This essay examines the “strawman method” of selectively editing testimony and evidence to shape narratives. Through cases such as the Yoshida report retraction and comfort women coverage, it analyzes the reporting stance and institutional culture of Asahi.

It is a method of selectively cutting and altering the other party’s testimony, materials, and evidence to suit one’s own convenience.
2018-01-23
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Kadota speaks again.
“The articles regarding the Yoshida report were fully retracted, and those responsible, including the president, were dismissed or resigned.
However, has Asahi truly reflected on this?”
Kadota calls this method used by the Asahi Shimbun the “strawman method.”
It is a method of selectively cutting and altering the other party’s testimony, materials, and evidence to suit one’s own convenience.
Hasegawa Hiroshi, who spent a total of 53 years at the Asahi Shimbun and the magazine AERA, wrote in The Collapse of the Asahi Shimbun (WAC) about the pages printed when Asahi retracted all comfort women reports related to Seiji Yoshida as false.
“I was stunned by this arrogant attitude and by the way they obscured matters.”
He also wrote that in the social affairs department and editorial board, which handled comfort women manuscripts, there were “people who, rather than investigating facts, think only from the premise that Japan’s former Army and Navy are ‘evil,’ and if a story fits that premise, they instantly regard it as fact—conditioned reflex humans,” and that there were many “Pavlov’s dogs.”
He further criticizes that within Asahi, those who are “non- or anti-Marxists” tend to be labeled as “right-wing.”
In other words, reporting from a left-wing or liberal stance is the essence of Asahi.
Within such an Asahi-like institutional culture, would not Prime Minister Abe, regarded as the leader of the “conservatives,” be hated regardless of what he does or does not do?
To be continued.