The following is from Sakurai Yoshiko’s column in this week’s Weekly Shincho under the title of “Anti-Abe’s obsession behind the betting mahjong report.“
Not only is she a national treasure as defined by Saicho, but she is an invaluable treasure to Japan that continues to correct the evil logic of the traitors.
On May 25, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the Prime Minister’s residence, “In a way that is unique to Japan, we were able to bring the [new coronavirus] epidemic under control in just a month and a half. It showed the power of the Japanese model,” he said, lifting the declaration of a state of emergency for Tokyo and five other prefectures.
The declaration issued on April 7 has now been fully lifted.
In retrospect, we have provided medical care to about 3,700 passengers and 700 infected people on board the Diamond Princess. We have achieved results that almost all infections in Japan that originated in China and those via Europe, including returnees, are under control.
As of May 14, the U.S. diplomatic magazine Foreign Policy estimated the number of deaths in Japan and the U.S. at five and 258, respectively, out of a population of 1 million, and even Germany, a successful example in Europe, at 94.
The death toll in Japan is an order of magnitude lower.
Initially critical of Japan, they wrote in an electronic version of this staggering result.
Mortality rates are among the lowest globally, and the number of infected people is declining without any medical collapse. It’s inexplicable, but everything seems to be going in the right direction.
Only the Japanese media criticize the Abe administration’s efforts, which are praised not only by the FP but also by the rest of the world.
In particular, the Bunshun and Asahi news outlets have devoted themselves to over-the-top criticism of Abe as if they were in step with him.
The former chief prosecutor of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office, Hiromu Kurokawa, is a case in point.
Mr. Kurokawa resigned following a scoop report in the Weekly Bunshun dated May 28.
It was outrageous; resignation is natural that a prosecutor of Kurokawa’s standing, while the people and the government are working hard on voluntary control with the Wuhan virus, while Mr. Kurokawa’s personnel problem is discussed; he is playing betting mahjong until midnight.
The same is true of the two Sankei Shimbun reporters.
They served as opponents and a former Asahi Shimbun reporter in charge of prosecutions and an Asahi Shimbun’s Corporate Planning Office member.
It’s only natural that both Asahi and Sankei apologized.
It’s an ironclad rule to keep your sources in the dark.
According to an investigation by the Asahi Shimbun, Mr. Kurokawa played mah-jongg with reporters four times in April and May, while the Ministry of Justice said that it had been once for the past three years or twice a month. Therein lies the question.
Did Mr. Kurokawa play mahjong only with Sankei and Asahi?
I don’t think so.
The Ministry of Justice should also clarify which companies other than the previous two were involved.
Of course, Bunshun should follow up on the story.
What emerges from further interviews is that most of the company’s reporters were probably dating Mr. Kurokawa.
So I read the Bunshun’s scoop, and before I could be impressed, I felt uncomfortable.
It is about the source of the coverage.
The Bunshun said that it was “Sankei Shimbun officials” who brought in the betting mahjong information and revealed the source of the interview.
Both the headline and the preamble of the article noted the presence of a Sankei reporter.
That’s a big blow for Sankei.
In the text of the article, the composition of the same company’s reporter being “sold.”
Readers will inevitably feel a sense of rejection that Sankei is an untrustworthy newspaper.
In such a configuration, the Bunshun wrote the scoop.
It is an ironclad rule in journalism to keep the source of a story confidential.
Therefore, it is natural to question Bunshun’s decision to reveal the source of the story.
This point leads to the next question.
As mentioned above, the Bunshun clearly stated the involvement of Sankei reporters in both its headlines and newspaper advertisements.
I wrote about the two of them at considerable length in the sentence.
However, Asahi’s treatment of former reporters is so small that “Asahi” does not appear in any headlines or newspaper ads.
The Asahi appeared on page 5 of the six-page feature article, but it was only in the latter half of the material that he wrote 13 lines about the man.
So, I thought.
Which is more impactful, Asahi or Sankei, as a betting mahjong partner for the chief prosecutor of Tokyo High Public Prosecutors?
I’m sorry about Sankei; it’s Asahi.
If I were the editor-in-chief, I would definitely say, “Sankei and the Prosecutor General! Instead, it’s “Asahi and the Prosecutor General! To the headlines.
Why did the Bunshun decide to make Asahi even less conspicuous?
On May 22, Fumito Ishibashi, the former political director of the Sankei Shimbun newspaper, made a striking comment on Internet-based “Opinion TV.
The Weekly Bunshun wanted to paint a picture of Kurokawa’s betting mahjong with a scoop, perhaps to create a campaign in which Kurokawa, close to Abe, wants to be this close to a Sankei reporter who is also close to Abe.
It seems that Bunshun aimed to portray the close relationship between Abe, Kurokawa, and Sankei.
The cunning of the “Bunshun” is evident in the following sentence about Mr. Kurokawa in the article.
A judicial reporter has exclusively explained that the Abe administration, which wants Mr. Kurokawa to be prosecutor-general no matter what, has unusually extended the retirement age to keep him in the chief prosecutor of Tokyo High Public Prosecutors.
Reading this “commentary” makes me want to ask.
Who explained it exclusively.
What is the basis for the affirmative tone testimony of an anonymous judicial reporter?
The meaning of ‘thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
On Friday, May 15, two days before the Bunshun asked Kurokawa about his direct betting mahjong, I questioned Abe on “Opinion TV” about Kurokawa’s case.
Prime Minister Abe said that he and Kurokawa had never met alone. The Cabinet had approved the proposed appointments concerning Kurokawa out of respect for the longstanding practice of the prosecutor’s office and the Justice Ministry, which had sought approval in consensus.
Prime Minister Abe himself, the master of the “Abe PM’s office,” has little personal connection to Kurokawa.
It is hard to believe that the Prime Minister would want to make that person the Attorney General at all costs.
The media, which had initially written “Prime Minister Abe,” began to blur the words “Abe’s office.
Still, if you’re going to argue that the Abe family exerted pressure, then Bunshun, an anonymous judicial reporter, and Asahi, who is keen on a series of reports, should try to identify who, for what reason, when, and how the Prime Minister’s office pressured them into saying “no matter what.”
As I mentioned initially, on the 25th, Prime Minister Abe said that the Wuhan virus had converged in the “Japanese model,” “Thank you for all the cooperation of all the people, all the patient patiently, I thank you. “Before declaring a state of emergency, the prime minister discussed with Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of new corona measures, whether he could request an 80 percent reduction in contact without force.
Prime Minister Abe said, ‘The Japanese people can do this, so let’s rely on them.’
We were able to achieve convergence by “asking” the people who refrained from doing business, the medical personnel who risked their lives to work, and the people in all industries who endured the pain of the business refrain.
That is the point of the Prime Minister’s “heartfelt thanks” to the entire nation.
It is what the Prime Minister calls the “Japanese model.”
If we don’t appreciate the trust and cooperation between the government and the people, which is the basis of the Japanese model, based on a feeling of “hate for Abe,” then it would be a significant loss for Japan.