Through Yoshiko Sakurai’s column, this chapter examines the Abe administration’s “Japan Model” in bringing the Wuhan virus outbreak under control, and the strange refusal of Japanese media to acknowledge it. It questions the reporting structure of Bunshun and Asahi over Hiromu Kurokawa’s gambling mahjong scandal, including source protection, editorial framing, and the anti-Abe campaign behind the coverage.

May 29, 2020
Strangely, in response to the Abe administration’s efforts, which the world praises, only the Japanese media continue their severe criticism.
In particular, Bunshun and the Asahi have devoted themselves to outstanding criticism of Abe, as though they were marching in step.
The following is from Yoshiko Sakurai’s column, published in this week’s issue of Shukan Shincho under the title, “Behind the Gambling Mahjong Report Lies an Obsession with Anti-Abe Sentiment.”
She is not only a national treasure as defined by Saicho, but also an extremely precious treasure for Japan, continuing to correct the evil logic of traitors.
On May 25, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the Prime Minister’s Office, “In a way unique to Japan, in only one and a half months, we were able to bring the spread of the novel coronavirus almost under control. We have shown the power of the Japan Model,” and lifted the state of emergency declaration for Tokyo and four other prefectures.
The declaration issued on April 7 was thereby completely lifted.
Looking back, Japan provided medical care to about 3,700 passengers and crew members of the Diamond Princess, including about 700 infected people, and brought under control both the infections within Japan that originated in China and the infections that came via Europe, including those involving returnees.
It produced results.
The U.S. foreign policy magazine Foreign Policy, FP, calculated that as of May 14, the number of deaths per million people was 5 in Japan, 258 in the United States, and even 94 in Germany, which was considered a success case in Europe.
The number of deaths in Japan was lower by an order of magnitude.
In response to this clear result, they, who had initially been critical of Japan, wrote in their online edition:
“The mortality rate is among the lowest in the world, the number of infections is falling without a collapse of medical care. It is puzzling, but everything seems to be moving in the right direction.”
Strangely, in response to the Abe administration’s efforts, which are praised not only by FP but by the world, only the Japanese media continue their severe criticism.
In particular, Bunshun and the Asahi have devoted themselves to outstanding criticism of Abe, as though they were marching in step.
One example is the case concerning Hiromu Kurokawa, the former superintending prosecutor of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office.
Kurokawa resigned after a scoop report in the May 28 issue of Shukan Bunshun.
It was outrageous that a person of the rank of superintending prosecutor should have enjoyed gambling mahjong late into the night, at a time when both the people and the government were earnestly exercising self-restraint because of the Wuhan virus, and moreover at a time when his own personnel issue was being discussed.
His resignation was only natural.
The same applies to the two Sankei Shimbun reporters who were his partners, and to the former Asahi Shimbun reporter in charge of the prosecution beat, a person who belonged to the Corporate Planning Office, a central section of the Asahi Shimbun Company.
It was only natural that both the Asahi and the Sankei apologized.
Protecting sources is an iron rule.
According to the Asahi Shimbun’s investigation, Kurokawa played gambling mahjong with reporters four times in April and May, and according to the Ministry of Justice investigation, he had done so once or twice a month for about the past three years.
Here a question arises.
Did Kurokawa play gambling mahjong only with the Sankei and the Asahi?
Surely not.
The Ministry of Justice should also make clear which companies other than the two named above were involved.
Bunshun, naturally, should also pursue further reporting.
What would probably emerge from further reporting is that reporters from nearly all companies had been associating with Kurokawa.
Reading Bunshun’s scoop, before being impressed, I felt a sense of discomfort.
It concerned the source of the information.
Bunshun stated that the gambling mahjong information had been brought by “a Sankei Shimbun source,” thereby revealing the source.
In the article, the presence of the Sankei reporters was written both in the headline and in the lead.
For the Sankei, this was a serious blow.
In the body of the article, a structure emerges in which a person from the same company, so to speak, “sold out” his own company’s reporters.
It would be understandable if readers felt that the Sankei was not a newspaper they could trust.
Bunshun wrote the scoop in that structure.
In journalism, the protection of sources is an iron rule.
