Published on July 14, 2019.
Through Masayuki Takayama’s commentary, this article critically introduces The Asahi Shimbun’s reporting posture, Honda Katsuichi’s “Journey to China,” the Mainichi Shimbun reporter’s “Hundred-Man Killing Contest” article, and alleged falsehoods surrounding the Pingdingshan massacre and the Fushun mass graves. It questions the influence of the New York Times-style attitude that “if we write it, it becomes news” on postwar Japanese journalism.

July 14, 2019.
For a year and a half, it continued reporting that Lin Biao, who had died in a plane crash while fleeing after having incurred Mao’s wrath, was “healthy again today.”
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The Mainichi reporter’s false article, “The Hundred-Man Killing Contest.”
For a year and a half, it continued reporting that Lin Biao, who had died in a plane crash while fleeing after having incurred Mao’s wrath, was “healthy again today.”
Even when that lie was exposed, it was the same as The New York Times.
It did not even correct the article.
“If we write it, it is news” means, “Truth or falsehood does not matter. It is enough if we want to make it news.”
Following Akioka’s example, the one who appeared next was Honda Katsuichi.
Using only his imagination, he wrote the serialized “Journey to China,” claiming that the Japanese army had been this cruel.
But his imagination was not that robust.
Running out of material, he wrote the lie of the “Hundred-Man Killing Contest,” fabricated by Asami Kazuo, a bogus reporter for The Mainichi Shimbun, as though it were a story he had heard from Shina people.
One must not borrow another person’s lie without permission.
When the “Hundred-Man Killing Contest” began to fall apart, Honda too came under suspicion, and the other stories, such as the Pingdingshan massacre and the Fushun mass graves, were also exposed as nonsense after all.
When asked why he liked such lies so much, this man said the following.
The serialized “Journey to China” was a journey to listen to Shina people say whatever they wanted, and in that sense it was not “reporting,” he said, according to the special December 2014 extra issue of Seiron.
This article continues.