For example, on the night of January 11, Foreign Minister Watanabe Michio appeared on a TV program on a national network and said, “We don’t have any clear evidence at hand because the issue dates back more than fifty years, but I think we should admit [the Japanese military] was involved in one way or another,” according to a story carried in the Asahi’s January 12 edition.11
The Japan Times ran a story about the foreign minister’s remarks, but capped it with a malicious analysis: “The statement marks the first time a government official has admitted that the Imperial Japanese Army participated in the recruitment and forced prostitution of hundreds of thousands of Asian ‘comfort women’ during World War II.”12
The Japan Times casually added “hundreds of thousands” and “forced prostitution,” which the minister had not mentioned and even the Asahi had not acknowledged.13 The tone of ensuing reports by competing media escalated to fit the line trumpeted by the Japan Times.
