This essay, dated March 8, 2019, examines Asahi Shimbun’s coverage of the Moritomo and Kake scandals and sharply criticizes the contradiction whereby the paper created headlines and narratives strongly suggesting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s involvement, only later to claim that it had never reported such involvement.
It treats Asahi’s defamation lawsuit against Eiichiro Ogawa’s book as a典型例 of a SLAPP suit, in which a major media organization that could respond through speech instead uses litigation to intimidate its critics, and frames the issue as one of the largest reporting crimes of the postwar era.

2019-03-08
It became clear that what Asahi had so eagerly reported as though it were connected to Prime Minister Abe and the Prime Minister’s Office was complete fabrication.
What problem is there in calling this “fabrication” and “falsification”?

Yet Asahi Shimbun sued Mr. Ogawa’s book and its publisher, Asuka Shinsha, for defamation.
Demanding 50 million yen in damages and the publication of an apology advertisement.

2018-04-21 10:14:03 | Diary

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
All emphases in the text other than the headings are mine.

This has now become nothing less than “defamation and abuse.”

Suda.
If a government had been so fiercely criticized by part of the press and other media, in the past an ordinary administration would already have fallen, would it not?
But Mr. Abe does not fall.
That is why the bashing becomes excessive.

Ogawa.
Of course, since he is steering a country this large, there are aspects that must be checked rigorously.
But such criticism ought to be policy debate, should it not?
In this latest policy speech, for the first time in the past five years, Prime Minister Abe devoted 80 percent of it to domestic issues.
In particular, regional revitalization as a response to the declining birthrate and aging population, and what he called the human resources revolution.
For the first time, he proposed a comprehensive plan to address them.
The Diet ought to engage fully in debate that evaluates and criticizes that, or proposes better alternatives.
Yet there has been no proper criticism or debate.
Nothing but “Moritomo and Kake,” with Asahi Shimbun at the center fanning the flames.
They go on and on with defamation based on lies.
Grieved by such a situation, I wrote a book titled A Thorough Examination of the “Moritomo and Kake Incidents” — One of the Largest Postwar Reporting Crimes by the Asahi Shimbun (Asuka Shinsha), in which I pointed out that Asahi’s reporting was biased and fabricated.

Suda.
Yet Asahi Shimbun sued Mr. Ogawa’s book and its publisher, Asuka Shinsha, for defamation.
It is demanding 50 million yen in damages and the publication of an apology advertisement.
In fact, you could call me a “professional” when it comes to defamation lawsuits as well (laughs).
I have been sued nearly thirty times already, but I have still never lost.
Even so, I was astonished by this lawsuit.
I have never heard of a media organization suing another media organization, and even more, suing an individual.
Politicians and companies may sue the media, but ordinarily, in disputes among media outlets, the general rule is to respond to speech with speech, and the media itself has always said so.
So why, this time, did Asahi Shimbun sue the individual author and the publisher?
What on earth was the process that led to this?

It falls under a SLAPP suit.

Hanada.
Mr. Ogawa’s book was released at the end of last October.
A month later, at the end of November, a document called a “written request” arrived in the name of the head of public relations of Asahi Shimbun.
It stated, with regard to sixteen items, that “there are questionable points in Mr. Ogawa’s book.”
In response, Mr. Ogawa and Asuka Shinsha submitted a careful reply by the deadline.
If there were errors, they would correct them, and if there were objections, they were prepared to publish them.
In fact, there were portions corrected in the next edition.
And yet Asahi posted on its site, “We cannot accept the content of your reply.
We will consider our future response internally,” and after that there was no further word.
Then, on December 25, it suddenly announced the filing of the lawsuit.

Suda.
And moreover it demanded 50 million yen in damages.
This too is strange, but I heard the complaint was even uploaded online before it arrived.

Kadota.
Asahi’s lawsuit is precisely a textbook example of a SLAPP suit.
A SLAPP suit is a lawsuit filed by a powerful large corporation, one capable of restoring its reputation without going to court, against freelance journalists or writers and the like, in order to intimidate authors who write critically of it and to suppress speech.
If Asahi had wished, it could have responded as much as it liked through speech, and yet it leapt straight to litigation.
It deserves criticism.

Hanada.
Asahi Shimbun can print as many as 179,000 characters in a single morning edition.
Every day it can transmit about the amount of information contained in an entire paperback volume.
If it has something to say against a book, it can rebut it as much as it wants in its pages.
And yet, without doing that, it suddenly files suit.
Would this not be the first such case in media history?

