By examining biased reporting on the Moritomo and Kake school scandals and revisiting the 1982 textbook misreporting incident, this essay exposes how Japanese media distorted facts, shaped narratives, and eroded public trust through selective silence and political manipulation.

This article analyzes systemic media bias in Japan through the Moritomo and Kake controversies, highlighting the historic 1982 textbook misreporting scandal as a turning point. It reveals how selective reporting, political pressure, and the refusal to correct errors contributed to long-term distortion of historical narratives and public perception.

2017-07-18
Media organizations that were already distorted at the time became even more twisted.
With every report surrounding the Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Gakuen cases, these concerns only deepen.
In any case, in an interview with the Sankei Shimbun (published in the morning edition of June 16), Mr. Kato cited the “textbook misreporting incident” of the summer of 1982 (Showa 57) as an example of politics distorting administration.
The media reported in unison that the word “invasion” in textbook screenings had been rewritten as “advance,” and the issue escalated into an international dispute.
At that time, China, together with South Korea, fiercely attacked Japan; today, in the South China Sea and around the Senkaku Islands, China goes far beyond merely replacing the word “invasion” with “advance,” arrogantly asserting that these areas are its own territory.
“The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Kiichi Miyazawa saying that textbooks would be corrected under government responsibility. The screening process, which should have been handled by the Ministry of Education, was forcibly and unreasonably overridden by the Prime Minister’s Office. The political motive—to smooth things over ahead of Prime Minister Suzuki Zenko’s scheduled visit to China—was obvious, but we did not say that the administrative process had been bent. That was the pride of bureaucrats.”
It was also striking that Mr. Kato remarked in the interview, “Perhaps that is where Mr. Maekawa went beyond proper norms.”
In the end, it was confirmed that there had been no such rewriting of “invasion” to “advance.” Sankei Shimbun published a large, seven-column correction and apology, but most media organizations made no attempt to correct their reports.
This misreporting incident led to the addition of the so-called “neighboring countries clause” to textbook screening standards, requiring consideration for neighboring nations, thereby distorting textbook descriptions.
Media organizations that were already distorted at the time became even more twisted.