Published on July 14, 2019.
Drawing from Masayuki Takayama’s latest book, this article critically introduces the background behind The Asahi Shimbun’s self-image as “Japan’s New York Times” and questions its reporting posture. Through the Pulitzer Prize, The New York Times, praise of Stalin, praise of Mao Zedong, and Akioka Ieshige’s Beijing reporting, it challenges the misconception that Asahi represents Japan.

July 14, 2019.
People must know the real truth…especially that it is an outrageous misconception to think that The Asahi Shimbun is a newspaper company representing Japan.
The following is a continuation from the latest book by Masayuki Takayama, the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
Readers must go to the nearest bookstore right now and buy it.
People throughout the world should read my English translation and learn the real truth…especially that it is an outrageous misconception to think that The Asahi Shimbun is a newspaper company representing Japan.
The lack of judgment of an Asahi editorial writer who recalls Honda Katsuichi.
He praises the AIIB to the skies in his column and criticizes the Abe administration, but…
Kasagi Shintarō boasts of “Japan’s NT.”
The New York Times, since the days of Sulzberger, has arrogantly said, “If we write it, that is news.”
After all, it has already won as many as twenty Pulitzer Prizes, it says.
However, Pulitzer was the owner of the New York World, a representative yellow paper that lined up countless lies such as “I was abducted by a UFO” and “the Japanese army massacred as many as 50,000 people at Port Arthur.”
It has even been said that the selection criterion for this prize was how plausibly one could write lies.
In fact, The New York Times wrote mountains of lies.
When the first report arrived during the Battle of the Sea of Japan that “the Japanese fleet had sunk twelve Russian armored battleships,” it decided that yellow people could not possibly defeat white people.
It concluded that the first report was mistaken and carried the lie that “Russian sailors had mutinied and pulled out the kingpins.”
Many of the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning articles were also lies.
Walter Duranty, who won the prize for praising Stalin, was later sued by Ukrainian immigrants for having written lies.
When Columbia University investigated, it found that Stalin’s rule had been hell itself.
In Ukraine, just as the immigrants had claimed, millions had died from famine and massacre.
Columbia University concluded that Duranty’s articles had not a shred of credibility.
However, the prize was not revoked.
After all, the articles had been written extremely plausibly, just as Pulitzer desired.
Whether Kasagi Shintarō knew such realities or not, he began saying things like, “The Asahi Shimbun is Japan’s New York Times.”
“If we write it, that is news,” he said.
After that, Asahi imitated The New York Times completely.
The Duranty role was played by Akioka Ieshige of the Beijing bureau.
He turned Mao Zedong, who killed thirty million people, into a compassionate leader, and praised the bloody Cultural Revolution unfolding before his eyes as something very good.
This article continues.