This chapter exposes how a Jiji Press photographer’s remark—“I’ll lower her approval rating”—reveals the anti-Japan, anti-conservative bias embedded in Japan’s postwar media culture.
Through detailed cases such as Asahi Shimbun’s coral fabrication, poison-gas hoaxes, the Yoshida dossier false report, and decades of ideological reporting, the essay illustrates why major media outlets repeatedly fabricate stories and refuse to apologize.
It also documents the fading authority of Asahi, increasing public pushback, and the circumstances leading to the end of Takayama’s long-running column “Henken Jizai.”
A comprehensive analysis of Japanese media misconduct and political bias.

The Old Media Moving to Undermine Sanae Takaichi — “We’ll Lower Her Approval Rating!”: The True Intent Revealed by Jiji Press
November 19, 2025.
This is a detailed commentary on Masayuki Takayama’s essay published in the latest issue of the monthly magazine WiLL (pp. 84–93).
The issue raised by a photographer of Jiji Press, who said “I’ll lower her approval rating” during the press conference of the newly elected LDP president Sanae Takaichi, is pointed out as evidence of a media mentality driven not by “anti-power” but by “anti-Japan, anti-conservative” ideology.
The essay surveys the long postwar history of media misconduct in Japan, from the Asahi Shimbun’s coral vandalism incident, to its fabricated poison-gas accusations, to the Yoshida dossier false report, and analyzes why such outlets repeatedly produce anti-Japanese fabrications without ever apologizing.
It also discusses how Asahi’s former authority is now fading to the point that even requests for materials are rejected, and reveals the background behind the end of Takayama’s 23-year column “Henken Jizai.”
A must-read essay.

The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s essay published in this month’s issue of WiLL, pp. 84–93.
This essay again proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
It is essential reading not only for the Japanese people but for readers around the world.

The Old Media’s “We’ll Lower Takaichi’s Approval Rating!”
The statement “We’ll crush Takaichi” directly reflects the thinking of today’s Jiji political reporters
A sad era.
Sanae Takaichi has been elected as the new party president.
It is truly a matter for celebration, but the mass media immediately began attacking her.
On October 7, Takaichi was late in appearing at the press conference venue.
Voices such as “This is terrible,” “We’ll lower her approval rating,” and “We’ll only publish photos that drag down her support” were picked up by a still-live microphone and spread across social media.
It was later revealed that the improper remarks came from a photographer of Jiji Press, and the company announced that he had been “severely cautioned.”
Because he was a photographer and not a reporter, public criticism seems to have ended at a moderate level, but that is not the point.
Photographers are easily influenced by the reporters with whom they constantly work.
A good example is the Asahi Shimbun’s coral vandalism fabrication.
In 1989, Asahi photographer Honda Yoshiro dove into the waters near Iriomote Island and carved “KY” into a stony coral.
The project was to “cover the villains who harm the environment.”
The reporter wanted the perfect material for such a story, and Honda fully understood that, so he staged the incident.
Seeing the convenient photo, reporter Furuhata Kenichi joyfully insulted the Japanese people, writing: “The Japanese may now be the world’s foremost nation when it comes to graffiti,” and “With no shame in damaging what has taken a hundred years to form, it is proof of a poverty of spirit and a ruined heart.”
Asahi, whose selling point is anti-Japan sentiment, has long used anything—from execution photos of Manchurian bandits to pictures of smoke screens—to claim that “the Miyazaki regiment massacred people in Nanjing” or that “the Japanese army used poison gas in central China,” continually slandering and defaming the Japanese.
As the coral incident shows, photographers have always aligned themselves with the intentions of reporters.
Thus, Jiji’s photographer acted in accordance with the thinking of the political reporters with whom he always works.
When he boasts, he believes himself to be a political reporter.
This latest “We’ll crush Takaichi” remark directly reflects the mindset of today’s Jiji political reporters.
I myself was a Sankei reporter until two decades ago and closely observed Jiji and Kyodo.
Frankly, Kyodo is redder than the Communist Party.
It is the worst news agency, always flattering China and North Korea.
Anyone reading the Shinano Mainichi Shimbun, whose columns and editorials are written by Kyodo, can see how terrible it is.
In contrast, Jiji once had people like Takubo Tadae and Oyama Taro.
Their articles were sound.
But now Jiji competes with Kyodo in denigrating Takaichi and trying desperately to curry favor with China.
When the Chinese actress Gao Yangzi said on television, “What’s wrong if China dominates Japan?”, it caused no controversy.
Jiji is simply following this trend of the times.
It has become a sad era indeed.

No competent reporters remain
As for the coral incident, Asahi’s conduct was truly disgraceful.
When a local diver denied the article, saying “There was no graffiti before Asahi arrived,” Asahi first shouted back, “How dare you speak against the mighty Asahi?”
Asahi was not delivered to the Yaeyama region.
Locals did not know or fear Asahi’s authority, so they repeatedly and honestly pointed out that Asahi had printed lies.
Asahi, puffed up with arrogance, kept mumbling excuses.
A few years earlier, Asahi had run a front-page story titled “This is the Japanese army’s poison-gas operation,” but the Sankei Shimbun pointed out that the photo was fake.
Asahi’s news director Satake Akimi stormed into the Sankei newsroom in fury and tried to intimidate them, but Sankei’s accusation was correct.
It was also revealed that Asahi had used a photo of a smoke screen ignited on the battlefield and, with the help of Professor Fujiwara Akira of Hitotsubashi University, deliberately misrepresented it as poison gas in order to smear the Japanese army.
As a result, President Watanabe Seiki lost his job.
Amid that lingering disgrace, when Asahi was again suspected of fabricating a Japan-bashing report, other newspapers began their own denunciations.
After a month of awkward excuses, Asahi finally admitted the self-inflicted fabrication, and both the photographer and President Ichiyanagi Toichiro resigned.
For some reason, Furuhata, who had viciously insulted innocent Japanese people, remained unpunished.
He continued to attack the Japanese people on nuclear issues afterward.
Two presidents of Asahi had resigned in succession because of malicious false reporting.
If the organization were sane, it would change its policy of “lying without hesitation.”
But Asahi has no remorse.
That is because this newspaper no longer has any competent reporters.

