Professor Haruhito Kiyota, who wrote many articles about comfort women in the Asahi Shimbun, retires
2014-09-23
"Professor Haruhito Kiyota, who wrote many articles about comfort women in the Asahi Shimbun, retires - From Hosokawa Kazuhiko's BLOG."
It has become clear that it was not former reporter Takashi Uemura (currently a part-time lecturer at Hokusei Gakuen University) but former reporter Haruhito Kiyota who first wrote about Yoshida Seiji's testimony in the Asahi Shimbun.
In the August 5 Asahi Shimbun article examining the comfort women misinformation, Mr. Kiyota was anonymously listed as a "reporter in the Osaka Social Affairs Department (66)."
Mr. Kiyota has continued to write about Yoshida's testimony many times since 1982.
In January 1992, just before Prime Minister Miyazawa visited South Korea, in a front-page article titled "Documents showing military involvement in comfort stations," he explained that "Korean women were forcibly taken away in the name of the Volunteer Corps." In March 1997, in a feature article titled "Comfort Women: Unforgettable Facts," the newspaper stated that "the veracity of Yoshida's testimony cannot be confirmed" but did not correct it.
During this time, Kiyota had worked his way up the ranks from Osaka City Affairs Department reporter to Tokyo Headquarters Foreign News Department reporter, Manila Bureau Chief, Deputy Foreign News Department Chief, Seoul Bureau Chief, Foreign News Department Chief, Deputy Tokyo Headquarters Editorial Department Chief, General Research Head, and Business Head, before finally becoming a director (representative of the Western Headquarters).
After leaving the Asahi Shimbun Company, Kiyota was recently a professor at the Faculty of Human Sciences at Tezukayama Gakuin University.
He also served as director of the Institute for International Understanding, which has close ties with China and Korea.
On September 11, Asahi Shimbun President Tadakazu Kimura held a press conference to apologize for the article on Yoshida's testimony.
At his request, Kiyota resigned from the university two days later, on the 13th.
He also resigned as director of the university's Institute for International Understanding.
Asahi Shimbun President Kimura said the following at a press conference on the 11th:
"The issue of comfort women is quite difficult in terms of how to hold those involved responsible for past events that took place a long time ago. Some have left the company, some are dead, and it is difficult to hold someone specifically responsible and punish them retroactively. Still, I intend to make a comprehensive judgment based on the results of the third-party committee we request to be established, including this issue."
Kimura, who answered in this way, must have known about Kiyota.
The third-party committee will be tasked with investigating the matter, but they will likely choose people who are convenient for them and gloss over the matter.
The Diet should summon President Kimura, former director Kiyota, and former reporter Uemura to the Diet as witnesses and clarify the facts and responsibilities to the public.
Weekly Bunshun interviewed Kiyota directly before President Kimura's press conference on September 11. Weekly Bunshun Web posted the following article on September 8.
●Weekly Bunshun Web
http://shukan.bunshun.jp/articles/-/4339
A direct interview with the former Asahi Shimbun reporter who first reported on the "Yoshida testimony"!
2014.09.08, Weekly Bunshun Web
The testimony of Yoshida Seiji (deceased), which the Asahi Shimbun finally admitted, was false in its August 5th article on comfort women. Since 1982, the Asahi Shimbun has featured Yoshida, who has said that he forcibly abducted comfort women, in at least 16 articles.
The first article to be published 32 years ago was by Kiyota Haruhito, a professor at Tezukayama Gakuin University.
In 1982, Kiyota, who was a reporter in the Osaka Social Affairs Department, wrote an article on Yoshida's lecture, reporting it as follows:
"In one week in early summer in 1943, he "hunted down" 200 young Korean women on Jeju Island (in Korea)."
After that, Kiyota served as Seoul bureau chief and foreign news chief, and in 2008 he became a director.
While creating this investigative article, the Asahi Shimbun team interviewed Kiyota, but the investigative article only mentioned him in this way.
The Osaka social affairs department reporter (66) who wrote the article said, "The lecture's content was specific and detailed, and I had no doubts at all."
Weekly Bunshun interviewed Kiyota directly and asked him about his story.
"I read the investigative article. I have my thoughts, but I have no objections since it's the company's conclusion. Since they concluded that my article from 1982 was deleted or partially misreported, I just accept the result as it is."
Kiyota never expressed any remorse for his misreporting until the end.
After this Bunshun article, a press conference with President Kimura was held on the 11th.
Two days later, on the 13th, Kiyota retired as a professor at Tezukayama Gakuin University and director of the Institute for International Understanding.
Nagaoka Noboru, a former Asahi Shimbun editorial writer who used to be Kiyota's subordinate, wrote the following about Kiyota:
●Information Yatai
September 6, 2014
Who is most responsible for comfort women reporting?
http://www.johoyatai.com/?m=pc&a=page_fh_diary&target_c_diary_id=1136
I thought I would "never write about comfort women reporting in my former employer, the Asahi Shimbun," because I was disheartened by the sheer number of false reports and misinformation and how poorly it was reported.
If writing about it could help junior reporters still working hard on the front lines of reporting, there would be a point in writing about it, but that wouldn't be the case.
However, even so, I was left wondering why it took them 32 years to admit their mistake.
I was also puzzled as to why they had not issued an apology.
As I investigated, I learned that the person who should have been most responsible for the reports was trying to avoid responsibility and is still trying to do so.
I felt a strong sense of weakness when I discovered that it was someone close to me - my direct superior in the Foreign News Department, Kiyota Harushi, who later became a director of Asahi Shimbun (representative of the Western Headquarters).
The worst of the series of comfort women reports was the article that covered the testimony of Yoshida Seiji, who said, "I forcibly took comfort women from the Korean Peninsula."
The first article was published on the social affairs page of the morning edition of the Asahi Shimbun, published by the Osaka headquarters on September 2, 1982.
Along with a photo of him giving a lecture in Osaka city, the article introduced the contents of the lecture, such as "I hunted down 200 Korean women on Jeju Island" and "I had no sense of guilt towards the Korean people at the time."
The author of this article was identified as "a reporter from the Osaka Social Affairs Department (66)" in the Asahi Shimbun investigation article published on August 5.
After that, the Osaka edition of the Asahi Shimbun frequently carried articles about Yoshida Seiji talking about the forced abduction of comfort women. Finally, on November 10 the following year (1983), Yoshida appeared in the "People" column on page 3 of the Asahi Shimbun nationwide, saying, "But you know, it's not a romantic story."
The "People" column was a bylined article by reporter Haruhito Kiyota.
When I asked people at the Asahi Shimbun, I discovered that the "Osaka Social Affairs Department reporter (66)" who wrote the first report above was also Haruhito Kiyota.
If that's the case, he should be said to be the person most responsible for starting the reporting on so-called comfort women and paving the way for subsequent reporting.
The articles from that time themselves already contain content that raises many questions.
The confusion between the Women's Volunteer Corps, who were mobilized for labor and comfort women, the absurdity of being court-martialed even though he was not a soldier, the questionable background, etc.
Although it was a different story at the stage of his first report, written immediately after hearing the lecture, there should have been plenty of time to conduct corroborating research when he wrote his "People" column a year later.
However, the Asahi Shimbun's false report gave him the green light, and Yoshida Seiji thereafter devoted himself to giving lectures and promoting his books.
It led to the report of "Testimony of Former Comfort Women of Forced Relocation" (August 11, 1991) by reporter Uemura Takashi, who could be said to be Kiyota's favorite protégé.
At this time, historical excavation had not yet progressed sufficiently, and it may have been challenging to corroborate research on one's own.
However, a Korean newspaper published an article stating that "no one can be found to corroborate Yoshida's testimony."
Professor Hata Ikuhiko of Nihon University, a researcher of modern history, also traveled to Jeju Island to investigate and expressed doubts about Yoshida's testimony.
The opportunity to doubt the testimony and attempt to corroborate it had been given.
If proper investigation had been done, it would not have been so difficult to see that "Yoshida Seiji is a conman who makes up a bunch of nonsense."
So why was this not done?
Reporter Kiyota was treated as the "ace of the Osaka Social Affairs Department."
Thereafter, he steadily climbed the ladder of success, becoming a reporter in the foreign news department at the Tokyo headquarters, Manila bureau chief, deputy foreign news department chief, Seoul bureau chief, foreign news department chief, and deputy editor-in-chief at the Tokyo headquarters.
In 1997, in response to growing criticism of our reporting on comfort women, the Asahi Shimbun launched its first investigation.
Now, I think that as the head of the foreign news department, he closed the door to "frankly admitting mistakes and apologizing."
Sadly, I was unaware of the company's internal affairs, and while working under him as deputy foreign news department chief, I was completely unaware of this.
At the time, there was an atmosphere within the company of keeping a distance from the comfort women issue, with the belief that "the issue of wartime comfort women was an issue for the Osaka Social Affairs Department and the Foreign News Department's Korean Peninsula division."
It may be one of the reasons why the investigation was not carried out adequately at this time.
The executives who had highly praised and promoted him may have acted to protect him.
After serving as deputy chief editor of the Tokyo headquarters, he established himself as head of the general research department and then the business department and finally rose to the position of representative (director) of the Western headquarters.
It is grotesque that the people most responsible for the false and misreporting of comfort women are on the board of directors.
The responsibility of the past presidents and executives of Asahi Shimbun must also be heavy. President Ichiro Kimura's decision to investigate the comfort women reporting despite knowing this history should be evaluated in that sense.
Kiyota left the Asahi Shimbun in 2010, served as an auditor for Kyushu Asahi Broadcasting, and is now a professor in the Faculty of Human Sciences at Tezukayama Gakuin University in Osaka.
He specializes in "journalism theory" and "writing expression."
Looking back, how does he summarize the series of comfort women reports?
How does he view the Asahi Shimbun's predicament?
I called to hear his story, but he was not there.
"A nation that does not clearly state its responsibility for the war will likely repeat the same mistake."
He ended his article in the "People" column by quoting Yoshida Seiji's words verbatim.
Though they are the words of a con man, they carry weight.
And they come back to me as "newspapers that do not clearly state their responsibility for their reporting are likely to repeat the same mistake again."
It is not too late.
Shouldn't they frankly admit their mistakes and fulfill their responsibility?
2014-09-23
"Professor Haruhito Kiyota, who wrote many articles about comfort women in the Asahi Shimbun, retires - From Hosokawa Kazuhiko's BLOG."
It has become clear that it was not former reporter Takashi Uemura (currently a part-time lecturer at Hokusei Gakuen University) but former reporter Haruhito Kiyota who first wrote about Yoshida Seiji's testimony in the Asahi Shimbun.
In the August 5 Asahi Shimbun article examining the comfort women misinformation, Mr. Kiyota was anonymously listed as a "reporter in the Osaka Social Affairs Department (66)."
Mr. Kiyota has continued to write about Yoshida's testimony many times since 1982.
In January 1992, just before Prime Minister Miyazawa visited South Korea, in a front-page article titled "Documents showing military involvement in comfort stations," he explained that "Korean women were forcibly taken away in the name of the Volunteer Corps." In March 1997, in a feature article titled "Comfort Women: Unforgettable Facts," the newspaper stated that "the veracity of Yoshida's testimony cannot be confirmed" but did not correct it.
During this time, Kiyota had worked his way up the ranks from Osaka City Affairs Department reporter to Tokyo Headquarters Foreign News Department reporter, Manila Bureau Chief, Deputy Foreign News Department Chief, Seoul Bureau Chief, Foreign News Department Chief, Deputy Tokyo Headquarters Editorial Department Chief, General Research Head, and Business Head, before finally becoming a director (representative of the Western Headquarters).
After leaving the Asahi Shimbun Company, Kiyota was recently a professor at the Faculty of Human Sciences at Tezukayama Gakuin University.
He also served as director of the Institute for International Understanding, which has close ties with China and Korea.
On September 11, Asahi Shimbun President Tadakazu Kimura held a press conference to apologize for the article on Yoshida's testimony.
At his request, Kiyota resigned from the university two days later, on the 13th.
He also resigned as director of the university's Institute for International Understanding.
