The following is from a series of columns by Masayuki Takayama in this month's issue of Themis, a subscription-only monthly magazine.
This article also proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
It is a must-read not only for the Japanese people but also for people all over the world.
Asahi neither correct nor apologizes for leaking fake articles
Asahi itself turns a blind eye to the truth but is stubbornly demanding that other companies be held accountable.
KY," the symbol of the coral graffiti incident
I clearly remember when I got fed up with the Asahi Shimbun.
In the spring of 2007, there was an unimportant piece of news on the social page of Asahi with a headline like "Do you know what KY is?
For a moment, I couldn't believe my eyes.
It is because "KY" is a word that symbolizes the disgraceful "coral graffiti incident" that got Toichiro Ichiyanagi, the president of Asahi, fired.
The incident took place in 1989.
Yoshiro Honda, a cameraman for Asahi, who was diving in the sea of Iriomote Island, carved the word "KY" into a large thistle coral with the handle of a flashlight.
Honda published it in the newspaper as "graffiti of the Japanese who do not value nature," and Kenichi Furuhata illustrated it as "the dissolute mind of the poor in spirit who is not ashamed of instantly damaging something that has been growing for a hundred years...
He took such time and effort to make up a story to denigrate the Japanese people.
It's like the behavior of a Korean or a Chinese.
But Asahi's malice was immediately exposed by the local people.
The Asahi arrogantly denied it, but its maliciousness angered its readers in slandering the Japanese people with false stories.
The number of subscriptions dropped at a tremendous rate, and eventually, Asahi forced Ichiyanagi to resign.
That's how it happened.
That's why I never thought I would see the word "KY" in the pages of Asahi.
And when I read it, I found out that "KY" means "can't read the atmosphere" and is used by "JK (high school girls)."
In short, it's a boring story. So I felt even more uncomfortable.
An Asahi reporter would not have forgotten the coral incident. Even more so for the desk staff.
Didn't the reporter hesitate to write the article just because the symbolic "KY" appeared in another popular word?
Even if they had, the desk would have rejected the article because "KY is an old wound of Asahi.
But the fact that they still published the article shows that they no longer feel ashamed of KY and have no remorse about it.
I gave up on Asahi at that point because I couldn't expect them to report appropriately.
However, to be sure, I was willing to recheck how far Ichiyanagi's remorse had survived.
Being moved forcibly and being a sex slave were both lies.
I was going to forgive him if he had a good point.
Then, just two years after the coral incident, Ichiyanagi's successor, Nakae Toshitada, had already had Uemura Takashi write a lie about the "comfort woman Kim Hak-sun.
It is a big lie that the Japanese, who have no history of slavery, used sex slaves in the last war.
At that point, any remorse about the coral incident had disappeared.
Nakae also dragged his feet in the paper when Nobuo Ishihara ran against Yukio Aoshima, an innovator, in the Tokyo gubernatorial election.
The Utsunomiya bureau carried a fake gift bag with the words "Farewell, Tochigi Prefecture" written on it to give the impression that Ishihara was involved in a financial scandal.
The modus operandi was the same as in the coral graffiti case.
The "recruiting scandal" is said to be a scoop by Asahi.
They denounced the politicians and bureaucrats who were sponging on Hiromasa Ezoe in the face of justice. Still, both Katsuichi Honda and Keiichiro Hikita of Asahi sponged on Nakae as well.
The impudent continued after that.
In November 2012, Prime Minister-elect Shinzo Abe said at a party debate at the Japan Press Club that the comfort women lie was "spread by the Asahi Shimbun from a story by a fraudster named Seiji Yoshida.
He pointed out that Asahi is the one who has been humiliating the Japanese people.
As arrogant as coral graffiti, the Asahi denied Abe's statement and insisted on the correctness of Seiji Yoshida's statement. Still, the first tucking in revealed that everything Yoshida said was a lie.
The forced conscription of comfort women and sexual slavery, which had disgraced the Japanese military for 30 years and arrogantly told the Japanese people to "face history," were all fictions made up by Asahi.
The refusal to subscribe to the Asahi newspaper spread throughout Japan.
In the end, Asahi reluctantly admitted that it had humiliated the Japanese people and distorted history with its false reporting and turned in the firing of Tadakazu Kimura.
The Moritomo-Kake fiasco in the article with petty suspicion
But still, they did not reflect on their actions.
From editorial director Seiki Nemoto on down, they were intent on getting Abe, the source of all that had put Asahi in such a problematic situation, fired.
It was the Moritomo and Kake Gakuen fiasco.
Look for suspicions related to Abe. It's okay if the information is uncertain; write about it based on your petty suspicion..
Once Asahi had cornered Abe and forced him to step down with this shameless approach, it expanded its "guesswork" reporting to all areas.
It means it doesn't matter if it's a lie as long as it's plausible.
On the issue of nuclear power plants, which Abe is pushing, the editorial said, "Japan can make 6,000 nuclear bombs with the plutonium it possesses," advocating the destruction of nuclear power plants.
However, it cannot make nuclear bombs from the plutonium obtained from the reprocessing of light-water reactors.
It is common knowledge in the world.
Even so, they know it is a lie and go around inciting foolish anti-nuclear activists.
Last year, the newspaper convention resolved that newspapers should engage in responsible speech through accurate and fair reporting.
None of this applies to the Asahi, but it isn't easy to deal with it because it considers itself a model newspaper.
It recently wrote an editorial blaming the Fuji Sankei Group for a poll scandal in which a subcontracted research organization was doing a lousy job.
Both companies verified and apologized, but Asahi was stubborn, saying, "Abe's approval rating should have been affected. Don't just apologize, be accountable.
Fuji Sankei was indeed at fault. And they have corrected the situation and are implementing it.
But what about Asahi?
Strange statues have been erected worldwide because of the comfort women lie, but Asahi has not fulfilled any accountability.
It has not even corrected any of the lies about the Nanjing Massacre, the "poison gas operation," or the 6,000 nuclear weapons.
Can't we nail the Asahi Shimbun for what it does?
I was feeling a bit weak, but the world was watching.
Asahi's current account deficit has exceeded 10 billion yen.
Its circulation continues to decline, advertising continues to drop, and staff cuts are inevitable.
Is it not unusual for a newspaper to be more pleased with its disappearance than Corona?
