Issue:
July 2026 | Cover Story
Shukan Bunshun claims that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's use of social media is undermining democracy. She has responded by saying she doesn’t read the ‘sensationalist’ weeklies.
Shukan Bunshun has barged itself back into Japan’s news cycle again since April with a story claiming that the office of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi secretly posted defamatory posts on social media smearing her political rivals.
The weekly tabloid says Takaichi’s chief aide, Takeshi Kinoshita, commissioned hundreds of AI-generated videos attacking rival candidates during last year’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership race, and the general election in February.
Kinoshita allegedly asked entrepreneur Ken Matsui to mass-produce the videos attacking LDP rivals Shinjiro Koizumi and Yoshimasa Hayashi, as well as candidates with the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance, including Katsuya Okada and Yukio Edano.
Dirty tricks are as old as politics itself, but what adds fuel to the Bunshun story is technology. Social media allows for the manipulation of politics and the bypassing of traditional media apparatuses in ways that threaten democracy, says Bunshun.
Takaichi was the runaway winner in social-media popularity during the February Lower House election campaign. Videos of the prime minister (many critical, of course) were watched about 450 million times, according to go2senkyo.com, dwarfing views of her rivals.
The election highlighted the bourgeoning role of social media in politics. About 90,000 videos were posted to YouTube during the campaign, says go2senkyo.com, which monitors social media and politics, for a total of about 2.8 billion views.
Asahi: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16373042
Politically-themed videos are often AI-generated and arrive unsolicited on smartphones, via YouTube, TikTok, Instragram and other platforms. Most are posted by so-called third parties, often with opaque origins.
Though calculating their influence is difficult, they often rack up views that television can only envy. Some Takaichi videos have been seen millions of times, fuelling speculation that viewership is artifically boosted.
“We stand at the threshold of a new political world, one driven by social media narratives that can influence election outcomes,” said the Asahi Shimbun in an article highly critical of Takaichi’s muted responses to the Bunshun claims.
Questioned in parliament in June, Takaichi refuted the Bunshun story. “They’ve been sensationalizing reports based solely on the claims of people I don’t even know—and now they’re telling me to become a paid online subscriber.”
Many have also questioned the reliability of Matsui, the key source for the story, with some arguing that he took the initiative himself - to gain publicity or curry favor.
Mocking
According to Bunshun, Matsui collected 20 smartphones, created three Gmail accounts for each, then linked them to create accounts on X, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. The video-generation process is “almost completely automated”, it added.
Matsui’s videos ridiculed Koizumi and Hayashi and lavishly praised Takaichi. The Japanese media says Takaichi’s camp spends heavily on promotion: about 84 million yen during the 2024 LDP presidential campaign, with roughly 40% allocated to video production and social media.
The internet solves an old problem for politicians – having to deal with mass media gatekeepers. Conservatives in the LDP have long bemoaned bastions of “leftist” journalism, particularly the Asahi group of liberal-left media.
In 1972, Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato famously said “I hate biased newspapers!” during his last televised press conference. Like his political contemporary President Richard Nixon, Sato bore a grudge against journalists who were often heavily critical of his administration.
In 1993, as the LDP reeled from its first loss of power since 1955, it was TV Asahi’s turn to come under fire. The network’s director of news Sadayoshi Tsubaki had boasted in a private meeting of TV Asahi’s power to swing public opinion against the government.
The Tsubaki incident: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/椿事件
Takaichi embodies her party’s institutional distrust of the media. In 2016, as communications minister, she threatened to close television stations that flouted rules on impartiality. As if to confirm her suspicions of media bias, last year a live mic caught a comment by a Jiji Press photojournalist at a press scrum who said, “I’ll make sure (Takaichi’s) approval ratings drop”.
Hot mic: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16082059
Social media allows politicians to bypass journalists and speak unfiltered to the public. Takaichi has been criticized by the establishment press corps for holding fewer press conferences and informal meetings than many of her predecessors. Like her mentor Shinzo Abe, who was heavily scripted, and former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, she is visibly uncomfortable in unscripted press conferences.
Media commentators note how Takaichi can appear prickly and defensive when questioned. The Mainichi recalls an incident in which Hikari Ota, of the comedy duo Bakusho Mondai, asked Takaichi how she would take responsibilty if her policies failed.
Clearly displeased, Takaichi suddenly switched to the Kansai dialect and accused Ota of being ‘mean’. “Without answering the question, she appeared to recast the exchange as a confrontation between a “woman working hard” and a “mean man” bullying her,” said The Mainichi.
