What is the “strawman method” in journalism?
Through controversies over the Yoshida report and comfort women coverage, this essay examines criticisms of Asahi Shimbun’s reporting culture and editorial stance.
Testimonies from Kadota Ryusho and former Asahi journalist Hasegawa Hiroshi reveal deeper structural issues.

It is a method of cutting out and altering the other party’s testimony, materials, and evidence in ways convenient to oneself.
2018-01-23
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Kadota speaks again.
“The articles concerning the Yoshida report were completely retracted, and those responsible, including the president, were dismissed or resigned. However, Asahi has not engaged in genuine reflection, has it?”
Kadota calls this method used by the Asahi Shimbun the “strawman method.”
It is a method of cutting out and altering the other party’s testimony, materials, and evidence in ways convenient to oneself.
Hasegawa Hiroshi, who spent a total of 53 years at the Asahi Shimbun and the magazine AERA, wrote in The Collapse of the Asahi Shimbun (WAC) about the pages published when Asahi retracted all of its comfort women reporting related to Seiji Yoshida as false.
“I was appalled by this arrogant attitude and the way it glossed over matters.”
He also wrote that in areas such as the social affairs department and the editorial board, which produced articles on comfort women, there were “people who, rather than investigating facts, considered matters only from the premise that the former Imperial Japanese Army and Navy were ‘evil,’ and if a story fit that premise, immediately believed it to be fact,” and that there were many “Pavlov’s dogs.”
He further criticized that within Asahi, those who were “non- or anti-Marxist” tended to be labeled as “right-wing.”
In other words, reporting from a left-wing or liberal stance constitutes the essence of Asahi.
Within such an Asahi-like institutional culture, would not Prime Minister Abe, regarded as the leader of the “conservatives,” be hated regardless of what he did or did not do?
To be continued.