Ryuhi Abiru of the Sankei Shimbun learned, through years of investigation, the danger of distorting facts through ideology.
His work embodies a fact-based journalism shaped by firsthand knowledge and rigorous verification.

2016-07-14
There is no doubt that one of the most outstanding active newspaper reporters in Japan today is Ryuhi Abiru, who serves as an editorial writer and political desk editor at the Sankei Shimbun.
The fact that he had Masayuki Takayama, a journalist without equal in the postwar world, as a senior colleague is likely one factor that shaped who he is today.
The most significant factor, however, is that ever since he, as a reporter, began to question the comfort women coverage and forced recruitment reporting initiated by Asahi Shimbun, he has spent many years investigating the truth behind the issue.
Through that process, he must have come to understand, at a visceral level, the danger of fabricating facts through distorted ideology.
In other words, through this process, he must have learned the importance, as a journalist, of conveying facts.
Through this process, he accumulated firsthand knowledge.
This morning, after writing about Shuntaro Torigoe, I headed toward Arashiyama, which is my own garden.
Regarding that article, I recall thinking that I should leave the following on record: until August of the year before last, I might still have thought of Torigoe as a good person, but now I feel exactly the opposite.
To state the conclusion alone, he speaks and behaves as if he were a champion of justice and a good man, yet in reality he is someone who aligned himself with Asahi Shimbun, inflicted enormous damage on Japan, and dragged down the international credibility of Japan and its people.
In short, I recorded that he is nothing less than an extreme villain.
On the train bound for Kyoto, a close friend handed me that day’s Sankei Shimbun.
His prominently placed serialized column consistently speaks through facts and is devoted to conveying to readers facts that only a newspaper reporter could know.
In other words, it is an article in which his true strength, as a journalist committed to journalism itself, is fully demonstrated.
At the same time, it also proved the correctness of my own arguments, from a perspective different from those I had mentioned.
The following is from his column today.
In the Tokyo gubernatorial election announced on the 14th, the four opposition parties—Democratic Party, Communist Party, Social Democratic Party, and People’s Life Party—have agreed to jointly support journalist Shuntaro Torigoe.
Anyone is free to support whomever they choose, but as someone who has long pointed out Torigoe’s “dangerousness” in the pages of the Sankei, I cannot suppress my concern about whether this will truly be all right.
“I watched the press conference announcing Mr. Torigoe’s candidacy, and we have now confirmed that we would like to offer our support,” said Yukio Edano, secretary general of the Democratic Party, at a joint press conference of the four opposition parties on the 12th.
Akira Koike, secretary general of the Communist Party, declared, “I want to do everything in my power for Mr. Torigoe’s victory.”
Seiji Mataichi, secretary general of the Social Democratic Party, likewise raised his voice, saying, “We will support him fully and do our utmost.”
But did they truly feel that Torigoe’s press conference was something wonderful?
As has already become a topic online, for example, Torigoe spoke about his own war experiences and, in a context emphasizing that he belongs to a “generation that knows war,” made the following statement.
“I was born in 1940. At the time the war ended, I was 20 years old. Of course, I remember the air raids and fleeing to air-raid shelters.”
Anyone can make mistakes or misspeak, and I have no intention of nitpicking.
But is this really such a matter?
One does not ordinarily make such an error at the very core of a story.
Spreading false conspiracy theories.
Even if this were merely a slip of the tongue, it is also true that many of Torigoe’s recent statements have been unsettling to hear.
At a press conference in February, he labeled Sanae Takaichi’s work experience with the U.S. Congress as “resume falsification” and asserted the following.
“She was an unpaid, uncontracted fellow treated as a trainee, doing little more than copying documents or serving tea.”
However, when Takaichi responded by showing that she had engaged in research for legislative initiatives and speeches and had received monthly research funding of two thousand dollars, Torigoe replied through his lawyer.
“I am not unwilling to retract or correct the statement.”
He effectively acknowledged that he had slandered Takaichi without evidence.
At the same press conference, Torigoe also made the following comment regarding opinion advertisements placed in this newspaper and others by the Association of Viewers Demanding Compliance with the Broadcast Act, a group of conservative scholars.
“There is a right-wing organization called Nippon Kaigi, and money is coming from there, and opinion advertisements are appearing in the Sankei and the Yomiuri. We are beginning to understand this to some extent.”
This statement, too, led Nippon Kaigi to demand a retraction and apology on the grounds that it was false and completely unfounded.
The sight of him boldly proclaiming conspiracy theories without verifying any facts at all is hardly what one would call journalistic practice.
At a press conference in March, Torigoe also stated that “the Abe Shinzo administration is nervously concerned about television reporting and has created a monitoring team to check it,” yet he provided neither evidence nor testimony, leaving the claim groundless and poorly substantiated.
Is he not placing an astonishingly low value on “facts,” to the point that it is hard to believe he was once a newspaper reporter?
“I have not read the policy platforms.”
“I was not interested, so I have not yet read the policies of Hiroya Masuda, former minister of internal affairs, or Yuriko Koike, former minister of defense.”
Torigoe also said this at the press conference on the 12th, revealing that he had no interest in what kind of metropolitan governance his rivals envisioned.
Can the four opposition parties, which rushed en masse to support Torigoe the moment the well-known figure showed interest in running, truly take responsibility for the future of Tokyo’s citizens?