At a memorial for Shōichi Watanabe, a single phrase resurfaced: “Asahi Shimbun is evil.”
This was not rhetoric, but a conclusion drawn from repeated fabrications, character assassinations, and cases that drove individuals to suicide.
The chapter documents the destructive power of irresponsible journalism.

The phrase “Asahi Shimbun is evil” was not rhetoric but a conclusion born of experience.
Fabricated reporting destroyed reputations and drove individuals to suicide.
This chapter records the lethal consequences of irresponsible journalism in postwar Japa

2017-07-06

A friend who had canceled his subscription to the Asahi Shimbun three years ago and switched to the Sankei Shimbun
told me that Masayuki Takayama had written an excellent column in the latest issue of Seiron.
It was a genuine article that fully demonstrated why I regard him as the only truly authentic journalist in the postwar world.
A memorial Mass for the late giant of intellect, Shōichi Watanabe,
was held at St. Ignatius Church on the Sophia University campus, where he once taught.
Those around me likely felt the same way.
Amid the unceasing murmur, each person seemed to be tracing their own memories of the deceased.
My own recollections go back a quarter of a century.
When I was still a newspaper reporter,
I met Professor Watanabe and Junko Sasaki on a radio program hosted by Kenichi Takemura near this church.
All three were born in 1930,
and because they shared the first Year of the Horse in the Shōwa era,
they formed a group known as the “Hatsuuma-kai” with figures such as Akira Kusaka.
I too was born in the Year of the Horse.
I asked to join even as a shoe attendant, but was told I was twelve years too early and turned away.
At that time, one phrase from our conversation struck me deeply: “Asahi Shimbun is evil.”
It is also recorded in the memorial volume Chi no Yūsui.
Professor Watanabe once wrote an essay on hemophilia.
It is a recessive genetic disease, a basic fact taught in junior high school biology.
But Asahi failed to understand this.
A reporter from its social affairs desk visited his home,
and the next day Asahi published a fabricated dialogue with headlines declaring
“Do Not Give Birth to Children with Inferior Genes” and “Just Like Hitler.”
Watanabe was portrayed as an inhuman advocate of extermination.
Any lie becomes truth once printed in a newspaper.
This same method was repeated in other cases,
driving professors and nuclear facility officials to suicide.
Yet the journalists responsible continue to live without shame.
As these memories surfaced, it was time to offer flowers at the altar.
Though the ceremony was Christian, I joined my hands in a Japanese gesture of prayer.