2014-12-11 / Republished 2026-07-28

Originally published on December 11, 2014.
Beginning with an interview with Ryusho Kadota published in the November issue of VOICE, this article examines the author’s view of the influence exerted by the Asahi Shimbun on Japan and the wider world before and after the war.
The author questions the newspaper’s historical role in supporting Japan’s wartime course and its postwar posture as though it were a guardian of democracy, while considering the power and responsibility of the press.

It goes without saying that these are facts that people around the world are learning for the first time.
2014-12-11 14:52:34
The following is taken from an interview with Ryusho Kadota that appeared on pages 18 through 29 of the November issue of the monthly magazine VOICE, published by PHP Institute, an excellent publishing house.
These are facts that I myself am learning for the first time, even though I subscribed to the Asahi Shimbun and the Nikkei Shimbun for more than forty years and watched the television stations operated by their affiliated companies.
It goes without saying that these are also facts that people around the world are learning for the first time.
Previously, I wrote about a man I had met through work who, during an enjoyable meal, suddenly became enraged and said, “One person alone can do nothing,” thereby ruining the meal as well.
Naturally, I wrote about this in order to demonstrate the correctness of my argument that everything begins with one person.
As for the facts mentioned above, in this case we are dealing with a single collective entity called the Asahi Shimbun Company.
Even so, if one were to investigate who actually started these things, the number should ultimately be narrowed down to only a handful of people.
The world, too, would surely be astonished that a single newspaper company could accomplish so much.
People should also realize the correctness of what I recently wrote about evil in connection with Kukai.
Indeed, one colossal fool of a company called the Asahi Shimbun spread this much evil throughout the world, succeeded in having it accepted, diminished Japan’s international standing, and halted the progress of the Turntable of Civilization,
encouraged the rise of China, a totalitarian state, as well as the growing arrogance of countries such as South Korea, which in reality belongs to a similar category,
and thereby helped create the instability of today’s world.
Yet what the facts tell us is that the Asahi Shimbun, which once acted in concert with the military establishment and played a central role in driving Japan toward war,
while presenting itself as though it were the guardian of democracy, was once again attempting to turn the world into a century of war.
I will introduce the article mentioned at the beginning in the next chapter.