An introduction to the prologue of The Sins and Punishments of the Mass Media by Masayuki Takayama and Rui Abiru. The essay criticizes the awarding of the JCJ Prize to Asahi Shimbun’s Moritomo–Kake reporting and examines media bias, the influence of the WGIP narrative after World War II, and tensions between Japanese media and the Abe administration.

2019-02-12.
Especially in recent years, the Asahi Shimbun has, after losing its senses, turned to resentment and become nothing more than a smear newspaper that spits out words of curse toward the Abe administration and the Japanese people.
And the JCJ says it sincerely awarded a prize to such a newspaper.
The Sins and Punishments of the Mass Media, first published on February 10, 2019, by Masayuki Takayama and Rui Abiru, is a must-read for every Japanese citizen who can read printed text.
This book, presented in the form of a dialogue between Masayuki Takayama—truly one of a kind in the postwar world—and Rui Abiru, one of the finest active newspaper reporters in Japan, is also kind to readers with aging eyes.
Asterisks indicate my own words.
Prologue.
This dates back to 2017, but Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on the series of allegations surrounding Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Gakuen received the “JCJ (Japan Congress of Journalists) Prize.”
The JCJ Prize is supposedly awarded for outstanding journalistic activity.
It must have been a mistake—or a bad joke.
By now, Japanese journalism has gone astray as an industry.
Some media outlets even claim, without embarrassment, that they have “the freedom not to report.”
Especially in recent years, the Asahi Shimbun has, after losing its senses, turned to resentment and become nothing more than a smear newspaper that spits out words of curse toward the Abe administration and the Japanese people.
And the JCJ says it sincerely awarded a prize to such a newspaper.
The very name “journalist” weeps at this, and I am even more astonished that the mass media does not find it strange.
Has Japan’s mainstream media already died?
When did this childish value system arise—this notion that the mission of the media is to oppose power, that liberalism is absolute justice, and that any lie is acceptable as long as it serves anti-government and liberal ideology?
The Asahi Shimbun proclaimed this shamelessly in 2007, in its “Reviving Journalism” declaration on the top of the front page of its morning edition.
That was not so long ago.
And yet, the roots run deep.
Japan defeated the Qing dynasty.
Japan also defeated Russia, then the strongest power of its time.
Both were fought out of a determination to defend itself, yet before long Japan found itself cast as an enemy that the United States—waving the banner of white supremacy—“had to destroy.”
Japan responded calmly to a war that was forced upon it, and even then fought as best it could.
Though Japan lost the war, it liberated every colony that had formed the foundation of white imperialism, and brought about a new era in which not only whites but also Asians and Africans could build independent nations and run their own states.
“War is the continuation of politics by other means,” said Clausewitz.
In the sense that Japan brought a swift end to a white imperialism that treated human beings as less than human, Japan could be said to have carried out a remarkable act of international politics, but as a consequence Japan became the target of concentrated white envy and hatred, and under the name of postwar policy the very form of the nation, its history, and the ethnic consciousness of the Japanese people were dismantled both physically and psychologically.
In their place, a self-denigrating historical view was implanted—one that portrayed Japan as a brutal aggressor state that oppressed and slaughtered the peoples of Asia.
This was the falsification of history through what they called the War Guilt Information Program (WGIP).
While standing at that very scene, and while knowing it to be false, the Asahi Shimbun and NHK accepted Japan’s dismantling and the self-denigrating narrative in order to secure their own survival.
It may be called an emergency escape, but even after Japan regained independence, they continued to protect and preach such counterfeit values and historical views in order to justify themselves.
Japanese people themselves have begun to notice that distortion.
Shinzo Abe is one of the few politicians striving to restore an accurate history.
Just before launching his second administration, he named the Asahi Shimbun—still clinging to WGIP—and pointed to it as fake news, which should be understood as a declaration of war to reclaim historical truth.
For the mass media, which believed itself to be in an absolute safe zone and felt no shame in reporting falsehoods, this must have been an earth-shattering event.
Moreover, it led to a major defeat for the Asahi Shimbun: the full retraction of its Seiji Yoshida articles.
The reason they now rush, without regard to appearances, to destroy Abe is that if they lose again, only abolition remains.
Seventeen years ago, I too was inside the mass media.
I was just a newspaper reporter.
That is why I understand their hypocrisy and sense of privilege so well.
This book is a dialogue with Rui Abiru, a younger reporter from the Sankei Shimbun.
We belong to different generations, and our fields were different, but he was already a capable reporter back then.
Abiru is now unmistakably one of the Sankei Shimbun’s leading reporters.
He has both keen judgment and strong writing power.
Even after I became an OB, we have remained in contact.
Since the 1990s he has kept his eyes on Shinzo Abe, and he continued to engage with him even through the bitter period after the collapse of Abe’s first administration.
He is one of the few reporters who has recorded Abe’s many direct words, from the time when Abe became a key figure on the world stage.
Even today (2019/2/12), NHK announced a so-called opinion poll—based on a survey of fewer than 2,000 people—that included, again, the item “Prime Minister Abe’s character cannot be trusted,” a lie fabricated through the Moritomo–Kake narrative created by Asahi Shimbun, political operators in the opposition who can fairly be called agents of anti-Japanese states, and NHK itself.
The way Kuwako presented it on Watch9 was pure impression manipulation.
She read it as “47% support versus 37% disapproval.”
If there were no intention to manipulate impressions, she would simply say “support 47%, disapproval 37%.”
By using the phrasing “versus,” the agents who dominate the news division emphasize, “Look how high the disapproval is,” and attempt to plant it in the subconscious.
They do not announce that the LDP’s support is always around 50% while the Constitutional Democratic Party is only around 5%, nor have they ever said “LDP 50% versus CDP 5%.”
And today they did not even announce party approval ratings at all.
Every Japanese citizen should infer that the numbers were unbelievably low.
Abiru also possesses the vitality to write a blog under his real name and publish book after book amid the heavy demands of reporting.
His columns are certainly popular among younger people as well.
His perspective is solid.
This book is a candid conversation with such a junior colleague about what Japan’s media has become.
I hope it will offer even a small measure of guidance when thinking about Japan.