Japan’s Kyodo News to Replace Top Editors over False Yasukuni Report; Agency Reshuffles After Report on Ikuina

The Yomiuri Shimbun

20:03 JST, December 6, 2024

Kyodo News has decided to take disciplinary action against six of its employees, including two top editors who will be relieved of their duties, to take responsibility for a false report that said Akiko Ikuina, a parliamentary vice minister for foreign affairs, visited Yasukuni Shrine on Aug. 15, 2022.

Ikuina is a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker and member of the House of Councillors.

The major news agency announced Thursday that Naoto Takahashi, managing editor of the News Department, and Shiro Yamane, chief supervisory editor of the Integrated News Center, will be relieved of their duties in January.

President Toru Mizutani and Senior Executive Director Toshiro Obuchi, who was managing editor of the News Department at the time of the false report, will voluntarily return 10% of their executive salaries for three months.

As of Wednesday, Kyodo News had imposed a salary cut on Takahashi, who was chief supervisory editor of the Integrated News Center at the time of the false report, and suspended Yamane, who was chief editor of the Political News Section, for three days. It also decided to reprimand two employees, including a deputy editor of the Political News Section, and issued a warning to two other people over writing the article based on information from a reporter at another company, without directly confirming the information with Ikuina.

In November, there were no South Korean government representatives in attendance at a memorial service for gold miners who worked on Sado Island during World War II, including those from the Korean Peninsula. The event, held in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, came after the Sado Island Gold Mines were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

South Korea’s decision not to send a representative to the memorial service was likely influenced by the false report.

Mizutani apologized for the false report to Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano on Nov. 26 and to Ikuina on Nov. 28.