This article analyzes two concrete examples showing how Asahi Shimbun distorts facts to attack the Abe administration.
By misusing Orwell’s 1984, the paper exposes its own reliance on “alternative facts” and fake news.

March 5, 2017
Yesterday, while traveling to Kyoto by train, I was reading the current issue of the monthly magazine Seiron.
At the front of the magazine was a two-page, two-column essay by Professor Shuji Yagi of Reitaku University.
Lately, I have been doing little more than skimming Asahi Shimbun, to the point that I sometimes even miss sports programs I want to watch.
As a result, I had not read the two articles that perfectly illustrate how Asahi Shimbun resorts to any kind of forced reasoning in order to demean the Abe administration.
“Forced reasoning” means twisting logic to suit one’s own convenience.
This newspaper company has produced numerous fabricated reports.
All of them, without exception, were designed to diminish Japan, oppress the country, and degrade Shinzo Abe.
Professor Yagi’s essay is a brilliant work that makes the underlying cause of this behavior perfectly clear.
All emphasis in the text, except for the headings, is mine.
George Orwell’s novel 1984 is reportedly selling well.
According to the Asahi Shimbun evening edition of February 15, this is supposedly due to the election of President Trump in the United States.
Hayakawa Publishing, which issues the Japanese edition, rushed to reprint additional copies immediately after Trump’s inauguration, claiming that the novel “predicted the present state of the world.”
Although it is welcome that a serious novel is selling well amid a publishing slump, linking it directly to the birth of the Trump administration is a strained argument.
Asahi’s article claims that the novel sold whenever events such as the 9/11 attacks, the Snowden revelations, or debates over Japan’s state secrets law occurred.
The article appears to suggest that totalitarian surveillance societies are strengthening under the Trump administration in the United States and the Abe administration in Japan.
In another article dated February 11, Asahi criticizes Trump for calling unfavorable media “fake news” and introduces the phrase “alternative facts.”
It then turns to Japan and claims that the country has also entered an “alternative facts” era, using an academic to criticize the Abe administration.
There must be no reporting that is not based on facts.
However, Asahi’s reporting on the comfort women issue and the Fukushima Daiichi “Yoshida testimony” was itself nothing but alternative facts and fake news.
One must ask whether Asahi has any qualification to criticize others.
In this context, Asahi’s analysis of 1984 and the reasons for its popularity can also be described as alternative facts and fake news.
This essay will continue.