An essay expressing resentment and anger born from years of close reading, as doubts arise over media reporting and its implications for national trust and accountability.

June 6, 2016

When news suddenly broke that Wakamiya Yoshifumi had died in Beijing, I was unable to accept it simply as reported.
I felt that there was something more to it.
That was because the impression I had when I first saw him on Hōdō Station was far too strange.
I now hold, with conviction, the suspicion that Asahi Shimbun is a newspaper company that could not continue to exist as a newspaper if anything were exposed to daylight by Chinese intelligence agencies (the CIA or FBI).
The same would likely apply in its relationship with South Korea.
The sixteen-page spread of May 17 (a full-page article written by Kitano Ryūichi and Hakoda Tetsuya) made me certain of this.
The front page of the June 1 evening edition (Kansai edition) also made me certain of this.
The reason I have not referred to those articles even now is because of the anger I feel toward them—the resentment and rage of having not only subscribed to Asahi Shimbun without any doubt until August of the year before last, but also having read it closely.
It is an anger beyond words.
As a Japanese, as a citizen of Japan, I feel an anger that is utterly unforgivable, no longer forgivable.
When news of Mitsubishi Motors’ fuel economy falsification broke, I thought that this was not something done by Japanese people.
It is already a well-known fact that a considerable number of resident Koreans occupy key positions at Asahi Shimbun, including desks in TV Asahi’s foreign news department.
Most people working at Mitsubishi-affiliated companies are surely subscribers to Asahi Shimbun. I believe there are also quite a few resident Koreans at Mitsubishi Motors. I instantly thought that among them there might be a person responsible who ordered the falsification. I thought this because it is inconceivable by Japanese sensibilities.
To be continued.