I just found the following article on the Internet.
Several passages support Mr. Masayuki Takayama's latest book, which I am now introducing to Japan and the world. Some passages testify precisely to what I have been saying that Asahi Shimbun employees are merely honored students for entrance exams, not the best brain in Japan.
The following is a dialogue between two former Asahi Shimbun employees who were born in 1934 and held important positions in the company after the war. They are very familiar with the Asahi.
"In-depth Discussion: Former Employees Talk about Why Asahi's Biased Reporting Hasn't Stopped
The monthly magazine "Sound Arguments" November 2008 issue
Takeshi Inagaki (former deputy editor of "Weekly Asahi") / Yoshinori Hongo (former head of the Asahi Shimbun's training center) / Interviewer Mizuho Ishikawa (former editorial writer of Sankei Shimbun)
Asahi was a mirror of postwar leftist society
Inagaki
I always say that the Asahi Shimbun is self-appointed as the guardian deity of postwar democracy.
How and where did the distortion bring about by that postwar democracy come from?
It is fair to say that this is precisely reflected in the tone of Asahi's articles.
It is often said that the mass media is a mirror of society.
However, because postwar democracy has been controlled and distorted by the left, the Asahi Shimbun mirrors Japan's so-called left-wing society.
The left and Asahi influence each other.
So what is it about the left that resonates with each other?
It is not necessarily the Communist Party, even though it understands and cooperates with communism.
It does not have a firmly constructed theory like the Communist Party.
Instead, it is based on mood, and it is a mode that thinks it is more remarkable that way. In other words, there is a leftist sentiment.
Hongo
Asahi's first clear expression of leftist colors was immediately after the war.
In October 1945, in essence, Katsumi Kikunami (later a member of the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party), who had been hiding underground until then, and Kyozo Mori (later editorial director), who later confessed in his book, "I was a Marxist," came out to the public with their true faces and supported the theoretical armament.
Inagaki
The same is true of Seiki Watanabe (later president).
Hongo
He quit after the Yokohama Incident.
Inagaki
No, he quit the company but returned after the war.
Hongo
Mr. Shinjiro Tanaka also returned to work.
He was the man who later founded "Asahi Journal" as the head of the publishing bureau.
Inagaki
He sat in on the Sorge Incident, didn't he?
Hongo
That's right. Tanaka was the head of the Political Economy Department at the time of the Sorge Incident.
Strangely enough, he was not indicted in the Sorge case, but he was from the Osaka Economic Affairs Department.
Mr. Tanaka was from the Osaka Economic Affairs Department along with Mr. Tomoo Hirooka and Mr. Kyozo Mori.
The Osaka editorial bureau was far from Tokyo, the center of power, and had a somewhat anti-establishment atmosphere even before the war.
In 1936, when a scandal involving an Asahi reporter broke out at the then-Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Tokyo Economic Affairs Department had to be reformed, Mr. Tanaka moved to Tokyo with Mr. Hirooka and others from Osaka.
Hotsumi Ozaki was also at the Tokyo head office at that time.
Tanaka, who had obtained information from his subordinates, was the one who told Ozaki about the top-secret "Southward Expansion" of the "Imperial Conference."
Such people had been hiding within the company during the war and came out all at once at the war's end.
GHQ's Purge (occupied Japan) was in 1946. Still, the year before that, Asahi independently removed the then editorial executives, the heads of the Murayama and Ueno families, and publicly elected executives in the spring of 1946.
It meant that the union would hold elections to choose them.
Tadashi Hasebe, who was still deputy editorial bureau chief, was appointed president, but this was a form of union management.
It was the first time they raised a red flag at Asahi.
But the critical thing to remember is that the undercurrent of this trend existed even before the war. And the GHQ, which promoted the occupation policy, also had an innovative faction, and in response to this, Asahi's left-leaning line began.
Inagaki
Many reformist groups were then in the civil affairs bureaus and social education fields.
Hongo
Yes. Some of them promoted New Deal policies.
Inagaki
Even the New Dealers were New Deal leftists.
Hongo
They were the ones whose dreams didn't come true in the United States.
Inagaki.
Initially, they are socialists who understand and cooperate with communism
They are not so different from the Communist Party.
The American people have a physiological aversion to the word "communism."
So, they were disguised as "liberals" and infiltrated various government agencies, and some of the most radical among them made their way into Japan.
They had infiltrated the social education field of MacArthur's command.
Hongo
So these people planned to use newspapers to democratize Japan.
They brought those oppressed during the war to the surface and used the newspapers as a precursor to promote the so-called democratization of Japan.
The Yomiuri had a fierce dispute with the Yomiuri.
Tomin Suzuki, a correspondent of Asahi in Europe during the war, led it.
However, the world situation was changing dramatically.
As early as March 1946, Churchill gave his "Iron Curtain Speech," and the Chinese Communists were increasingly defeating Chiang Kai-shek.
Furthermore, the Korean War began.
It was when the U.S. changed its occupation policy.
GHQ, which had previously excluded prewar and wartime leaders with the Purge (occupied Japan), turned around and embarked on the Red Purge.
After education, the next target was the newspaper industry.
NHK had the most significant number of expellees, with 119, followed by Asahi, with 104.
The method used was to promote snitching within the workplace.
President Hasebe was put in a bitter position and even forced by GHQ to say, "If you don't do it, we will destroy the Asahi Shimbun."
It is said that the person he worked hardest to protect was Shintaro Kasa, the chief editorial writer.
Hirooka, Tanaka, Mori, and others, who had once appeared on the stage and become prominent figures with the labor union as their mother organization, were returned to their original workplaces.
Then, the Purge (occupied Japan) was lifted, and both Seiichi Ueno and Nagataka Murayama returned to the company.
However, both were second-generation members of the company's family, and their "I'll leave it up to you" attitude was undeniable.
Inagaki
They needed the leadership of Shoriki (Matsutaro Matsutaro, President of Yomiuri and Director General of the Science and Technology Agency in the first Kishi reshuffled cabinet), right?
Hongo
Mr. Nagataka was originally the third son of a feudal lord who had received a viscountcy.
Seiichi was also quiet, so much so that he is said to have "DNA of escaping before the enemy" (laugh).
In the end, the relatively young people who survived the war and had managerial skills built the postwar newspaper boom that began in 1948 and 1949.
Mr. Daizo Nagai (later Managing Director) was the bigwig in charge of operations, and Mr. Kanichiro Shinobu (later Managing Director) was in charge of editing, creating a postwar golden era that lasted until the early 1950s.
Ishikawa
It was the era of Mr. Murayama.
This article continues.