For that reason, it is natural to have doubts about Bunshun revealing its source in this way.
This point leads to the next question.
As mentioned above, Bunshun clearly stated the involvement of Sankei reporters both in the headline and in the newspaper advertisement.
In the article, it wrote at considerable length about the two of them.
However, the treatment of the former Asahi reporter was extremely small, and the word “Asahi” did not appear in the headline or the newspaper advertisement.
The Asahi appears only when the six-page feature article finally enters its fifth page, quite late in the article, and the description of that person is only thirteen lines.
So I thought about it.
As the gambling mahjong partner of the superintending prosecutor of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office, which would have the greater impact, the Asahi or the Sankei?
I am sorry to the Sankei, but it would overwhelmingly be the Asahi.
If I were the editor-in-chief, I would certainly choose as the headline not “Sankei and the Superintending Prosecutor!” but “Asahi and the Superintending Prosecutor!”
Why did Bunshun structure the article so as not to make the Asahi stand out in particular?
On May 22, Fumito Ishibashi, former political editor of the Sankei Shimbun, made a comment that struck at the heart of the matter on the Internet program Genron TV.
“What Shukan Bunshun probably wanted to depict in its scoop on Kurokawa’s gambling mahjong was a campaign showing that Superintending Prosecutor Kurokawa, who is close to Prime Minister Abe, was also so intimately close to Sankei reporters, who are likewise close to Abe.”
Can it not be considered that Bunshun’s aim was to depict a close relationship among Abe, Kurokawa, and the Sankei?
The craftiness of Bunshun also appears in the following passage about Kurokawa in the article:
“He is a person who has been generally explained as follows: ‘The Abe Prime Minister’s Office, which wanted to make Kurokawa prosecutor-general no matter what, unusually extended his retirement age in order to keep him in the position of superintending prosecutor of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office,’ according to a judicial reporter.”
Reading this “explanation,” one wants to ask:
Who, exactly, has been explaining it in that way?
What is the basis for the anonymous judicial reporter’s categorical testimony?
The meaning of “heartfelt gratitude.”
Two days before Bunshun directly questioned Kurokawa about gambling mahjong on May 17, that is, on Friday, May 15, I asked Prime Minister Abe about Kurokawa on Genron TV.
Prime Minister Abe said that he had never met Kurokawa one-on-one, and that the personnel proposal concerning Kurokawa had been submitted for approval as the consensus of the Public Prosecutors Office and the Ministry of Justice, and that the Cabinet had approved it while respecting long-standing custom.
Prime Minister Abe himself, the master of the “Abe Prime Minister’s Office,” had almost no personal connection with Kurokawa.
I cannot imagine that the prime minister would think he wanted to make such a person prosecutor-general “no matter what.”
The media, which at first had written “Prime Minister Abe,” began to blur it into “the Abe Prime Minister’s Office.”
Even so, if they condemn the “Abe Prime Minister’s Office” for applying pressure, then Bunshun, the anonymous judicial reporter, and the Asahi, which has been enthusiastic about this series of reports, should identify who in the Prime Minister’s Office, for what reason, when, and how, forced the matter through in a way that could be described as “no matter what.”
As I mentioned at the beginning, on the 25th, Prime Minister Abe said that the Wuhan virus had been brought under control through the “Japan Model,” and stated, “I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the people for their cooperation, and to all of you who have patiently endured until this point.”
Before issuing the state of emergency declaration, the prime minister discussed with Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of coronavirus countermeasures, and others whether they could ask the people to reduce contact opportunities by 80 percent without any coercive power.
At that time, it was Prime Minister Abe who said, “The Japanese people can surely do it, so let us ask them.”
The people who exercised self-restraint, the medical workers who worked at the risk of their lives, the people in all industries who endured the hardship of suspending business.
By “asking” all of those people, Japan was able to achieve control of the outbreak.
The meaning of the prime minister’s “heartfelt gratitude” to all the people lies precisely in that point.
This is exactly what the prime minister calls the “Japan Model.”
If, out of the emotion of “hatred of Abe,” the media fail to value the precious trust and cooperation between the government and the people that form the foundation of the Japan Model, would that not be a great loss for Japan itself?