Tokyo – Genichi Hashimoto, President of NHK has left the Japanese pubcaster to take responsibility for alleged insider trading by two journalists and a director of the network. Hashimoto’s resignation comes three days before he was scheduled to step down at the end of his term on Jan 25. The three NHK staff allegedly acquired 1,000 – 3,000 shares each in a restaurant chain on March 8, 2007, just prior to a scoop on its plan to absorb a sushi group was aired by NHK. Two of the three have already admitted to having accessed the information through NHK’s internal news editing system to purchase the stock. The shares were sold the following day for up to 400,000 yen (US$3,750 dollars) in profits each. The trading activities of the three were probed by the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission earlier this month. Hashimoto said, “We damaged the trust of viewers. As the head of those who are responsible for operations, I took what happened seriously.” Two other board members, Hiroji Hatakeyama, who oversees compliance, and Eijiro Ishimura, who is responsible for news reporting, have also stepped down. NHK has also proceeded to check its 11,000 employees’ stock trading activities following the government’s orders. This is the latest in a series of scandals that have rocked the pubcaster including misappropriation of funds and alleged “toning down” of a Second World War-related show following pressure from ex-Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe.