Tsuneo Watanabe Remembered; Kishida Encouraged by a ‘Great Influence on Japan’

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:36 JST, December 19, 2024

Messages of condolence regarding the death of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings Editor-in-Chief Tsuneo Watanabe arrived from various quarters on Thursday.

“He encouraged me whenever we met while I was the prime minister, and every time I was grateful for his kind words,” former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said. “As a man of letters and of the mass media, he greatly influenced [post-World War II] Japan. An era has ended.”

In his statement, Shiro Nakamura, the current head of the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association, said that Watanabe “exerted himself for the development of the world of newspapers as the head and a board of directors member” of the organization.

“He proactively worked for the promotion of print culture, for example by putting all his efforts into the resale price maintenance system for printed material, which is a fundamental principle for newspaper management,” said Nakamura, also the chairman of The Asahi Shimbun Co. “I would like to express my gratitude for his long-time contributions to the world of newspapers.”

Takashi Mikuriya, a professor emeritus in political studies at the University of Tokyo, served as the interviewer for “Watanabe Tsuneo Kaikoroku” (Tsuneo Watanabe: a memoir), which was published in 2000.

“His talks were like casual chats and were fun — I got the impression that he laughed a lot,” Mikuriya said. “Even in his later years, he remained a newspaper reporter fully committed to writing.”