The Japan commentary of New York Times Tokyo bureau chief Martin Fackler mirrors Asahi Shimbun’s editorial line.
This essay exposes how distorted views of Japan are reproduced through a closed media ecosystem.

2016-08-25
This man’s perception of Japan is nothing other than the editorial line of Asahi Shimbun itself.
The other day, I came across a truly absurd article on goo and found myself wondering what on earth it was.
Martin Fackler, the Tokyo bureau chief of The New York Times, a man better described as a fallen leftist, would be one thing if he were speaking about China or South Korea.
But to direct such utterly laughable commentary toward Japan—a country that has achieved the world’s highest levels of intellect and freedom, and a country in which, by three reasons I discovered, the turntable of civilization is turning as a matter of divine providence—left me not merely astonished but filled with unforgivable anger.
This man’s understanding of Japan is identical to that of Asahi Shimbun’s editorials.
The Tokyo bureau of The New York Times is located inside the headquarters of Asahi Shimbun.
Naturally, this man enjoys the privilege of reading Asahi for free.
Yet God is fair.
That is precisely why such foolish commentary comes into being.
What an astonishingly ignorant journalist he is.
Martin Fackler, you would do well to speak only after reading the works of Masayuki Takayama at least once.
You would be so ashamed of your own ignorance that you would never speak again.
This man, steeped entirely in Asahi Shimbun, like myself until last year, likely knows nothing whatsoever about Takayama.
He has surely never read his books.
Asahi Shimbun has deliberately kept Takayama completely out of sight.
Someday I intend to write the harshest criticism in the world directed at The New York Times, but here I will limit myself to this essay alone.
He also appears in a tabloid newspaper called Nikkan Gendai.
Judging by the fact that such articles are published there, it is likely a company dominated by people akin to remnants of the old radical student movements.
At the same time, the very fact that such idiotic statements can be spoken openly and published without restraint is itself proof, supplied by his own side, of how utterly baseless the commentary of a man like Fackler truly is.
Their foolish, distorted, doctrinaire, and authoritarian minds remain entirely unaware of this.