From the preface of Masayuki Takayama’s latest book Asahi Is Still Scheming Today, this powerful firsthand account exposes the Asahi Shimbun’s long history of manipulation, intimidation of other media, fabricated reports, and distorted narratives on issues such as poison gas incidents and the comfort women controversy. Through Takayama’s personal experiences as a journalist, the book reveals how Asahi once wielded overwhelming influence within Japan’s press while repeatedly disseminating falsehoods that damaged Japan’s reputation.

The following is from the preface of Asahi Is Still Scheming Today (Shinchosha, 1,400 yen), the latest book by Masayuki Takayama, the one and only journalist of his kind in the postwar world.
In this preface alone, Takayama brilliantly exposes the true nature of the Asahi Shimbun to the Japanese people.
It is an especially indispensable book for reporters of the New York Times (particularly reporter Onishi), the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and others who, together with the Asahi Shimbun, have not only committed the gravest discourtesies toward Japan but have continued to demean the country.
The emphasis and the parts marked with asterisks in the text are mine.
To tell the truth, during my days as a newspaper reporter, I was once interviewed by a reporter from the Asahi Shimbun and was attacked in a front-page article on the general news section—under my real name.
Even recalling a story I do not wish to remember, it must have been around my tenth year after joining the company.
While interviewing a veteran ANA pilot, the conversation happened to touch upon the All Nippon Airways Tokyo Bay crash.
On February 4, 1966, a Boeing 727 flying from Chitose passed over Kisarazu shortly after 7 p.m. and crashed while approaching Haneda. It was only 30 seconds after the final communication.
From the situation, it was believed to be due to a pilot’s misreading of altitude, but the matter began to take a strange turn.
Masao Yamana of the University of Tokyo brought up a dubious airframe defect theory, and the Asahi Shimbun seized upon it.
Once that paper forms a conviction, it is single-minded. Just like with nuclear power plants: “Shut them down. No other choice is allowed.” This time as well, it relentlessly pushed the airframe defect theory.
One of the passengers was wearing a rosary around the neck, something they normally did not do.
That was taken as evidence for the airframe defect theory.
The aircraft, supposedly defective, was falling.
Yanagida Kunio wrote that the passenger realized the end was near and took out the rosary—and even received an award for it.
The accident cause, which had been close to being determined as pilot error, was nullified and left as “unknown.”
The veteran pilot spoke of the background of the accident.
Pilots confident in their skills enjoyed canceling instrument flight and accelerating using visual flight.
“With older aircraft, they could be flown by skill alone. Today it is different. Trying to control high-performance aircraft by hand is sheer arrogance,” he said.
These words, admonishing the crew’s overconfidence, clearly suggested pilot error.
Ten years had passed since the accident.
I wrote in a magazine that the airframe defect theory was a case of collective delusion.
That once even newspapers succumb to such assumptions, it is all over.
I also introduced the captain’s humble attitude.
That brought a reporter from Asahi to me.
From the very beginning, it was clear from the way the questions were framed that they wanted to force a particular statement.
This was exactly the same method used by a TV Asahi female announcer when she interviewed Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.
I asked what their true intention was. Several days later, the answer appeared in the pages of Asahi.
Simply put, it meant: “We will not tolerate any view different from Asahi’s.”
Those who defy it will be crushed using the pages of the paper.
I was furious, but life is full of irony—soon I was given the chance to challenge an Asahi article myself.
When I was the morning desk editor, Mizuho Ishikawa of the social affairs pool brought in a manuscript.
She said that an Asahi front-page article from some time earlier titled “This Is the Poison Gas Operation,” along with its photograph, was fraudulent.
The article said “poison gas was used in Nanchang,” but the correct location was “Xinjia River” near Lake Dongting, and the dozen or so plumes rising in the photo were not poison gas but smoke screens.
As usual, Asahi was spreading outright lies to once again smear the Japanese military.
Unlike Asahi, reporter Ishikawa had thoroughly compiled verification and documentary evidence.
At the time, criticizing other companies’ articles was taboo, but this “false self-flagellation story” was too malicious to ignore.
So we ran it prominently as the top social page story.
I swear it was not out of retaliation or personal resentment.
The following morning, while I was sleeping soundly in the nap room, a call came through from “a division chief at the Asahi Shimbun.”
A furious voice burst out over the phone.
It was Akemi Satake, head of the Culture Department and the person responsible for publishing that fraudulent photograph.
“I’m coming over there. Tell your editor-in-chief or whoever is responsible,” he said, announcing his intentions.
Storming another company’s social affairs department certainly took nerve.
When I told the editor-in-chief, asking whether we should all gang up on him, he said regretfully that he had business to attend to and asked the deputy managing editor to receive him.
The deputy, who was usually free, also happened to have an appointment, as did the managing editor of the social affairs department.
In the end, I received Director Satake alone.
He was truly beside himself with rage that both the article and photograph had been reported as fraudulent.
Sitting on the guest sofa, he scolded me in a harsh tone: “What are you thinking?”
“Poison gas does not rise into the sky,” I replied.
Satake’s temples bulged with veins.
“So a paper like Sankei thinks it can challenge Asahi?”
“No, unlike you, we simply wish to value the facts.”
“What did you say? You won’t apologize? You’ve got some nerve.”
“Thank you very much.”
“I’m not praising you.”
His final words were, “I’ll crush the Sankei,” and with that he kicked the floor and stormed out.
When I realized it, young reporters were watching from a distance.
Through this incident, I learned for the first time that, whatever its internal realities, the Asahi Shimbun wielded immense hidden power in the newspaper world.
Even the editor-in-chief and the social affairs editor did not want to confront Asahi. That is why they fled.
Satake himself believed he could single-handedly storm into another newspaper company; that is how great Asahi considered itself. I alone had naively failed to realize that.
Come to think of it, during the 1960 Anpo protests, Michiko Kanba died.
When revolutionary fervor suddenly surged, Shintaro Kasa of Asahi gathered the Tokyo newspapers and forced all of them to run the same editorial.
It called for “Stop the violent demonstrations” to calm the situation.
Even the editorials of other papers were controlled. Such was Asahi’s authority.
But I believe that authority cracked with the poison gas affair.
Several days later, Asahi admitted its error and issued a correction.
Despite Satake’s bluster, even he could not destroy the Sankei.
Seeing this, each paper began to think that perhaps Asahi had merely been the “naked king” of the newspaper world.
It was also around this time that rumors spread that the celebrated writer and model journalist Hideo Aragaki had been arrested for lifting a woman’s skirt.
The final blow was the Asahi’s self-fabricated “KY” coral graffiti incident.
The “naked king,” Toichiro Ichiyanagi, lost his position.
Asahi’s past was dug up, from Honda Katsuichi to Yoshida Seiji, and exposed.
Based on my own experience, the true nature of Asahi is, first, arrogance without verification, and second, something bordering on intellectual impairment.
Once told that self-denigration sells, they plunge into it blindly, like a mindless monkey, rubbing themselves raw without a thought for consequences.
The lies about comfort women and poison gas are typical examples.
When comfort women statues spread around the world, they react with feigned surprise, saying, “What, is that my responsibility?”
If readers deepen their understanding of how Japan’s disgrace conducts itself, through the main text, I would be grateful.
Summer, 2016
Masayuki Takayama