The Asahi Shimbun
The Asahi Shimbun is a Japanese daily newspaper founded in 1879. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan.
The Asahi Shimbun is one of the five largest newspapers in Japan along with the Yomiuri Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and Chunichi Shimbun. The newspaper's circulation, which was 4.57 million for its morning edition and 1.33 million for its evening edition as of July 2021, was second behind that of the Yomiuri Shimbun. By print circulation, it is the second largest newspaper in the world behind the Yomiuri, though its digital size trails that of many global newspapers including The New York Times.
Its publisher, is a media conglomerate with its registered headquarters in Osaka. It is a privately held family business with ownership and control remaining with the founding Murayama and Ueno families. According to the Reuters Institute Digital Report 2018, public trust in the Asahi Shimbun is the lowest among Japan's major dailies, though confidence is declining in all the major newspapers.
History
Early years
One of Japan's oldest and largest national daily newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun began publication in Osaka on 25 January 1879 as a small-print, four-page illustrated paper that sold for one sen a copy, and had a circulation of approximately 3,000 copies. The three founding officers of a staff of twenty were Kimura Noboru, , and Tsuda Tei. The company's first premises were at Minami-dōri, Edobori in Osaka. On 13 September of the same year, Asahi printed its first editorial.In 1881, the Asahi adopted an all-news format, and enlisted Ueno Riichi as co-owner. From 1882, Asahi began to receive financial support from the Government and Mitsui, and hardened the management base. Then, under the leadership of Ueno, whose brother was one of the Mitsui managers, and Murayama, the Asahi began its steady ascent to national prominence. On 10 July 1888, the first issue of the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun was published from the Tokyo office at Motosukiyachō, Kyōbashi. The first issue was numbered No. 1,076 as it was a continuation of three small papers: Jiyū no Tomoshibi, Tomoshibi Shimbun and Mesamashi Shimbun.
On 1 April 1907, the renowned writer Natsume Sōseki, then 41, resigned his teaching positions at Tokyo Imperial University, now Tokyo University, to join the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun. This was soon after the publication of his novels Wagahai wa Neko de Aru and Botchan, which made him the center of literary attention.
On 1 October 1908, Osaka Asahi Shimbun and Tokyo Asahi Shimbun were merged into a single unified corporation, Asahi Shimbun Gōshi Kaisha, with a capitalization of approximately 600,000 yen.
In 1918, because of its critical stance towards Terauchi Masatake's cabinet during the Rice Riots, government authorities suppressed an article in the Osaka Asahi, leading to a softening of its liberal views, and the resignation of many of its staff reporters in protest.
Indeed, the newspaper's liberal position led to its vandalization during the February 26 Incident of 1936, as well as repeated attacks from ultranationalists throughout this period.
Toward and during the war
From the latter half of the 1930s, Asahi ardently supported Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe's wartime government and criticized capitalism harshly under Taketora Ogata, the Editor in Chief of Asahi Shimbun. Influential editorial writers of Asahi such as Shintarō Ryū, Hiroo Sassa, and Hotsumi Ozaki were the center members of the Shōwa Kenkyūkai, which was a political think tank for Konoe.Ogata was one of the leading members of the Genyōsha which had been formed in 1881 by Tōyama Mitsuru. The Genyōsha was an ultranationalist group of organized crime figures and those with far right-wing political beliefs. Kōki Hirota, who was later hanged as a Class A war criminal, was also a leading member of the Genyōsha and one of Ogata's best friends. Hirota was the chairman of Tōyama's funeral committee, and Ogata was the vice-chairman.
Ryū, who had been a Marxist economist of the Ōhara Institute for Social Research before he entered Asahi, advocated centrally planned economies in his Nihon Keizai no Saihensei. And Sassa, a son of ultranationalistic politician Sassa Tomofusa, joined hands with far-right generals and terrorists who had assassinated Junnosuke Inoue, Baron Dan Takuma and Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi to support Konoe. In 1944, they attempted assassination of Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō.
