This passage argues forcefully that the so-called “Moritomo-Kake issue” was nothing less than an anti-government campaign orchestrated by Asahi Shimbun through sheer image manipulation.
By exposing the deception in Asahi editorials, the responsibility of the opposition parties and mass media, and the declining influence of legacy media in the age of the internet, it accuses them of being the true force that has eroded Japanese democracy.

2019-04-15
As for this “Moritomo-Kake issue,” if you ask me, it is a government-toppling campaign launched by Asahi Shimbun through image manipulation, staking the very fate of the company, and that campaign is now heading toward a spectacular failure.

This is a chapter I published on 2019-01-17 under the title, “Forcing through the ‘Moritomo-Kake issue’ by image manipulation alone, creating the false image that Prime Minister Abe somehow appears suspicious, and trying to bring down the government chosen by the people through their own false reporting.”
The chapter I published on 2018-09-18 under the title, “When one looks at dictatorial states such as China and North Korea, they make it appear as though the other side is doing what they themselves are doing,” is one that the Japanese people and people all over the world must reread.
Since August four years ago, I stopped subscribing to Asahi Shimbun.
At first, I had continued, half-reading it, in order to monitor its biased reporting, but,
thinking that this was not my duty but the work of commentators and public intellectuals, I cleanly stopped subscribing, and so,
I now know nothing at all about what kind of reporting Asahi is doing.
Omitted in the middle.
It would be no exaggeration to say that there is no role for Japanese commentators other than to criticize such outrageous articles by Asahi Shimbun with severity.
That is what I wrote and published, but just now, while searching the internet, I found a person fulfilling that role in the internet, the greatest library in human history.
Under the subtitle, “A financial regulation expert explains the truth about the suspicious currency, the renminbi, and the dangerous realities of the South Korean economy,” a person publishing under the title “Shinjuku Accountant’s Political and Economic Commentary” has produced a laborious work brilliantly elucidating the strangeness and abnormality of Asahi Shimbun on the basis of its recent editorials.
It is an essay that all Japanese people and people throughout the world must read.
All emphasis in the text other than the headings is mine.

[Asahi Shimbun Critique] It Is Rather Asahi Shimbun That Is Rotting Democracy at the Root

Recently, when reading Asahi Shimbun editorials, it somehow seems that the government-toppling campaign this newspaper has pursued with all its might is boomeranging back upon itself.

The astonishing editorial of Asahi Shimbun.
A little while ago, this website began “watching Asahi Shimbun editorials.”
The reason is not merely that I was inspired by the old saying, “Know the enemy and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.”
It is because I feel that properly monitoring the sophistry of Asahi Shimbun and conveying it to the people is my role as a web commentator.
What I introduce today is this.
Editorial: The End of Abe’s One-Strong Politics—Lamenting the Root Rot of Democracy.
From the Japanese digital edition of Asahi Shimbun, dated 5:00 a.m., July 22, 2018.
The title contains the phrase “root rot of democracy,” which is extraordinary.
For democracy is the foundation of Japan, and if Asahi Shimbun’s claim that it is rotting at the root were true, that would mean Japan itself is rotting at the root.
Specifically, Asahi Shimbun, after saying, “In the ordinary Diet session closing today, the ruling coalition successively forced through the Work Style Reform Act, the revised Public Offices Election Act increasing the House of Councillors’ seats by six, and the Casino Implementation Act,” strongly criticizes this as “a crisis of democracy brought about by the arrogance of Abe’s one-strong politics.”
“To be too stunned for words” is precisely what should be said of this editorial.
There is no such thing as a “Casino Implementation Act,” you know?
There are many things I would like to say to the person who wrote this editorial in Asahi Shimbun, but one of them is the fact that there is no law called the “Casino Implementation Act.”
Its correct name is the “Act on Development of Specified Integrated Resort Districts,” commonly called the “IR Act.”
If they call themselves a news organization, they should at least call it the “IR Act.”
Furthermore, while Asahi Shimbun’s editorial strongly criticizes the government for “successively forcing through various bills,” I would like to ask the reverse question: why does Asahi Shimbun not criticize the opposition parties for arbitrarily taking twenty consecutive holidays and thereby causing a shortage of deliberation time?
Moreover, it says, “Meanwhile, on the Moritomo and Kake issues, which deeply damaged administrative fairness and trust in politics, the truth was shelved without anyone taking political responsibility.”
But if they call it the Moritomo-Kake “issue,” then why has Asahi Shimbun still not reported even a single line of the basic information: when, under what law, and in what way Prime Minister Abe himself violated anything?

The culprit rotting the governance of the nation at the root is rather Asahi Shimbun.

When one looks at dictatorial states such as China and North Korea, it is common for them to use sophistry so that what they themselves are doing appears as though the other side is doing it.
For example, “Japan is unjustly asserting sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, which are inherently Chinese territory.”
In short, China and North Korea seem to possess the mentality of making it appear as though the other side is doing precisely what they themselves are doing.
And the line uttered in an editorial by that same Asahi Shimbun is as follows.
“We can no longer overlook the present state in which the harmful effects of a long-term administration commanding a huge ruling party are rotting the governance of the nation at the root.”
I, too, do not deny that Japan’s democracy is being rotted at the root.
However, in this case, the one trying to rot “the governance of the nation at the root” is not the Abe administration.
It is Asahi Shimbun.
Asahi Shimbun describes the Abe administration’s stance as “the dishonesty of a government that will not explain itself,” but that “dishonesty of not explaining” applies exactly to Asahi Shimbun itself.
To force through the “Moritomo-Kake issue” by image manipulation alone, creating the false image that Prime Minister Abe appears suspicious, and trying to bring down the government chosen by the people through their own false reporting.
This is a full-fledged coup, and also an act of terror.
And the primary responsibility for turning the Diet into nothing more than a place to obstruct the government and ruling parties lies with the mass media, beginning with Asahi Shimbun, and with the opposition parties, beginning with the Constitutional Democratic Party.

Asahi Shimbun has entered a new phase.

However, it is also true that the “Moritomo-Kake issue,” over which Asahi Shimbun and others have made a great commotion for a year and a half, is entering a new phase.
As for this “Moritomo-Kake issue,” if you ask me, it is a government-toppling campaign launched by Asahi Shimbun through image manipulation, staking the very fate of the company, and that campaign is now heading toward a spectacular failure.
To begin with, Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on the “Moritomo-Kake issue” started in February 2017 for Moritomo and in May of the same year for Kake, but in the House of Representatives general election held in October 2017, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito together maintained a more than two-thirds majority in a landslide victory.
Is this not proof that the false reporting carried out in unison by the mass media is no longer functioning?
As I mentioned earlier in “Is it only natural to oppose the cabinet if one swallows newspapers and television whole?”, the actual situation is that among people who “trust newspapers and television the most” as information sources, the cabinet disapproval rate is the highest, whereas among people who “trust social media and the internet,” cabinet support is extremely high.
Speaking of Asahi Shimbun, it has until now boasted overwhelming influence as a self-styled “quality paper,” but is this not proof that such magical influence is wearing off?
In fact, on Twitter and anonymous message boards, Asahi Shimbun’s line is strongly criticized on the internet, and that may only be natural.
In any case, Asahi Shimbun’s editorial says, “The issues surrounding the administration that have been pursued since last year’s ordinary Diet session have, since this spring, entered a new phase,” but I would like to return those exact words, unchanged, to Asahi Shimbun itself.
“The management crisis of Asahi Shimbun will enter a new phase,” I would say.