An analysis of a February 2016 broadcast that failed to investigate who caused the Tokyo Stock Exchange crash, instead steering commentary toward criticism of the Bank of Japan and the Abe administration. The essay argues that this omission constitutes a fundamental collapse of journalistic responsibility.

February 13, 2016

The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.

What they reported last night was, to put it plainly, astonishing.

As has already been noted, the cabinet in question was the worst in history—one from which nearly all Japanese citizens wished to see an immediate resignation—and even Asahi Shimbun itself, which had elevated that prime minister, delivered the final blow on March 11, 2011.

They invited Katayama, a man who had served as Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications under that cabinet, as a guest commentator. Apparently, he had appeared on a television program with that “Hama auntie” the day before. Furuta showered him with flattery along the lines of “I was deeply impressed,” allowing Katayama to articulate their own ideological views.

They did not carry out the task of identifying who had executed the massive crash of the Tokyo Stock Exchange—a task that even an elementary school student could perform. This task is indispensable to journalism. Instead, they had him criticize the policies of the Bank of Japan and the economic policies of the Abe administration.

It was the same method they had used the previous day, when they had that young upstart named Kimura engage in the routine criticism of the Abe administration and international politics—an approach so childish and foolish that it scarcely merits description—again directing criticism at the Bank of Japan and the Abe government.

I was so appalled that last night I could not stop at simply changing the channel. I searched for TV Asahi and sent a summary of the paper I had published the day before to the “Hōdō Station” opinion and inquiry section. But their illness is incurable; there is no prospect of recovery other than shutting down the newspaper and suspending the broadcast license.

We can no longer permit the continued existence of a media organization like Asahi Shimbun—one that exists nowhere else in the world—which has persistently abused its own country and proclaimed to the international community that Japan is a second-rate nation, a human-rights-abusing and ugly country.

We can no longer allow a media organization that endlessly wields the most extreme form of pseudo-moralism, continues to diminish Japan, and as a result has been one of the principal forces behind the creation of today’s profoundly unstable world.

To be continued.