Written on July 2, 2019, this essay sharply examines the Asahi Shimbun’s false reporting on the comfort women issue and the deeper structure behind it, including the GHQ historical narrative, pro-American submission, and anti-Japan journalism.
Through a dialogue between Masayuki Takayama and Ryusho Kadota, it reveals how the Asahi Shimbun continued after the war to publish stories that defamed Japan, damaged Japan–Korea relations, and imposed enormous losses on the Japanese people.
Discussing WGIP, the Manila massacre, the myth of Kyoto and Nara being spared by American cultural concern, and the fabrications surrounding comfort women reporting, this is an important piece exposing the distortions of Japan’s postwar media space.

2019-07-02
The Asahi has continued false reporting on the comfort women issue, destroyed Japan-Korea friendship, and inflicted astronomical losses and humiliation upon the Japanese people.

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
America’s cheerleader.
Kadota.
The Asahi has continued false reporting on the comfort women issue, destroyed Japan-Korea friendship, and inflicted astronomical losses and humiliation upon the Japanese people.
Moreover, because of the existence of comfort women statues and the anti-Japan campaign, it has even become a major obstacle to young people advancing overseas.
And yet, the Asahi shows not even the slightest sign of remorse.　
There are truly many citizens who are enraged and ask why it must go so far as to degrade Japan to this extent.
Takayama.
Until GHQ arrived, the Asahi had continued to write sound arguments.
It even had Ichiro Hatoyama say that America’s atomic bombing was “a violation of international law and a war crime.”
Kadota.
Hatoyama’s statement was astonishing enough to remain in history.
Takayama.
And regarding the massacre of one hundred thousand in Manila as well, it had called on public opinion to examine it because there were many eyewitnesses.
It said that although only the Japanese military was being blamed, it should be reexamined from multiple angles.
Was that not perfectly sound argument.
However, because it published the Hatoyama article, the Asahi was ordered suspended by GHQ on September 18, 1945.
And when the suspension was lifted, its attitude underwent a complete one-hundred-and-eighty-degree reversal.
Until then it had written, “The last war was one we faced with the hearts of all subjects united. If there is responsibility, it belongs to all of us,” but then it changed to, “The responsibility of those who carried out the war should be pursued.”
Kadota.
That is what Professor Jun Eto called “WGIP (War Guilt Information Program).”
The Asahi thoroughly followed GHQ’s occupation policy of implanting in the Japanese people a sense of guilt over the war.
And even now, seventy-four years after the war, that still continues.
It is truly astonishing.
Takayama.
At that time, NHK was in Uchisaiwaicho.
The U.S. military’s information section was housed there together with it.
So NHK too was manipulated quite a bit in terms of information.
It is not said that the Asahi had such a department, but individuals had their own connections, such as Nobutaro Ryu being linked to CIA Deputy Director Dulles.　
Kyoto and Nara were not bombed in ways that destroyed cultural properties.
Kyoto was in fact a candidate target for the atomic bomb, and the truth is that air raids were prohibited there in order to measure the damage, but America turned it into a beautiful story, saying that it protected cultural properties by heeding the words of Harvard’s Dr. Langdon Warner, that Kyoto was not bombed for that reason, and had the Asahi Shimbun write it.
After killing two hundred thousand people with the atomic bomb, what talk can there be of protecting cultural properties.
It was plainly an American manipulation, yet the Japanese were all completely taken in by it.
They thought, “Americans are good people.”
Then people began saying that Nara too had been protected by Warner, and they built a monument honoring him beside Horyuji Temple.
Then even Kamakura City started saying that they too had been protected by him and built a monument.（general laughter）
Kadota.
In reality, they were bombed multiple times.
Many Japanese seem to have believed that myth until a certain period.
Takayama.
They understood the key points of journalism and ended up becoming America’s running dog.
Even when I was still active, I felt that there were many articles praising America.
Kadota.
The Asahi thoroughly obeyed GHQ policy, and after GHQ departed, amid socialist幻想, it came to absolutize the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea.
That escalated, and the notion that “Japan = evil” became ingrained in its reporters, until finally articles began to appear that thoroughly destroyed Japan-Korea relations, as represented by the comfort women issue.
Takayama.
There were also several stories created by America.
The Bataan Death March and the Nanjing Massacre incident are among them.
Apart from those American-made stories, the Asahi then began thoughtfully writing articles of its own.
That was Seiji Yoshida’s lie about the forcible roundup of comfort women.
With that, the Asahi in effect said, “We too have created our own image of the cruel Japanese. America, please praise us.”
But when it was exposed, even America, for all that it was, could not save it. The Asahi collapsed.
Kadota.
Asahi reporters have a kind of self-intoxication that says, “We are doing something good.”
They believe that sincerely confronting Japan’s past wrongdoing and properly exposing it is the role of us journalists.
Takayama.
It sounds pleasant to the ear, but it is a pack of lies.（laughs）
Kadota.
Because the flow of WGIP continues, stories for degrading Japan are quickly accepted.
So when people like Seiji Yoshida or Kim Hak-sun appeared, they leapt at them unconditionally.
Reporters intoxicated with themselves are beyond help.
However, with the arrival of the internet age, more and more of the falsehoods in Asahi articles became clear, and in the end it was turned away from by many citizens.

To be continued.