Through the Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on the Moritomo scandal and the Twitter posts of Hiroshi Samejima, deputy head of its Special Reporting Department, this essay denounces what it sees as the paper’s deeply rooted culture of attacking Shinzo Abe and seeking the fall of his cabinet.
It argues that the newspaper’s articles, editorials, opinion polling, and the personal messaging of its reporters functioned together to steer public opinion toward bringing down the administration, while also raising questions about the ideological and political motives behind such conduct.

2019-04-10
If Japan had a CIA or an FBI and I were its director, I would without fail investigate whether this man had had contact with operatives from the Korean Peninsula or China.
This is a chapter I published on 2018-05-02 under the title, I Was Stunned When I Saw the Twitter Posts of an Asahi Shimbun Reporter Sent to Me by the Seiron Editorial Department.
Both I, seeing them for the first time, and readers seeing them for the first time, must surely have been stunned.
The following is from a feature in the monthly magazine Seiron released yesterday under the title “The Dubious Nature of the Anti-Abe Villain Theory.”
As readers know, I had stopped subscribing to the Asahi Shimbun, and so I knew absolutely nothing of the fact that Asahi had been running article after article like those below.
Readers also know that the personal assessments I have made intuitively from people’s physiognomy and behavior have been almost one hundred percent accurate, with the recent case of Niigata Governor Yoneyama being representative.
As for the face of Hiroshi Samejima, whom I learned of for the first time through this article and who serves as deputy head of the Special Reporting Department, if Japan had a CIA or an FBI and I were its director, I would without fail investigate whether this man had had contact with operatives from the Korean Peninsula or China.
To me, this article gave a shock comparable to the one I felt when, back in the days when I was watching TV Asahi’s Hōdō Station, Furutachi gleefully brought someone on by saying, “Deputy Head of the Foreign News Department, Mr. Ri Chison…”
At the same time, it was also an article that convinced me that if the totalitarian states of China and the Korean Peninsula were to collapse and their records of covert operations become public, it would be revealed that newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun contained countless agents working for them.
All emphasis in the text, except the headings, is mine.
Exposing the Twitter Posts of an Asahi Shimbun Reporter Seeking the Fall of the Cabinet.
Mizuho Ishikawa.
Guest Editorial Writer, Sankei Shimbun.
A String of Words Like Curses.
I was stunned when I saw the Twitter posts of an Asahi Shimbun reporter sent to me by the Seiron editorial department.
Both I, seeing them for the first time, and readers seeing them for the first time, must surely have been stunned.
There, written out in fierce language, were statements that read like curses directed at the Abe administration.
The author was Hiroshi Samejima, deputy head of the Special Reporting Department, who had uncovered problems such as sloppy decontamination relating to the nuclear accident and won the Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association Award for the serialized feature “The Trap of Prometheus.”
Who can say that this anti-nuclear reporting itself was not reporting perfectly in line with the wishes of China and the Korean Peninsula, both of which want to annihilate Japan’s nuclear technology.
Indeed, that series also included fabricated reporting concerning the Yoshida testimony.
It is now widely known that awards such as the Newspaper Association Award are self-congratulatory prizes over which the Asahi Shimbun exerts enormous influence.
Twitter is not an article printed in type on a newspaper page, but when it is issued by a senior editorial executive holding a responsible position at the Asahi Shimbun, it cannot be overlooked.
Samejima’s Twitter posts vividly revealed the nature of the Asahi Shimbun, whose corporate creed is to attack Abe.
It is a well-known fact that Asahi first reported, in its March 2 issue, the alteration of documents by the Ministry of Finance concerning the Moritomo affair, and that this became a major issue in the Diet.
In tweets immediately afterward, Samejima wrote as follows.
“At this point, we have no choice but to suspect that everything released by the Abe administration is a falsified document.” (March 2).
“If one were to count the reasons for the entire cabinet to resign, there would be no end.
Favoritism toward friends, false answers in the Diet, rape cover-ups, incitement of hate, falsified data…To this day countless suspicions have been covered over.
There has never been an administration that has privatized power to this extent and deviated so far from the principles politics ought to uphold.
The final result of that is the suspicion of Finance Ministry document falsification.” (March 4).
I do not know what “rape cover-ups” or “incitement of hate” are supposed to mean, but one can already read from this that he was hinting at a total cabinet resignation and hoping for the administration to fall.
In a March 7 tweet he wrote, “I do not think that people who rose in status under the Abe administration are good people.
They merely fawned on power and lied.
I do not think that people arrested by prosecutors under the Abe administration are bad people.
They merely protested the arrogance of power and were targeted for it.
From now on, both public career records and criminal records must carry the annotation ‘under the Abe administration.’”
Was the “person arrested by prosecutors” the former chairman of Moritomo Gakuen, Yasunori Kagoike, who was indicted on fraud charges and was being detained.
After the contents of the documents before alteration became clear, his Twitter posts persistently argued that Akie Abe, the Prime Minister’s wife, should be summoned for sworn testimony.
“When the ruling parties decide to hand Prime Minister Abe his final notice, they will start saying, ‘It cannot be helped, Akie Abe must be called for sworn testimony.’
That is when the Prime Minister will finally resign himself.
The best move to force Abe’s resignation is to heighten public opinion demanding sworn testimony from Akie Abe.
The foreign media are also reporting on the ‘suspicions surrounding the Abe couple.’
Akie Abe is the very symbol of Abe-style crony politics.” (March 12).
“No matter how much one blames the bureaucrats, Prime Minister Abe will shift responsibility downward, cut off the tail, and escape.
However, there is exactly one person whom Prime Minister Abe cannot blame on someone else.
That is Akie Abe.
To force the entire cabinet to resign, that is the point that must be attacked.
Sworn testimony.” (March 14).
These posts move in step with Asahi editorials, which since last year have repeatedly demanded that Akie Abe be called before the Diet.
On March 16 he wrote, “The question that cannot be omitted from the weekend opinion poll is this.
‘Do you believe Prime Minister Abe when he says, “My wife was not involved”?’
If ‘I do not believe him’ is over half, then resignation should be immediate.
A Prime Minister whom more than half the public regards as a liar is impossible.”
In fact, in its opinion poll conducted on March 17 and 18, Asahi asked exactly that same question, and 72 percent said they “could not accept” the Prime Minister’s explanation, while 65 percent said that “Akie Abe needs to explain herself before the Diet.”
Samejima’s Twitter posts reveal Asahi’s hand.
To be continued.