An essay dated June 10, 2019.
By presenting the true conduct of Masao Yoshida and the workers who risked their lives at Fukushima Daiichi, this piece sharply questions how the Asahi Shimbun’s report of a “retreat in defiance of orders” distorted the facts and damaged the honor of the Japanese people as a whole.
Through the government accident investigation report, firsthand testimony, and the responsibility of the press, it exposes the pathology of Japan’s postwar media.

2019-06-10
The late Mr. Yoshida sincerely praised the subordinates who fought desperately against the worst possible situation.
Meanwhile, Asahi degraded such people, who had struggled to save Japan, into objects to be mocked by the entire world.

What follows is the continuation of the previous chapter.
Middle omitted.
Did Asahi interview the people directly involved?
The government accident investigation commission conducted interviews totaling 1,479 hours with 772 persons involved, including Mr. Yoshida.
Of those, 28 hours were interviews with Mr. Yoshida.
In other words, after conducting massive hearings with Mr. Yoshida and the other parties involved, everything confirmed there as “fact” was written in full in the government accident investigation commission’s “Final Report Main Text,” which totals 448 pages.
There is not a single line there saying that “90 percent of the workers fled in defiance of the plant chief’s orders.”
Responding to Asahi Shimbun’s inquiry, former chairman Yotaro Hatamura answered as follows.
“I believe we included in the report everything that ought to be made public.
It was our agreement not to speak publicly about anything other than what was included in the report.”
Does that not mean, in other words, that a “retreat in violation of orders” simply “did not exist”?
In response, Asahi wrote, “It is incomprehensible that the government accident investigation commission, in other words the government, which interviewed Yoshida for more than 28 hours and therefore knew that there had been a withdrawal in defiance of orders during such a time period, made absolutely no mention of it in the report.”
What is incomprehensible is not the “government accident investigation commission,” but rather the “Asahi Shimbun.”
I suddenly wondered whether Asahi had in fact done any corroborating interviews with the people on the scene.
I myself interviewed many of the workers on site at that time, that is, the parties directly involved, but there was not a single person who had “retreated” in “violation” of the plant chief’s orders.
Every one of them, in perfect order, moved to 2F “in accordance with orders.”
Mr. Yoshida himself, while still alive, said the following to me about his subordinates.
“I am just an ordinary old fellow.
The people at the site kept working silently in the middle of that radiation.
They went back and forth again and again through such dangerous places.
And they did it calmly.
I think it was only because they were there that we somehow managed the situation.
I am just an old fellow who happened to be directing things there.
So I want you at least to write properly about those people at the site.”
The late Mr. Yoshida sincerely praised the subordinates who fought desperately against the worst possible situation.
Meanwhile, Asahi degraded such people, who had struggled to save Japan, into objects to be mocked by the entire world.
I wrote about this issue in magazines and elsewhere, and received a protest from Asahi saying that it was “considering legal measures” (Note: later, Asahi acknowledged its own false report and apologized to the author).
I have no words to describe a press institution that stains the honor of the people who struggled on the scene, while waving the threat of legal measures against legitimate “commentary.”
What, exactly, is the purpose of the Asahi Shimbun in degrading the Japanese people?
I simply cannot understand it, no matter how hard I try.

(Seiron, August 2014 issue)