Asahi Shimbun President Kimura said the following at a press conference on the 11th:
"The issue of comfort women is quite difficult in terms of how to hold those involved responsible for past events that took place a long time ago. Some have left the company, some are dead, and it is difficult to hold someone specifically responsible and punish them retroactively. Still, I intend to make a comprehensive judgment based on the results of the third-party committee we request to be established, including this issue."
Kimura, who answered in this way, must have known about Kiyota.
The third-party committee will be tasked with investigating the matter, but they will likely choose people who are convenient for them and gloss over the matter.
The Diet should summon President Kimura, former director Kiyota, and former reporter Uemura to the Diet as witnesses and clarify the facts and responsibilities to the public.
Weekly Bunshun interviewed Kiyota directly before President Kimura's press conference on September 11. Weekly Bunshun Web posted the following article on September 8.
●Weekly Bunshun Web
http://shukan.bunshun.jp/articles/-/4339
A direct interview with the former Asahi Shimbun reporter who first reported on the "Yoshida testimony"!
2014.09.08, Weekly Bunshun Web
The testimony of Yoshida Seiji (deceased), which the Asahi Shimbun finally admitted, was false in its August 5th article on comfort women. Since 1982, the Asahi Shimbun has featured Yoshida, who has said that he forcibly abducted comfort women, in at least 16 articles.
The first article to be published 32 years ago was by Kiyota Haruhito, a professor at Tezukayama Gakuin University.
In 1982, Kiyota, who was a reporter in the Osaka Social Affairs Department, wrote an article on Yoshida's lecture, reporting it as follows:
"In one week in early summer in 1943, he "hunted down" 200 young Korean women on Jeju Island (in Korea)."
After that, Kiyota served as Seoul bureau chief and foreign news chief, and in 2008 he became a director.
While creating this investigative article, the Asahi Shimbun team interviewed Kiyota, but the investigative article only mentioned him in this way.
The Osaka social affairs department reporter (66) who wrote the article said, "The lecture's content was specific and detailed, and I had no doubts at all."
Weekly Bunshun interviewed Kiyota directly and asked him about his story.
"I read the investigative article. I have my thoughts, but I have no objections since it's the company's conclusion. Since they concluded that my article from 1982 was deleted or partially misreported, I just accept the result as it is."
Kiyota never expressed any remorse for his misreporting until the end.
After this Bunshun article, a press conference with President Kimura was held on the 11th.
Two days later, on the 13th, Kiyota retired as a professor at Tezukayama Gakuin University and director of the Institute for International Understanding.
Nagaoka Noboru, a former Asahi Shimbun editorial writer who used to be Kiyota's subordinate, wrote the following about Kiyota:
●Information Yatai
September 6, 2014
Who is most responsible for comfort women reporting?
http://www.johoyatai.com/?m=pc&a=page_fh_diary&target_c_diary_id=1136
I thought I would "never write about comfort women reporting in my former employer, the Asahi Shimbun," because I was disheartened by the sheer number of false reports and misinformation and how poorly it was reported.
If writing about it could help junior reporters still working hard on the front lines of reporting, there would be a point in writing about it, but that wouldn't be the case.
However, even so, I was left wondering why it took them 32 years to admit their mistake.
I was also puzzled as to why they had not issued an apology.
As I investigated, I learned that the person who should have been most responsible for the reports was trying to avoid responsibility and is still trying to do so.
I felt a strong sense of weakness when I discovered that it was someone close to me - my direct superior in the Foreign News Department, Kiyota Harushi, who later became a director of Asahi Shimbun (representative of the Western Headquarters).
The worst of the series of comfort women reports was the article that covered the testimony of Yoshida Seiji, who said, "I forcibly took comfort women from the Korean Peninsula."
The first article was published on the social affairs page of the morning edition of the Asahi Shimbun, published by the Osaka headquarters on September 2, 1982.
Along with a photo of him giving a lecture in Osaka city, the article introduced the contents of the lecture, such as "I hunted down 200 Korean women on Jeju Island" and "I had no sense of guilt towards the Korean people at the time."
The author of this article was identified as "a reporter from the Osaka Social Affairs Department (66)" in the Asahi Shimbun investigation article published on August 5.
