Examining coverage of the accusations against Governor Kensaku Morita, this article exposes Asahi Shimbun’s selective reporting, concealment of political backgrounds, and opportunistic shifts in ideology.
A media outlet that neither conveys facts nor maintains principles epitomizes a fake newspaper in a fake age.

May 28, 2016

In this passage, every reader should think the same thing: that my argument is perfectly proven by the superb writings of the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Emphasis within the text is mine.
From the standpoint of Chiba residents, they would naturally want to know the true identity of the organization that has been finding fault with the governor they all took the trouble to elect.
Why does Asahi hide it?
Governor Morita has in fact received another accusation from this Social Democratic Party–affiliated organization.
It concerns the suspicion that he “received political donations from foreigners,” specifically that he received donations from Takao Yasuda, president of “Don Quijote.”
If it were from pachinko parlors run 95 percent by foreigners, that would be one thing, but ordinary people do not know that “Don Quijote” is operated by resident Koreans.
Come to think of it, this company had previously been involved in incidents where three people died in an arson attack, and where it brazenly defied improvement orders from the fire department.
There was something unsettling about it, yet at that time Asahi did not report that it was a resident-Korean enterprise.
Giichi Tsunoda, formerly of the Social Democratic Party, had received money from Chongryon-affiliated companies.
When that came to light, he resigned as vice president of the House of Councillors.
Whether a company is a resident-Korean enterprise is crucial information that can affect a politician’s political life.
Then one day, a Social Democratic Party–affiliated organization closely connected with resident Koreans reveals that “it was actually resident-Korean.”
That Asahi, in response, writes “resident-Korean enterprise Don Quijote” as if it were common knowledge is somehow unsatisfactory.
Does Asahi know nothing about the resident-Korean world? Hardly. For example, when various newspapers reported a resident-Korean pastor in Kyoto who repeatedly assaulted female believers using his Korean name, Asahi alone deliberately reported him under a Japanese name that no one knew.
This newspaper remains negative toward Japan’s rule over Korea.
In a recent letters column, it even featured a claim that “taking away Korean names through the surname-change policy was the greatest humiliation to the people.”
While concealing the fact that Koreans admired Japan and changed their names voluntarily, and portraying it as Japanese brutality, the paper itself arbitrarily makes Koreans use Japanese names in its pages.
Is that not itself “humiliation”?
In a recent column, 若宮啓文 discussed fake meat at Meat Hope and Ichiro Ozawa under the pretext of an “age of falsity.”
For a foolish former editorial director it was a good metaphor, but when one thinks about it, can we not say that Asahi, which conveys no facts and changes its principles to suit its convenience, is truly a fake newspaper for a fake age?
(Issue dated May 7 and 14, 2009)