The arrogance of Asahi
Reporters at newspapers other than Asahi learn from their earliest days the importance of gathering information, and the value of humility and sincerity.
The first step is “face collecting.”
For example, when a child dies in an accident, the reporter must visit the home and ask the family for a photograph to publish.
A single misstep in speech can result in being thrown out.
One must observe proper manners, consider the feelings of others, and yet press ahead.
Arrogance has no place.
But Asahi’s reporters are different.
They simply call and say, “It will appear in Asahi.”
Families would cry with joy and prepare the photos.
There was indeed a time when society recognized Asahi’s authority.
As a result, Asahi’s reporters never learned manners and grew up arrogant.
On a personal note, when I rushed from the field in my bureau days to meet the deadline, I was once stopped by the police.
No matter what I said, the officer took his time and issued a ticket.
But when an Asahi car was stopped under the same circumstances, the officer saw the newspaper’s flag fluttering and “escorted them with a patrol car,” as described in Nagasaka Kiyoshi’s Thirty-Six Years of a Reporter’s Life (Shincho Bunko).
The same book describes the “Hokuriku Electric Power” incident.
The labor union whispered to the Asahi bureau that “the company is investigating the political ideology of reporters.”
Asahi’s reporters never verify sources.
They ran it as a front-page national headline: “Hokuriku Electric Power discriminates against reporters based on ideology.”
In reality, the company was only distinguishing whether reporters belonged to the Electric Power Press Club.
Club reporters were all knowledgeable; others had to be taught from the basics.
It was an important distinction.
Hokuriku Electric protested, but Asahi retorted, “What’s printed cannot be helped,” and remained arrogant.
Instead, they forced Hokuriku Electric to apologize for “using confusing categories.”
They conduct no real reporting, lie constantly, and never apologize even when exposed.
After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, a Hitachi-related individual brought the Yoshida dossier to Asahi.
It should have been a straightforward scoop, but without investigating, Asahi falsely wrote “700 TEPCO workers fled.”
While the world praised the TEPCO workers’ courage in a dangerous nuclear plant, Asahi’s desire to “defame the Japanese” took precedence and created a fabricated scoop.
Asahi submitted it as a candidate for the Newspaper Association Award, but Sankei quickly exposed the lie; it was reclassified as a false report, and the reporter resigned.
It was the perfect example of “Asahi reporters who do not investigate” and “fill gaps in a story with lies.”
The responsibility for allowing Asahi reporters to become so arrogant lies partly with society’s overestimation of the incompetent and arrogant Asahi Shimbun, symbolized by the individual who brought them the Yoshida dossier.

Asahi’s divine authority no longer works
However, in recent years, the winds appear to be shifting.
Asahi columnist Tadama Emi wrote a column furiously complaining that she was “refused an interview.”
As Watanabe Shoichi once said, Asahi has a kind of anti-Japanese faith “as if written by Koreans.”
Tadama went to Niigata to gather material supporting South Korea’s claim that “Koreans were forced to work” at the Sado gold mine, which is bidding for UNESCO World Heritage status.
At the prefectural library, she said, “I’m from Asahi; bring me such-and-such materials.”
After being kept waiting, she was told, “We cannot say whether we have such materials.”
They already suspected she was going to fabricate another Korean-abuse story.
Tadama was shocked and enraged that Asahi’s request had been rejected.
She retaliated by attacking the staff in her column.
She probably believes that the staff member has lost his job, just like Satake in the poison-gas scandal.
It is practically mafioso behavior.
Yet in the past, Asahi had never been “refused at the counter.”
Its divine authority is no longer effective.
It felt almost refreshing to hear.
The reason I am ending my Shukan Shincho column “Henken Jizai” is also related to Asahi.
For 23 years in this column, I have warned Asahi to “stop the stupidity and lies,” rebuked by name the reporters who shamelessly printed falsehoods, and emphasized the importance of reporting.
“Name Creation 2.0” (July 31, 2025 issue) was in that spirit, addressing the “alias system” Asahi often uses.
People who are not even Japanese disguise themselves as Japanese and spread harmful lies.
I advised Asahi to “make their identities clear.”
Their reaction was to attack me in an editorial, calling it discrimination.
They claimed aliases were not used to deceive Japanese people, but were “self-protection because Koreans would be bullied if exposed.”
I have never heard of such bullying.
The Mainichi and Tokyo Shimbun, who “always follow Asahi,” joined the attack in their editorials.
Organizations connected with Koreans also stirred up trouble.
When Asahi picked a fight with Watanabe Shoichi, a strange human-rights group barged into his classroom at Sophia University and disrupted his lectures.
As long as one acted in line with Asahi’s authority, any act of violence was tolerated.
This time, they even came to Shinchosha to pressure them, so the publisher asked me to suspend the column temporarily.
For 23 years, I have spent every weekend writing this column—submitting on Saturdays and checking proofs on Sundays.
My remaining youth is limited, so instead of a suspension, I informed them I would end the column altogether.
I have published eighteen volumes of Henken Jizai with Shinchosha, but because of these circumstances, the nineteenth volume scheduled for this autumn was left in limbo.
Fortunately, WAC agreed to publish it, and it will be released in mid-November.
The title is You Vile, Lying Scoundrels!—effectively the final volume.
Asahi knows very well who the vile scoundrels are.
To be continued.