Asahi Shimbun

Asahi Shimbun is the country’s second-largest newspaper and one of Yomiuri Shinbun’s principal competitors. In Jake Adelstein’s account, it is both a formidable newsroom and an institution shaped by the rivalries and shared constraints of Japan’s established press: it competes fiercely for reporters and stories, yet does not challenge the press-club system that keeps foreign media outside.

Position and political reputation

The book describes Asahi Shimbun as having once been a close second to Yomiuri Shinbun in circulation; although the gap later widened, Asahi remained second. It sketches the papers through political shorthand: Yomiuri was popularly associated with the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, while Asahi was associated with the Socialists, then nearly invisible in national politics. These labels are presented as common characterizations rather than formal affiliations.

Asahi’s editorial treatment of the United States affected Adelstein’s initial interest in applying there. He became offended by what he saw as the paper’s tendency to portray the United States negatively, a stance he felt conflicted with the image of America as a defender of democracy and liberty. His eventual choice was also shaped by the reporting he saw at Yomiuri: before the phrase “human trafficking” had entered popular usage, that paper had published a forceful series on Thai women smuggled into Japan for sex work, treating them with relative dignity and criticizing the police response. Asahi and Yomiuri held their recruitment examinations on the same day, and Adelstein registered for Yomiuri’s.

Recruitment and rivalry in Urawa

The rivalry was not merely a matter of reputation or circulation. Yomiuri strengthened its Urawa office after Asahi placed its Urawa operation under its national and metropolitan news division. In Adelstein’s description, that arrangement gave Asahi access to a hundred reporters who could be sent to Saitama Prefecture for a major story, while Yomiuri’s regional office had only its limited bureau resources. Yomiuri added staff to narrow that disadvantage, assigning four new reporters, including Adelstein, to the posting.

The disparity showed in daily competition. During a murder investigation, Mainichi Shinbun and Sankei Shinbun published reports identifying the Iranian boyfriend as the suspected killer and saying he was already in custody. Adelstein’s paper had taken a more cautious approach and was beaten to the story. The episode illustrates the competitive pressure surrounding police reporting, though it does not establish that Asahi itself published those reports.

Press-club boundaries

Asahi’s institutional position also appears in Adelstein’s description of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s press clubs. The clubs served newspaper, television, radio, and local-newspaper reporters, while weekly and monthly magazines were excluded. Foreign media representatives were absent as well. Adelstein says the mainstream Japanese outlets had not protested that exclusion and would not do so, linking their silence to the advantages of belonging to a media monopoly. As one of the leading mainstream papers, Asahi is part of the system he criticizes, even though the account does not describe a particular action by the newspaper in the press club.

The limits of publication

Years later, when Adelstein tried to place his investigation into Tadamasa Goto’s dealings with the FBI, he sent the article to Yomiuri before it appeared. Yomiuri ignored it, as did every other newspaper in Japan. The account does not single out Asahi’s editors or assign them a specific reason for the refusal; its significance lies in the broader pattern of domestic newspaper silence around a story that publishers and editors viewed as risky or difficult to substantiate. Adelstein ultimately changed course and wrote the story in English, seeking publication outside the Japanese newspaper market. Asahi’s place in the article is therefore twofold: a direct competitor in the pursuit of reporters and news, and one of the established outlets included in the larger landscape of institutional exclusion and nonpublication.