On 9 April 1937, the Kamikaze, a Mitsubishi aircraft sponsored by the Asahi Shimbun company and flown by Masaaki Iinuma, arrived in London, to the astonishment of the Western world. It was the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.
On 1 September 1940, the Osaka Asahi Shimbun and the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun unified their names into the Asahi Shimbun.
On 1 January 1943, the publication of the Asahi Shimbun was stopped by the government after the newspaper published a critical essay contributed by Seigō Nakano, who was also one of the leading members of the Genyōsha and Ogata's best friend.
On 27 December 1943,, a son-in-law of Murayama Ryōhei and the President of Asahi, removed Ogata from the Editor in Chief and relegated him to the Vice President to hold absolute power in Asahi.
On 22 July 1944, Ogata, Vice President of Asahi, became a Minister without Portfolio and the President of Cabinet Intelligence Agency in Kuniaki Koiso's cabinet.
On 7 April 1945, Hiroshi Shimomura, former Vice President of Asahi, became the Minister without Portfolio and the President of Cabinet Intelligence Agency in Kantarō Suzuki's cabinet.
On 17 August 1945, Ogata became the Minister without Portfolio and the Chief Cabinet Secretary and the President of Cabinet Intelligence Agency in Prince Higashikuni's cabinet.
After the war
On 5 November 1945, as a way of assuming responsibility for compromising the newspaper's principles during the war, the Asahi Shimbun's president and senior executives resigned en masse.On 21 November 1946, the newspaper adopted the modern kana usage system.
On 30 November 1949, the Asahi Shimbun started to publish the serialized cartoon strip Sazae-san by Machiko Hasegawa. This was a landmark cartoon in Japan's postwar era.
Between 1954 and 1971, Asahi Shimbun published a glossy, large-format annual in English entitled This is Japan.
Between April and May 1989, the paper reported that a coral reef near Okinawa was defaced by "すさんだ心根の日本人". It later turned to be a report in which the reporter himself defaced the coral reef. This incident was called :ja:朝日新聞珊瑚記事捏造事件., and the president resigned to take responsibility for it.
On 26 June 2007, Yoichi Funabashi was named the third editor-in-chief of Asahi Shimbun.
Shōichi Ueno, the newspaper's co-owner since 1997, died on 29 February 2016.
While Shin-ichi Hakojima was CEO, a partnership with the International Herald Tribune led to the publication of an English-language newspaper, the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun. It continued from April 2001 until February 2011. It replaced Asahi's previous English-language daily, the Asahi Evening News. In 2010, this partnership was dissolved due to unprofitability and the Asahi Shimbun now operates the Asia & Japan Watch online portal for English readers. The Tribune cooperates with Asahi on Aera English, a glossy magazine for English learners.
Political stance
The Asahi Shimbun is considered left-leaning and has been called "the intellectual flagship of Japan's political left," with a long tradition of reporting on big political scandals more often than its conservative counterparts. The paper is considered a newspaper of record in Japan.The Asahi Shimbun is critical of right-wing Japanese nationalism and shows progressive tendencies in cultural and diplomatic issues, but has a neoliberal tendency economically. The latter contrasts with Mainichi Shimbun's relatively Keynesian economic viewpoint. However, in general evaluation, the Asahi Shimbun seems to have a tone representing Japanese social-liberals.
The Asahi has called for the upholding of Japan's postwar Constitution and particularly Article 9, which bars the use of war to resolve disputes. The newspaper has also opposed changes in interpretation of the anti-war provision, including one made in 2014 that allowed the Japan Self-Defense Forces to come to the aid of an ally under attack—the so-called right of collective self-defense.
While the Asahi retracted articles based on the discredited testimony of Seiji Yoshida, its editorial position still recognizes the existence of the comfort women as Korean and other women from Japan's conquered territories during World War II who were coerced into prostitution to serve the Japanese military.
According to the Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in 2018, the Asahi earned the lowest trust among the five largest newspapers in Japan. Further analysis from the institute indicated the low trust against the Asahi is due to high distrust because of strong criticism from political right in Japan.