This is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The Rapid Acceleration of Asahi’s Decline
Around the same time Asahi admitted to Seiji Yoshida’s lies, it obtained the Yoshida Testimony from a source at Hitachi regarding TEPCO’s Fukushima plant and published an “exclusive scoop” claiming that “all workers at TEPCO’s Fukushima plant fled en masse.”
The reporter who wrote the article reportedly wanted to crush the international acclaim for TEPCO workers who had “remained under high radiation and fulfilled their duties heroically,” and used the testimony to claim that “700 workers fled.”
It’s as if GHQ’s doctrine that “the Japanese must be denigrated” is still alive today.
However, the Sankei Shimbun quickly obtained the same testimony and exposed Asahi’s article as a malicious fabrication.
If Asahi’s reporters had even the slightest instinct for proper reporting, neither Seiji Yoshida’s comfort women lies nor the Yoshida Testimony falsehood could have occurred.
In the end, President Iryō Kimura was dismissed for the compounded sin of spreading the comfort women falsehood for thirty years and the fabricated Yoshida Testimony.
But the fact that Asahi tried to retain him in an honorary post proves the organization had no genuine remorse.
Their arrogance suggested that “being fired just for writing lies is excessive,” but even the third-party committee couldn’t endorse that.
In the comfort women case, the unprecedented event of a sitting Prime Minister criticizing the media resulted in Abe achieving a total and overwhelming victory.
As a result, the slow departure from Asahi gained tremendous momentum.
Its circulation, once 8 million, continued to shrink at a pace of two copies per minute and has now fallen below 3 million—with no sign of stopping.
For Asahi reporters, their average salary has dropped by 4 million yen, and their once-limitless supply of taxi vouchers has vanished.
With no more reporting expenses, some protested that they could no longer even go out to gather news, only to be shouted at by their superiors: “If you’d been doing your job in the first place, this never would have happened.”
To drive the nail in further, Abe released his statement on the 70th anniversary of the war’s end, shifting Japan’s historical view from the Tokyo Trial perspective—revered by Asahi—to his own.
Yet today’s Asahi bears an even deeper grudge toward Abe.
Their worsening pay and conditions only fuel their desire for revenge.
The Moritomo and Kake scandals were exactly like the comfort women issue—there was not a single shred of fact.
If they had insisted it was factual, it would have been exposed as false reporting and heads would roll.
But by framing it as “a matter of suspicion,” it avoided being classified as a false report.
That’s how they manufactured the narrative of Moritomo and Kake as factless accusations.
The same goes for the Unification Church.
They continued to defame Abe, and ultimately drove him to an untimely and unjust death.
Calling it “regretful” is too fragile a word.
To be continued.
