May 28, 2016
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s latest paperback, which I introduced yesterday.
Almost every chapter proves that he is a journalist without equal in the postwar world.
A Newspaper of Deception in an Age of Deception
When I went to vote in a national election, I was also handed a ballot for the ward mayoral election.
I am conscious of being a Tokyo resident, but not of being a resident of my ward.
If I had to name anything, it would be that the name on a car’s license plate is “Nerima” or “Adachi,” depending on the ward where one lives; my awareness goes no further than that.
It is strange that even the most luxurious car looks cheap when it has an “Adachi” license plate.
Since that is the extent of my awareness, I do not even know who the ward mayor is.
Above the ward mayor is the governor of Tokyo, and there is even a Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly that seems to have nothing else to do.
I was surprised by the list of candidates and thought, “They should stop holding these costly elections and let the governor appoint them, as in the old days.”
I thought I could at least judge the candidates by their political party affiliations, but they were all independents.
That cannot be right.
I know from experience that Communist Party members invariably slip into such inconspicuous elections.
Choosing by rolling a pencil would carry a fairly high probability of pleasing the Communist Party.
After voting, I asked my wife and daughter how they had distinguished among the “all-independent” candidates, and they said they had left it to chance.
When they asked how I had voted, I answered that I had abstained because I thought the probability of an undesirable outcome was fairly high.
This question of being independent became an issue in the latest Chiba gubernatorial election.
Kensaku Morita, who won, fought the election as an independent.
In reality, however, he was still a member of the Liberal Democratic Party.
The Asahi Shimbun reported that the “Association to File a Complaint Against Mr. Kensaku Morita,” made up of citizens, had filed a criminal complaint against Governor Morita.
I do not understand the difference between a Communist Party candidate calling himself an independent in the Setagaya ward mayoral election and Kensaku Morita, an LDP member, doing the same.
However, I was interested in the Sankei Shimbun’s report that this “citizens’ group” consisted of “SDP members of the Chiba Prefectural Assembly and others.”
In other words, it was a group with a political affiliation.
Knowing that political affiliation would also reveal the motive behind the complaint, so why did the Asahi Shimbun describe it as a “gathering of citizens,” as if it were an “independent” organization?
Was it because describing it as SDP-affiliated would be inconvenient?
Is not Asahi itself, which fails to report facts and changes its principles according to convenience, a newspaper of deception in an age of deception?
May 28, 2016
At this point, you, the readers, should reflect.
My argument is fully substantiated by the splendid analysis of a journalist without equal in the world.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The emphasis in the text is mine.
The people of Chiba Prefecture would want to know the true identity of a group that slanders the governor they elected.
Why does Asahi conceal it?
Governor Morita faced another complaint from this SDP-affiliated group.
Specifically, it took issue with his having received a political donation from Takao Yasuda, chairman of Don Quijote.
Even ordinary people would probably know the claim that 95 percent of the pachinko industry is in foreign hands.
However, ordinary people do not know that “Don Quijote” is run by a Korean resident of Japan.
Come to think of it, three people died in an earlier arson attack at one of this company’s stores, and the company had also failed to respond to the fire department’s instructions to make improvements.
I thought there was something odd about the company, but Asahi did not report at the time that it was a company run by a Korean resident of Japan.
Giichi Tsunoda, formerly of the SDP, had received money from companies affiliated with Chongryon, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.
When this came to light, he resigned as vice president of the House of Councillors.
Whether a company is run by a Korean resident of Japan is important information that can even affect a politician’s political survival.
One day, an SDP-affiliated group close to Korean residents of Japan revealed that the company was, in fact, a company run by Korean residents of Japan.
I do not understand why Asahi picked this up and wrote “Don Quijote, a company run by Korean residents of Japan,” as if it were common knowledge.
For example, when other newspapers reported under his Korean name on a Korean resident of Japan who was a pastor and had assaulted female believers in Kyoto, Asahi alone insisted on reporting the case under a Japanese name that nobody knew.
This newspaper continues to reject Japan’s rule over Korea.
A recent commentary in its pages included a view to the effect that “the loss of Korean names through the adoption of Japanese surnames and given names was the greatest humiliation for Koreans.”
Yet this newspaper conceals the fact that Koreans changed their names out of admiration for Japan and calls it an outrage committed by Japan, while wanting Koreans to use Japanese names in its own pages.
Is that not the very “humiliation” in question?
In a recent column, Yoshibumi Wakamiya discussed a story about placing hopes in falsely labeled meat and Ichiro Ozawa’s phrase “an age of deception.”
It is a fitting metaphor for a foolish former editorial writer, but is not Asahi itself, which fails to report facts and changes its principles according to convenience, a newspaper of deception in an age of deception?
(May 7 and 14, 2009 issue)