Through coverage of the Kobe child murders, the 2003 Fukuoka family murders, and the Setagaya family murders, this essay sharply indicts the structure by which newspapers concealed the reality of heinous crimes under the pretext of “human rights” and “decency,” thereby distorting readers’ judgment.
It probes deeply into the essence of postwar Japanese newspaper hypocrisy, including the application of the Juvenile Law, real-name reporting, and reporting on crimes committed by foreigners.

2019-07-01
The 2003 “Fukuoka family-of-four murder case” was also, when one looks at the methods used by the Chinese perpetrators, so horrifying that it makes one shudder with revulsion.

The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Hypocritical Journalism.
Takayama
Reading this book, one thing that made me reflect as a former reporter was the way “Boy A” was treated in the Kobe serial child murder case (1997).
He was not merely delinquent, but an antisocial and abnormal sex offender.
The Juvenile Law should never have been applied to him so lightly.
Because the newspapers deliberately concealed, under the pretext of human rights, the fact that Boy A was a sex offender and the details of the abnormal nature of his crimes, public judgment concerning him was distorted.
Taking advantage of the gap created by that lack of information, Asahi wrote that “when he comes out (of the juvenile reformatory), society must welcome him warmly.”
Without even knowing his real name or whereabouts, to say he should be warmly welcomed is sheer nonsense, I think, but that only further distorted judgment regarding the boy.
There was an incident in which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh bodyguards.
After that, in New Delhi, there were repeated incidents in which Sikhs were set on fire in the streets by Muslims and burned to death.
There was a photograph taken from a distance of heaps of burned Sikh corpses.
When I tried to publish that photograph, the editor-in-chief said, “No.”
“A newspaper is something read at the breakfast table.
How can we show such a cruel photograph?”
There is no need to read it at the breakfast table in the first place, though (laughter).
He said it could not be permitted as the good sense of journalists, but our job is to provide readers with the materials they need to make judgments.
As for how to interpret those materials, our job is to provide guidance or the essence of the news.
I had a huge quarrel with the editor-in-chief, saying that restricting what readers are shown, or restricting the information conveyed, under the pretext of good sense, is journalistic arrogance.
In the end, I wound up being transferred to Sanspo (general laughter).
Kadota
So a strange atmosphere was spreading everywhere.
Takayama
Even in the case of “Boy A,” the brutality of his sexual crimes was never published in the newspapers.
Conversely, because reporters know that even if they investigate it will not be printed, they stop investigating.
Since nothing is understood, in the end commentary on “Boy A” turns into the knowing-faced claim that “society should welcome him warmly.”
The 2003 “Fukuoka family-of-four murder case” was also, when one looks at the methods used by the Chinese perpetrators, so horrifying that it makes one shudder with revulsion.
All of them were cut, gouged, and beaten, and in some cases their faces were distorted and the backs of their heads were caved in.
They even carried out lingchi.
Because newspaper reporters do not report such crimes committed by foreigners, foolish arguments emerge such as promoting Japan-China friendship or lowering Japan’s barriers a little more.
Even though there is a duty to let people know what sort of people they are.
Even in the “Setagaya family murder case” (2000), the perpetrator was wearing Korean-made shoes.
Although large amounts of fingerprints were left behind, the perpetrator has still not been caught.
The reason, they say, is that nine years before the incident, Toshiki Kaifu and Roh Tae-woo decided that even vicious criminals who were special permanent residents would not be deported to South Korea.
The reason given was that they could not live there because they did not know Korean.
In the course of such discussions, it was also decided to abolish fingerprinting for resident Koreans in Japan.
Furthermore, fingerprinting for foreigners, including Koreans entering Japan, was also abolished.
Eight months after that went into effect, the “Setagaya family murder case” occurred.
Kadota
Since Korean men are conscripted, the fingerprints of almost all of them are known.
If the perpetrator truly were Korean, then he should have been found immediately through comparison.
However, it is said that this could not be determined because cooperation from the Korean side was not obtained.
Takayama
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred in 2001, whereas people had previously been able to enter with no checks at all, now they go from fingerprint authentication to facial recognition as well.
That era was truly strange.
Kadota
In a word, it is “hypocrisy.”
Newspapers, in the past, reported real names even in the case of Yamaguchi Otoya, who assassinated Inejiro Asanuma, and in the case of Norio Nagayama of the serial pistol-shooting murders, even though the Juvenile Law existed.
That is because Article 1 of the General Provisions clearly defines that what the Juvenile Law applies to is “juvenile delinquency.”
Then, is stabbing Inejiro Asanuma to death, or consecutively shooting four people to death, truly “juvenile delinquency”?
Of course not.
That is not “delinquency” at all, but a full-fledged “heinous crime.”
Newspapers once had that sort of common sense, and they judged that since this was not delinquency, the Juvenile Law did not apply and the case would be judged under the Code of Criminal Procedure, and accordingly they properly reported the real names.
In fact, when the Family Court judges that “this is not a crime within the scope of the Juvenile Law,” it sends the case back to the prosecutors (note: this is called “reverse transfer”).
Once the prosecutors indict the case, the juvenile is then tried in open court under the Code of Criminal Procedure.
However, from a certain point on, newspapers stopped reporting real names even for heinous juvenile crimes.
Newspapers completely abandoned their former way of thinking about whether a juvenile’s crime was delinquency or not.
The kind of “surface-only human rights theory” advocated by attorneys of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations in lectures to media ethics groups came to dominate.
Newspapers are always about appearances, hypocrisy, and surface-level justice.
By coddling juvenile criminals, they let them run rampant, and in fact put at risk the lives of boys and girls living peacefully, that is, their own sons and daughters, yet newspapers do not even extend their thinking that far.
Even more astonishing is that when Bungei Shunju and Shinchosha continue real-name reporting, newspapers run editorials saying, “A sales-first attitude cannot be tolerated,” and “Do not rob the boys of their future,” forgetting the very reporting they themselves used to do, and developing criticisms that amount to spitting toward the heavens.
Were there no conscientious reporters in the newspaper companies who resisted this kind of hypocritical journalism?
Takayama
I resisted quite a lot (laughter).
To be continued.