An essay analyzing Asahi Shimbun’s muted coverage of an award granted for reporting aimed at undermining the Abe administration.
It exposes the role of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ) in praising the Moritomo Gakuen coverage, the collaboration between Asahi Shimbun and specific political actors, and the misuse of “press freedom” as a tool for political campaigns.
2017-08-31

An Award for Fake Reporting to Topple the Abe Administration
Strangely enough, I happened to skim through Asahi Shimbun this morning, something I rarely do.
Perhaps because of that, I came across a truly strange article.
It appeared in small print on page thirty, in the social affairs section.
Even Asahi Shimbun, whose malice reaches depths rivaling the “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies” of China and the Korean Peninsula,
must have felt some sense of shame about prominently advertising that it had received an award for fake reporting aimed at toppling the Abe administration.
Nevertheless, I found myself wondering what kind of collection of incompetents the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan must be,
for granting a “Freedom of the Press Award” to an Asahi Shimbun reporter by labeling the so-called Moritomo Gakuen issue a “scoop.”
They are probably all reporters who habitually serve Asahi Shimbun.
Their problem is not merely incompetence or ignorance; they are a thoroughly disrespectful group that grossly underestimates Japan.
I will explain it to them succinctly: the Moritomo Gakuen uproar was initiated by a Toyonaka City council member of Korean origin—formerly a secretary to then–Democratic Party lawmaker Tsujimoto Kiyomi, herself a figure of highly questionable background—
and it was, in essence, a campaign manufactured in collusion with Asahi Shimbun to bring down the Abe administration.
It has been common knowledge among readers for several years that Asahi Shimbun began showing a peculiar degree of favoritism toward Tsujimoto.
Why did Tsujimoto have such detailed knowledge of that parcel of land in Toyonaka,
a piece of property worth next to nothing and located directly beneath the flight path of landing aircraft?
It was Tsujimoto who arranged for Toyonaka City to purchase national land adjacent to the Moritomo site at a price even cheaper than what Moritomo Gakuen itself had paid.
To be continued.