The report sparked the huge response the newspaper had hoped for, with other newspapers carrying stories about it a day later. The Asahi was well prepared and printed a story sent from its Seoul Bureau for its evening edition printed the same day. “[The discovery] was reported in detail by South Korean television and radio stations by citing the Asahi Shimbun’s report,” the story said. “South Korean Foreign Minister Lee Sang-ok told South Korean reporters on [January] 11, ‘I think the Japanese side will reveal an appropriate position about issues regarding former military comfort women at the time of the South Korea-Japan summit meeting.’”9
The Asahi pressed on. Its January 12 morning edition carried an editorial with the headline, “Never turn our eyes from history.” “We hope Prime Minister Miyazawa will be forward-looking when he visits South Korea from [January] 16,” the editorial said.10
The Asahi remained at the forefront of reporting the comfort women issue for a long time. But among newspapers that reported the issue, albeit belatedly, the Japan Times, an English-language newspaper, was even more radical than the Asahi.
