutors were focusing their investigation solely on an opposition leader, Ichiro Ozawa. There is criticism that press rooms set up for kisha clubs by government agencies, local public bodies and the police are paid for with taxes, but can only be used by the member companies, leading to corruption. If local government agencies are included, the total yearly costs are thought to run to 600 million yen. In 1921, a gas company bribed the to gain approval for a rise in gas prices. It was discovered that newspaper reporters attending the city hall and Tokyo Metropolitan Police kisha clubs had also been bribed, an event condemned by public opinion. (The Tokyo Gas suspected bribery incident.) In 1974, when the weekly magazine Bungei Shunshū reported on the Kakuei Tanaka funding problem, the allegations were already well known in the kisha club but the media was silent about the story. In 1998, during the broadcast of TBS' TV program , "A Conversation with the Prime Minister", News 23 anchor Tetsuya Chikushi suggested to the Prime Minister of the time, Keizō Obuchi that, given the success of the Town Meetings held by President Bill Clinton, also shown by TBS, perhaps Obuchi would