Suda.
Mr. Ogawa is a literary critic, but in writing this critical book on “Moritomo and Kake,” you also carried out reporting, did you not?

Ogawa.
Of course.

Astonishment at Asahi’s complaint.

Suda.
I hear you even went to that “questionable bar” that former Vice Minister of Education Kihei Maekawa was said to frequent.

Ogawa.
You mean a “dating bar” (laughs).
Certainly, I did not interview Asahi Shimbun.
Since the book is a critique of the articles themselves, there was no need to interview reporters for their impressions or the company for its views.
But I did conduct interviews in many directions, including people connected to the Prime Minister’s Office and those connected to Osaka Prefecture.
To begin with, the central point of this book is this: in February 2017, the Moritomo Gakuen issue first began with an Asahi scoop.
Then, on May 17, with regard to the Kake Gakuen issue, that famous “at the Prime Minister’s intention” document was reported as the top front-page story.
What the two issues have in common is that Asahi Shimbun wrote up “Abe suspicion.”
Was it not the case that those involved on both sides were close to the Prime Minister and his wife?
Did Prime Minister Abe favor his friends?
There is no doubt that for five months Asahi Shimbun continued to lead the way with this line.
And during that period, the Cabinet approval rating, which had been around an average of 60 percent, fell to below 30 percent.
The reason given was that “Prime Minister Abe has not fulfilled his accountability regarding the Moritomo and Kake issues.”
If this were a “major scandal,” and if a prime minister were to fall over an international money scandal like the Lockheed affair, one could understand it.
But “Moritomo and Kake” were not that.
An administration was on the verge of being brought down by complete falsehoods.
Thinking this was a serious problem, I read all of Asahi Shimbun’s سلسلة of Moritomo and Kake reports from last year, more than 600 of them in total.
After reading them, my conclusion was, “Nothing is understandable” (laughs).
I could not understand at all how the incidents had arisen, what was considered problematic, or how much Asahi itself actually grasped when writing the articles.
So when I read the minutes of Osaka Prefecture, to which Moritomo Gakuen had applied for approval to establish a new elementary school, and the minutes of Imabari City in Ehime Prefecture, which had applied for a National Strategic Special Zone designation for Kake Gakuen’s new veterinary school, as well as the minutes of the Japan Veterinary Medical Association, suddenly the whole picture became visible.
It became clear that what Asahi had so eagerly reported as though it were connected to Prime Minister Abe and the Prime Minister’s Office was complete fabrication.
What problem is there in calling this “fabrication” and “falsification”?

Hanada.
The full complaint can be read on the Asahi Shimbun Corporate Site, and I would very much like everyone to read it, but on page three of that complaint, it says the following.
“The plaintiff did not report, with respect to the two above issues (namely, the Moritomo and Kake issues), that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was involved.
Nor did it know that Prime Minister Abe was not involved.”

Suda.
Does it really say something like that?
Would that not itself be fabrication? (laughs)

Hanada.
It says so in the complaint (laughs).
It is outrageous.
After producing more than 600 articles since last year designed to make readers suspect “the Prime Minister’s involvement,” this sort of statement is unacceptable.

The essence of the Asahi Shimbun is exactly the same as China and Korea, lands of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”

Ogawa.
The problem with Asahi’s articles lies especially in the headlines.
The front-page headline of May 17 was, “New Faculty ‘At the Prime Minister’s Intention.’”
Thinking in ordinary terms, that is tantamount to reporting as an established fact that the Prime Minister was involved.
If this kind of thing is reported every day for more than half a year, Asahi’s readers will inevitably be led to think, “After all, Abe is to blame for Moritomo and Kake.
And yet he has not fulfilled his accountability.”

Readers will recall that Arima on NHK’s Watch 9 also repeatedly commented that “he has not fulfilled his accountability,” while Kuwako beside him nodded in agreement….
Japan’s state broadcaster was repeatedly using the public airwaves to attack a prime minister who had continued to render one of the greatest contributions to Japan in the postwar era.
That is why, when Prime Minister Abe was invited as a guest for the first time, the tension and bewilderment of those two were so extraordinary.
Before a real statesman, before a true patriot who had inherited the DNA of the countless great figures Japan has continued to produce for more than a thousand years, those wretched traitors, enemies of the nation, and tools of China and Korea stood frozen like kindergarten children.

To be continued.