Bunshun responds
Bunshun was once one of Japan’s main platforms for airing political smears. For decades, politicians used the weeklies as clearing houses for Nagatacho gossip and disputes. Some find it ironic, therefore, that the magazine is accusing Takaichi of outsourcing a smear campaign through social media. “That’s like if Playboy magazine suddenly changed editorial policy and began to assert that nudity constituted sexual exploitation of women,” said one journalist with NHK, speaking anonymously.
Yusuke Nakamura, Bunshun’s editor-in-chief, says he rejects the claim that the Internet has usurped the power of what is often derisively referred to as “old media” to set the aganda for political discussion.
“I am well aware that political issues are frequently discussed on the internet. But the basis for nearly all of these discussions is reporting by newspapers, magazines, and television. While I agree that social media has grown in prominence and exerts a tremendous influence on public opinion, I believe that (traditional) media coverage remains the foundation of it all, and that the role of the media is becoming increasingly important.”
Q&A: Yusuke Nakamura, editor-in-chief
Last time Number 1 Shimbun interviewed your predecessor Manabu Shintani in 2021, Bunshun sold on average about 300,000 copies a week. What is your current status?
Currently, Shukan Bunshun has a cover price of 550 yen and a circulation of approximately 360,000 copies. However, as you know, the number of bookstores is decreasing year by year and as a result circulation is declining.
On the other hand, the number of paid subscribers to the weekly edition (https://bunshun.jp/denshiban), which launched in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, has already exceeded 20,000 (monthly plan: 300 yen for the first month, then 2,200 yen per month; annual plan: 22,000 yen). About half of these subscribers are on the annual plan.
We are working to maintain print circulation while also focusing on the digital edition, which allows readers to access exclusive scoops one day before the print magazine goes on sale, and we are increasing the number of original articles available exclusively online.
I have been serving as both the editor-in-chief of the print magazine and the editor-in-chief of the digital edition since April to further advance our “digital-first” strategy. Securing exclusive scoops has always been difficult, regardless of the era. However, it could be said that the internet has brought readers closer to Shukan Bunshun.
Our tip-off page is called Bunshun leaks (https://bunshun.jp/list/leaks). By continuously pursuing and reporting on scoops, readers often provide us with information, which frequently leads to follow-up reports or new scoops.
What scoops are you most proud of?
It’s hard to narrow it down to just one, but perhaps it would be the sexual abuse scandal involving Johnny Kitagawa. Bunshun had been reporting on this issue for a long time, starting in 1999, while other media outlets, such as newspapers and television, remained silent. As a result, many young boys continued to suffer sexual abuse until the mid-2010s. When the BBC reported on the issue in March 2023, Japanese media outlets followed suit en masse, and the true extent of the abuse finally came to light, leading to compensation for the victims. A serialized feature titled “Voices” by Daisuke Takahashi, the team leader who covered this issue anew in 2023, will begin in the issue released on July 9.
You decline to be photographed. Why?
Generally speaking, the editor-in-chief does not reveal his or her face while in office. This is less a matter of security concerns and more a matter of ensuring that the image of Shukan Bunshun is not confined to any one person. We employ a staff of about 50 people, including editors and reporters, and each person works with their own unique perspective. In a sense, the “face” of the magazine is its cover, and we believe it is better for the editor-in-chief not to be in the spotlight.
You recently made an interesting purchase…
My dream as editor-in-chief was to own the August 31, 1946, issue of The New Yorker The actual copy of this magazine was hard to find due to its high demand, but I was finally able to win it at an auction on eBay the other day. It is said that this issue, featuring the article “Hiroshima,” marked the turning point that established the magazine as a leading news publication.
New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31
When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the U.S. media at the time was unable to conduct proper reporting on the ground. Instead of conveying the devastation on the ground, they focused heavily on reporting the bomb’s power and effects - such as its being 200 times more powerful than conventional bombs. A journalist named John Hersey traveled to Hiroshima alone, interviewed six people who had experienced the atomic bombing—including a doctor, an office worker, and a clergyman—and compiled their stories into a 30,000-word nonfiction piece.
The article sparked a massive response, was read aloud on radio stations around the world, and completely transformed perceptions of nuclear weapons. It became a major movement that led to the subsequent anti-nuclear weapons movement.
The New Yorker featured only this single article and decided not to publish any other features. Filling every page with a single scoop - that might be the ultimate dream for a magazine editor-in-chief. Harold Ross, the founder of The New Yorker and its editor-in-chief at the time, is said to have remarked, “To call that article the best of the year is an understatement. It is, without a doubt, the greatest article of my life.”
David McNeill is professor of communications and English at University of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo, and co-chair of the FCCJ’s Freedom of the Press Committee. He was previously a correspondent for the Independent, the Economist and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He is co-author of the new book Japanese Rebels: Non-Conformists in a Conformist Society.
