By examining television coverage on March 11, this essay exposes how Asahi-style thinking shaped public opinion, broadcasting, and even judicial outcomes. It contrasts NHK’s factual reporting with TV Asahi’s agenda-driven framing and highlights the unjust damage inflicted on Kansai Electric Power.

It is no exaggeration to say that until August two years ago, our country was completely dominated by the Asahi Shimbun.
2016-08-27
This morning, as I looked at the TV program listings in the newspaper, I was both appalled and convinced of one thing.
Namely, biased reporting—an attempt to shape public opinion in the direction they desire.
On a day like today, March 11, no television station with a sound mind would even consider such a thing.
For example, NHK showed us, for the first time, something we had never known before, recreating with CG the tsunami that surged into a gymnasium that had previously been criticized.
However, Hōdō Station on TV Asahi was entirely different.
Thyroid cancer, Chernobyl.
In other words, it sought to shape viewers’ public opinion toward opposing nuclear power.
It is no exaggeration to say that until August two years ago, our country was completely dominated by the Asahi Shimbun.
Asahi dominated every conceivable social stratum.
That strong residue still remains today was proven by the single judge of the Ōtsu District Court the day before yesterday, together with the twenty-nine so-called citizens who filed for a provisional injunction.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Asahi knew this result would occur.
With the personal connections and information networks they possess, they must have known what most of us citizens did not.
They must have known with ease who the presiding judge at the Ōtsu District Court was, what kind of person he was, everything about him.
I realized that today’s “Hōdō Station” lay precisely along that same line.
What a vicious company it is.
A company that has not only gravely damaged the honor and credibility of the Japanese state and people through countless fabrications and pseudo-moralism, but—as I have repeatedly noted—has inflicted colossal losses on Japan amounting to as much as 1,400 trillion yen, has not been held accountable in the slightest.
On the contrary, it even persuaded the state to approve an unheard-of arrangement—allowing a floor-area ratio of 1,600 percent for its own building, where 1,000 percent would already be extraordinary—something I, having made my living in real estate, have never once encountered.
Meanwhile, Kansai Electric Power, which has tirelessly supplied electricity of the highest quality in the world to Japan and its people day and night.
Was subjected, by a single judge—almost certainly raised on Asahi—to a situation in which its corporate value fell by 14 percent in a mere five hours the very next day.
There can be no story more unreasonable or more outrageous than this.