Japan’s Constitution turned 60 years old on May 3, 2007. To mark this day, we ran 21 editorials simultaneously in our morning edition, devoting eight full pages to this project. The special feature called “Editorials 21: Proposing Japan’s New Strategies” explored Japan’s future course, and ran under the overall title theme: “To make Japan a nation that contributes to the planet Earth.”
Where is Japan headed and what kind of road should it take in our world in the 21st century? We addressed the question by looking into the future--a decade from now, and two decades from now. The 21 editorials summed up the conclusions we reached and were delivered on the milestone date.
Japan should strive to become the world’s “caretaker” so that we can overcome short-term national interests and allow many countries to share in the benefits. What Japan can do for the world is to further promote energy-saving and technology development to protect the global environment.
It is especially important for Japan to deepen understanding among Asian countries and coordinate operations with other to achieve a stable economic zone. Furthermore, the Constitution with its war-renouncing Article 9 must not be changed. Instead, we propose creating a quasi-constitutional “basic law on peace and security” to properly define the position of the Self-Defense Forces(SDF). This would be designed to allow the SDF to actively participate in peace-building activities in areas of conflict, and allow Japan to take part in building a better world.
The contents of the 21 editorials could be summed up as outlined above. Our proposals mostly focused on Japan in its relation to the world. Starting in the autumn of 2007, we started a series on domestic policies.
Just as no two people’s faces are the same, the “face” of each newspaper, namely its editorials, has its own distinctive characteristics. The opinions presented in these editorials can take on extremely different paths these days. For example, The Asahi Shimbun and the Sankei Shimbun have very different opinions concerning such issues as the prime minister’s visit to war-related Yasukuni Shrine, evaluation of the Iraq war and the dispatch of Self-Defense Force members to Iraq, and the compulsory pledge of allegiance to the national flag and the singing of the national anthem at school graduation ceremonies.
In writing editorials, it is essential to explain in an easy- to-understand way why we believe something, present the differences and to thereafter let readers make up their own minds on the issue being discussed. Guided by such convictions, each day the Editorial Board works on editorials that are carried by The Asahi Shimbun. A strong argument must never be self-complacent but properly supported by backup data. We repeatedly go over our facts and information, and engage in brainstorming in order to achieve our goal. We consider the process a worthwhile challenge.
The members of the Editorial Board are all former reporters with extensive experience in a broad range of subjects, including politics, economics, society, international relations, culture, science and sports. Each day, the editorial writers meet with the Editorial Board Director to decide on the subjects to be tackled and the opinions to be put forward, as well as who should write the editorial.
In this age of diverse value systems, in which different generations and regional interests are intricately intertwined, there is often a clash of opinions at these editorial meetings. Our debates are thorough and straightforward, sometimes causing fiery disputes to erupt. Through these endeavors we are able to produce an opinion appropriate of The Asahi Shimbun.
Aside from editorials, Board members write the following three columns:
