Information is neither good nor evil

Information is neither good nor evil names a distinction between the worth of information and the moral standing of the person who supplies it. The principle guides the narrator’s use of a compromised but valuable source, while the book’s reporting episodes show that information’s public meaning also depends on who can obtain it, who will publish it, and how institutions choose to handle it.

The Principle and Its Source

The narrator arrives at this ethic through his relationship with Kaneko, a self-described antisocial lawbreaker whose information helps him work as a crime reporter. The relationship is deliberately businesslike: the narrator visits for tea every few weeks, calls ahead, receives story leads, and discusses the predations of yakuza life alongside those of reporting. He worries that Kaneko may eventually demand a favor and questions whether taking information from him is morally defensible. Kaneko never makes such a demand, but the narrator’s unease remains part of the lesson rather than disappearing once the source proves useful.

The distinction the narrator draws is precise: the source’s motives may be impure, but that does not by itself make the information false or unusable. What matters, he concludes, is the information’s reliability, not the moral purity of the person providing it. This is not presented as a claim that every use of information is ethically neutral. It is a working rule for assessing a source without confusing the source’s character with the accuracy of what the source knows.

Information as Reporting Advantage

Kaneko’s value is demonstrated in practical terms. At one point, his information lets the narrator know that a gang war between yakuza factions is breaking out before the police do. The advantage is not abstract: a strong source helps the reporter stay alert to developing events, and the narrator considers one excellent source more useful than a hundred poor ones. Information becomes an advantage through its timing and quality, even when it comes from a person the reporter has reason to distrust.

The same distinction shapes the narrator’s reporting on Lucie Blackman and Obara. After receiving information from Layla, he understands that Lucie and Obara had met and that witnesses could establish the encounter. He passes the information to Yamamoto; the resulting report gives the newspaper a scoop, but it also frustrates the police, who wanted to surprise Obara. Other newspapers publish the information roughly a week later. The episode shows that information can be accurate and newsworthy while still disrupting an investigative strategy: its value does not erase the consequences of publication.

Institutions That Control Circulation

The principle operates within systems that determine which information reaches reporters and readers. At the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Ansei Inoue takes the narrator to the ninth floor, where public affairs and the newspaper, television, and radio and local-newspaper press clubs are located. Weekly and monthly magazines have no place there; police regard them as subversive scandal publications. Foreign media representatives are absent as well, while mainstream Japanese outlets do not challenge their exclusion. In this setting, information is not merely discovered or withheld by individual sources: access is organized through institutional boundaries and a press-club system.

The narrator’s later effort to publish reporting about Tadamasa Goto’s dealings reveals further barriers. No outlet he approaches will publish the article, despite his attempts to place it. Editors cite its age, concern about making the National Police Agency look foolish, and doubt that the FBI would confirm the account. One newspaper is interested only in attacking the FBI, a framing the narrator rejects because he does not believe the agency was wrong to make the deal and does not want Jim lampooned. A senior publishing editor speaks more plainly about the risks: possible legal action, costly security measures, retaliation, and the loss of printing business from Soka Gakkai if Goto pressured the organization to withdraw its contracts.

Publication, Attribution, and the Limits of the Rule

The narrator sends the article to Yomiuri Shinbun before it appears, but the newspaper ignores it, as do the other Japanese newspapers. He has already begun working with the Los Angeles Times before the Washington Post article is ready. When the story reaches Japanese media, many outlets report it by attributing it to the Los Angeles Times rather than independently verifying it or pursuing the facts further. Information can survive one publisher’s refusal and still be diminished by the way subsequent outlets handle it: attribution shifts responsibility outward, while independent investigation would require each newsroom to stand behind its own reporting.

These episodes give the principle both its force and its limits. A source’s moral standing does not settle whether information is true, but truth alone does not guarantee access, publication, or responsible follow-up. Kaneko’s leads, the witnesses to Lucie and Obara’s meeting, and the article rejected by domestic outlets all travel through different human and institutional channels. The book’s recurring concern is therefore not only what information is, but what people and organizations do with it once it becomes available.