After that, the Osaka edition of the Asahi Shimbun frequently carried articles about Yoshida Seiji talking about the forced abduction of comfort women. Finally, on November 10 the following year (1983), Yoshida appeared in the "People" column on page 3 of the Asahi Shimbun nationwide, saying, "But you know, it's not a romantic story."
The "People" column was a bylined article by reporter Haruhito Kiyota.
When I asked people at the Asahi Shimbun, I discovered that the "Osaka Social Affairs Department reporter (66)" who wrote the first report above was also Haruhito Kiyota.
If that's the case, he should be said to be the person most responsible for starting the reporting on so-called comfort women and paving the way for subsequent reporting.
The articles from that time themselves already contain content that raises many questions.
The confusion between the Women's Volunteer Corps, who were mobilized for labor and comfort women, the absurdity of being court-martialed even though he was not a soldier, the questionable background, etc.
Although it was a different story at the stage of his first report, written immediately after hearing the lecture, there should have been plenty of time to conduct corroborating research when he wrote his "People" column a year later.
However, the Asahi Shimbun's false report gave him the green light, and Yoshida Seiji thereafter devoted himself to giving lectures and promoting his books.
It led to the report of "Testimony of Former Comfort Women of Forced Relocation" (August 11, 1991) by reporter Uemura Takashi, who could be said to be Kiyota's favorite protégé.
At this time, historical excavation had not yet progressed sufficiently, and it may have been challenging to corroborate research on one's own.
However, a Korean newspaper published an article stating that "no one can be found to corroborate Yoshida's testimony."
Professor Hata Ikuhiko of Nihon University, a researcher of modern history, also traveled to Jeju Island to investigate and expressed doubts about Yoshida's testimony.
The opportunity to doubt the testimony and attempt to corroborate it had been given.
If proper investigation had been done, it would not have been so difficult to see that "Yoshida Seiji is a conman who makes up a bunch of nonsense."
So why was this not done?
Reporter Kiyota was treated as the "ace of the Osaka Social Affairs Department."
Thereafter, he steadily climbed the ladder of success, becoming a reporter in the foreign news department at the Tokyo headquarters, Manila bureau chief, deputy foreign news department chief, Seoul bureau chief, foreign news department chief, and deputy editor-in-chief at the Tokyo headquarters.
In 1997, in response to growing criticism of our reporting on comfort women, the Asahi Shimbun launched its first investigation.
Now, I think that as the head of the foreign news department, he closed the door to "frankly admitting mistakes and apologizing."
Sadly, I was unaware of the company's internal affairs, and while working under him as deputy foreign news department chief, I was completely unaware of this.
At the time, there was an atmosphere within the company of keeping a distance from the comfort women issue, with the belief that "the issue of wartime comfort women was an issue for the Osaka Social Affairs Department and the Foreign News Department's Korean Peninsula division."
It may be one of the reasons why the investigation was not carried out adequately at this time.
The executives who had highly praised and promoted him may have acted to protect him.
After serving as deputy chief editor of the Tokyo headquarters, he established himself as head of the general research department and then the business department and finally rose to the position of representative (director) of the Western headquarters.
It is grotesque that the people most responsible for the false and misreporting of comfort women are on the board of directors.
The responsibility of the past presidents and executives of Asahi Shimbun must also be heavy. President Ichiro Kimura's decision to investigate the comfort women reporting despite knowing this history should be evaluated in that sense.
Kiyota left the Asahi Shimbun in 2010, served as an auditor for Kyushu Asahi Broadcasting, and is now a professor in the Faculty of Human Sciences at Tezukayama Gakuin University in Osaka.
He specializes in "journalism theory" and "writing expression."
Looking back, how does he summarize the series of comfort women reports?
How does he view the Asahi Shimbun's predicament?
I called to hear his story, but he was not there.
"A nation that does not clearly state its responsibility for the war will likely repeat the same mistake."
He ended his article in the "People" column by quoting Yoshida Seiji's words verbatim.
Though they are the words of a con man, they carry weight.
And they come back to me as "newspapers that do not clearly state their responsibility for their reporting are likely to repeat the same mistake again."
It is not too late.
Shouldn't they frankly admit their mistakes and fulfill their responsibility?
