Sankei’s column highlighted a problem in which TV Asahi broadcast a doctor’s interview in a context opposite to his actual intent. Cardiac surgeon Taisuke Shibuya reportedly stated repeatedly that recklessly increasing PCR testing was not a wise policy, yet the program used his interview as part of a message calling for PCR testing to be expanded urgently. In the age of social media, media disinformation and biased reporting are quickly verified. This essay criticizes the distortion of information by TV Asahi and other established media.

May 9, 2020

TV Asahi is a subsidiary of the Asahi Shimbun, so perhaps fabrication is its trade.
Even so, everyone should feel anger and think how terrible this is.

TV Asahi is a subsidiary of the Asahi Shimbun, so perhaps fabrication is its trade.
Even so, everyone should feel anger and think how terrible this is.
The following is from today’s Sankei Sho column.

Shall we stop spreading falsehoods and biased reporting for the purpose of criticizing the government and Mr. Abe, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe?

Koji Nakamura, a crisis-management hematologist, made this appeal on his own blog on the 8th.
According to him, a Facebook post written on the 7th by cardiac surgeon Taisuke Shibuya about a TV Asahi program has become a topic of discussion in the medical world.

When Shibuya was interviewed by the station regarding measures against the novel coronavirus, he repeatedly answered:
“It is not a wise policy to recklessly increase PCR testing.”
Nevertheless, on the 7th, the interview footage was broadcast as part of a message saying that PCR testing should be increased urgently.

Leaving aside the question of whether PCR testing should be expanded, it is unbearable to have one’s own opinion replaced with the opposite.
Meanwhile, his request for support for medical frontlines, which he had wanted to convey more than anything else, was entirely cut.
“The media’s strong tone resonates strongly with viewers and stirs anxiety.
Omitted.
It is difficult to convey things correctly……”
His post concluded in this way.

“In the age of SNS, falsehoods are quickly verified.”
Nakamura issued this warning.
Masamune Wada, a Liberal Democratic Party member of the House of Councillors, also pointed out a factual error in another TV Asahi program on his blog on the 8th.
At an LDP meeting, one lawmaker called out to the densely packed press corps:
“It is the three crowded conditions.”
Yet it was reportedly presented as if he had said that the meeting itself was the three crowded conditions.

An NHK program on the 8th took up the plight of an izakaya that suffered reputational damage because of false information on the Internet, and warned of the terror of information of unknown origin being spread.
That is a reasonable point.
However, even if the source is clear, if the media distort the information, everything is ruined.
Ironically, the coronavirus crisis has promoted Internet use among Japanese people whose time at home has increased.
Perhaps it is the consciousness of the media that is lagging behind most of all.

That is exactly right.
TV Asahi did not convey the doctor’s words as they were.
Instead, it cut and used his remarks to fit the conclusion it had prepared from the beginning, and replaced them with the opposite meaning.
This is not reporting.
It is distortion under the name of editorial authority, and a betrayal of viewers.
Moreover, in the midst of the Wuhan virus crisis, a situation involving the lives of the people, it used the voice of the medical frontline in the exact opposite meaning.
Could anything be more malicious than this?

What matters to them is not protecting the medical frontlines, reducing the anxiety of the people, or conveying correct information.
What matters to them is creating material to criticize the Abe administration, and using the uproar over PCR testing as an attack on the administration.
For that purpose, they even reverse the words of a doctor.
This posture itself is the terminal symptom of the established media.

In the age of SNS, their fabrications and distortions can no longer be hidden.
The doctor himself speaks out, other doctors take it up, and members of the Diet verify it as well.
In the past, what a television station aired may have passed as “fact” just as it was.
But now it is different.
The Japanese people must finally bring to an end the age in which they are deceived simply by watching the television screen.