This piece presents Kadota Ryusho’s argument that through the document falsification scandal, the Iraq deployment daily report issue, and the “prime minister’s matter” reporting, the media led by the Asahi Shimbun consistently prioritized impression manipulation over facts.
It sharply argues that it is the media itself, having lost the true role of journalism and turned into a “political activist body,” that will ultimately face the harsh judgment of history.

2019-07-12
It is the media side, led by the Asahi Shimbun, that will be exposed to the judgment of history, having lost sight of the original meaning and role of journalism and having turned into nothing more than a “political activist body.”
The following is a chapter I published on 20185/1.
The installment of Kadota Ryusho’s serialized column “From the Scene of the Incident” published in the issue of the monthly magazine Will released on 4/26 is titled, “Can the Mass Media Withstand the Judgment of History?”
The emphasis in the text is mine.
This abnormal bashing of the administration is without question something that will remain in history.
The final periods of the Tanaka (Kakuei) administration and the Takeshita (Noboru) administration were considerable too, but they were nothing like this.
It feels as though almost all of the mass media have turned into members of the “Abe-no-Seidaazu.”
For the mass media, it seems that “blocking Abe’s third term” in this September’s Liberal Democratic Party presidential election is the supreme mission.
In order to block constitutional revision and a radio spectrum auction, television, newspapers, and magazines have all “joined forces” and rushed to bring down the Abe administration.
But when they carry it out this thoroughly, it almost becomes easier to understand.
On the internet, such people are mockingly called “Abe-no-Seidaazu” or “Abegaa,” referring to those who blame absolutely everything on Prime Minister Abe and try to topple the administration.
The same applies to the pitifully low-level opposition lawmakers who seem to think of the Diet as nothing more than a venue for “nitpicking” and “public hanging.”
If it is for the sake of bringing down Abe, then anything that can be used will do, even if it makes no logical sense.
In that sense, it is the media side, led by the Asahi Shimbun, that will be exposed to the judgment of history, having lost sight of the original meaning and role of journalism and having turned into nothing more than a “political activist body.”
At present, there are mainly three matters over which the media and the opposition are demanding the resignation of the Abe administration.
They are the Ministry of Finance’s falsification of official documents, the issue of the daily reports on the Self-Defense Forces’ dispatch to Iraq, and the “prime minister’s matter” remark by a prime ministerial secretary recorded by an Ehime Prefectural official.
In every case, if one pursues the matter to its end, it is the sort of thing that makes one ask, “Why does this raise the responsibility of the top of the administration?”
But people in the midst of impression manipulation cannot see that.
First, in the case of the Ministry of Finance’s falsification of official documents, many people must have been astonished when they saw the documents released before the falsification.
That is because, contrary to the reporting, they proved the “innocence” of Mr. and Mrs. Abe regarding the 800 million yen discount on the Moritomo Gakuen land.
In the pre-falsification documents, the proviso “This matter is a petition case to the Kinki Bureau from Diet member Yoshitaka Konoike (House of Councillors, LDP, Hyogo) in August 2013” appears repeatedly.
Besides Mr. Konoike, the names of three politicians—Kunio Hatoyama, Takeo Hiranuma, and Issei Kitagawa—also appear, and it was described in detail that the secretaries of Mr. Hatoyama and Mr. Hiranuma had made approaches to the Kinki Local Finance Bureau.
But no involvement by Mr. and Mrs. Abe appears.
In other words, this was not an Abe matter at all, but a “Konoike matter.”
The Sankei Shimbun also carried corroborating reporting that the “petition arrangement report” of the Konoike office recorded the fact that on September 9 of that year, the Konoike office had conveyed in detail to Mr. Kagoike the results of its petition to the Kinki Local Finance Bureau.
Furthermore, the pre-falsification documents also describe how, in March 2016, the school side suddenly claimed that “new garbage had been found,” different from the garbage found before, and even pressed the government by saying, “If the school opening is not in time, we will file a damages lawsuit.”
Even so, the media and the opposition still insist that Prime Minister Abe “had the price cut by 800 million yen for his ‘friends.’”
The issue of the daily reports of the Self-Defense Forces unit dispatched to Iraq is even stranger.
The Iraq dispatch, which continued for more than five years from 2003, was a matter from the eras of the Koizumi, First Abe, Fukuda, and Aso administrations, and has nothing to do with the Second Abe administration.
Here I will set aside the debate over whether there was a need to disclose the highly confidential daily reports, but in any event there is no reason why responsibility should be demanded of the present administration.
And the reporting on the “prime minister’s matter” remark by a prime ministerial secretary, as recorded by an Ehime Prefectural official, is also strange.
One of the pillars of Abenomics’ growth strategy is deregulation.
The national strategic special zone concept includes piercing the bedrock regulations through which bureaucrats and industries unite to protect vested interests, and from the beginning it is therefore a “prime minister’s matter.”
To begin with, Ehime Prefecture and Imabari City jointly proposed using a national strategic special zone to establish “a new veterinary school of international standards” two months after the meeting with the prime ministerial secretary, so I want the mass media to explain properly why the words “prime minister’s matter” become “special favors to Kake Gakuen.”
Japan now is experiencing a large gap in information and consciousness between “the information weak,” who rely only on newspapers and television, and those who also use the internet as a source of information.
In other words, no matter how hysterically the opposition may call for Abe’s resignation, the only people who dance to that tune are the information weak.
The fact that opinion polls do not reflect reality, and that when elections are actually held they end, after all, in “victory for the ruling parties,” shows that.
The trend of the battle between realists, who look squarely at reality, and dreamers, who have nothing but abstract idealism—the so-called “DR war”—is becoming increasingly pronounced in Japan.
In any case, when this present frenzy comes to an end, the backlash the media will receive for having forgotten the fundamental duty of reporting facts will be extraordinarily great.
Kadota Ryusho, born in 1958 in Kochi Prefecture.
Writer and journalist.
His principal works include Why Were You Able to Fight Despair? (Shincho Bunko) and The Man Who Looked into the Abyss of Death (PHP Institute), among others.
He received the 19th Yamamoto Shichihei Prize for This Life, Devoted to Righteousness (Kadokawa Bunko).
His latest book is Song of a Miracle: War, Homesickness, and Peggy Hayama (Shogakukan).