Japan’s Media Have Lost the 5W1H: The Spread of the Wuhan Virus and China’s Grave Responsibility
This article, dated April 26, 2020, draws on Keiko Kawasoe’s essay in the monthly magazine WiLL to discuss the grave responsibility of the Chinese authorities in the spread of the Wuhan virus and the intellectual failure of Japan’s newspapers and television media. It argues that reporting without the 5W1H is not journalism, but an abandonment of the duty to convey the truth to the public.
April 26, 2020
The 5W1H is not only the foundation of journalism.
It is the very form of intelligence itself.
The above-mentioned media, in which this is completely lacking, are not only disqualified as journalism, but are organizations devoid of intelligence.
The following is from an essay by Keiko Kawasoe, a nonfiction writer, published in the monthly magazine WiLL, which was released the day before yesterday and should be read by every Japanese citizen, under the title “The Spread of the Wuhan Virus: China’s Grave Responsibility.”
Her essay proves how far newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun and television stations such as NHK are from the realm of journalism.
The 5W1H is not only the foundation of journalism.
It is the very form of intelligence itself.
The above-mentioned media, in which this is completely lacking, are not only disqualified as journalism, but are organizations devoid of intelligence.
Her essay is probably the greatest warning to Japan, where media such as those mentioned above dominate the living rooms of the nation.
What is the “inconvenient truth” for the Chinese authorities?
Chapter One: A World Authority Suspects That the Novel Coronavirus Is Artificial
The same kind of lie.
“Is Japan really not discussing whether the novel coronavirus, Covid-19, is natural or artificial?”
These were the words that Dr. Anthony Tu, professor emeritus at Colorado State University, who visited Japan in early March, first asked several times in surprise.
Dr. Tu was born in Taipei in 1930, during the Japanese era, and after graduating from the Faculty of Science at National Taiwan University, he went to the United States.
He engaged in chemical research at Stanford University and Yale University, and became a professor at Colorado State University.
His specialty is toxins, including snake venom.
Because one of the toxin weapons produced by Uzbekistan, a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, was “cobra neurotoxin,” he has served for many years since the 1980s as an adviser to the United States on biological weapons.
He has also cooperated with the U.S. government in creating databases on toxins.
He has published eight volumes of English-language specialized books on natural toxins, which anyone involved in biological and chemical weapons must study for basic knowledge.
He is truly a world authority.
He is also known for his contributions to Japan.
In the series of sarin incidents committed by Aum Shinrikyo, he instructed the Japanese police on “how to detect sarin from soil.”
For that achievement, he received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, in 2009.
Dr. Tu, who knows well that Hankou in Wuhan has long been a mecca of toxin research, continues as follows.
“From the beginning, I have thought that there is a possibility that the virus leaked outside from a research institute studying toxins and biochemistry.
It is true that there are experts who say that ‘artificial origin is impossible,’ but their grounds for rebuttal are all weak, such as, ‘Bacteria and viruses eventually come back to oneself, so no one would use such dangerous things,’ or ‘China is a member of the Biological Weapons Convention, the BWC.’”
Dr. Tu also told the story of the anthrax incident that occurred in the Soviet Union in 1979.
“At the time, the Soviet authorities announced that it was because people had eaten rotten mutton, but the truth revealed by investigations after the collapse of the Soviet Union was that the air conditioning had become clogged, anthrax leaked out from another place, and many people living nearby died.”
In other words, the Chinese authorities had repeatedly claimed from the beginning that the spread of infection of the novel coronavirus began with people who had eaten bats sold at the seafood wholesale market in Wuhan.
Dr. Tu suggested that this may be the same kind of sophistry.
The papers Dr. Tu is watching closely.
Dr. Tu continues as follows.
“After the September 2001 terrorist attacks, anthrax terrorist incidents occurred in the United States.
Biological weapons and chemical weapons target not only humans, but also livestock, animals, grains, and plants, so we do not know who is making them or for what purpose.
However, it is certain that many countries are conducting research.
In the United States, research for defensive purposes is permitted, and intelligence gathering on enemy countries is given the highest priority.”
Then, regarding the research team centered on Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and its papers, he said the following.
“That research team repeatedly conducted studies to make SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, viruses extracted from bats cross the species barrier and infect other species.
In November 2015, Shi Zhengli announced in Nature Medicine that by modifying the SARS virus, her team had succeeded in developing a virus that damages the respiratory organs of mice.
They may justify the research purpose by saying it was ‘for the development of vaccines,’ but it is unnatural to research vaccines for a virus that is not spreading.
Also, as can be seen from this research, bat viruses do not naturally infect humans.”
Dr. Tu is also paying attention to papers of the kind that say, “Was the novel coronavirus created by modifying the SARS virus?”
“The novel coronavirus is close to SARS, but there are clearly four differences in its molecules.
These are not the sort of things that occur naturally.
The research results of Professor Pradhan and others in India are quite interesting.
They say that parts of the spike regions of the HIV virus and the Wuhan virus are highly similar.
The content is that four gene sequences derived from the HIV virus were artificially inserted into the genetic sequence of the SARS virus, making it easier to infect humans, and that this is the novel coronavirus this time.”
This article will continue.