Using media coverage surrounding Kihei Maekawa as a case study, this essay condemns the moral and institutional decay of Japan’s major newspapers. It argues that the same “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies” seen in China and South Korea define their true nature.

August 7, 2017.
Mr. Maekawa frequented a dating bar called “Koikatsu Bar Love on the Beach.”
Related details about this were published online,
and I was appalled to learn that the location was Kabukicho and that Maekawa regularly went there.
Yet the broadcasters and newspapers I follow, including NHK, the Asahi Shimbun, and the Nikkei, reported none of these crucial facts.
Instead, the Asahi portrayed Maekawa as if he were a guardian of democracy, a righteous superhero, and used such a man to attack Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was performing what could be described without exaggeration as the greatest work of any administration in restoring Japan.
The vulgarity and malice of the Asahi Shimbun have reached their extreme.
It is no exaggeration to say that, just like China and South Korea, “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies” constitute the true nature of this newspaper company.
I myself once acquired diamond-like, highly valuable land in Jinnan, Shibuya Ward, and maintained a Tokyo branch office there, which required me to travel to Tokyo frequently.
From my perspective, the mere fact that a vice minister of education visited Kabukicho three or four times a week alone makes him utterly unfit for the position.