Isoko Mochizuki, the 'troublesome' thorn in Shinzo Abe's side

[rpannier]

“Even Abe’s friends in the media can’t ignore this,” says Isoko Mochizuki over lunch in between interviews and chasing down the day’s most important political story – a scandal involving accusations that Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, used a taxpayer-funded cherry blossom viewing party to reward political supporters. “I think the prime minister’s office is quite concerned.”

For Mochizuki, a reporter on a left-leaning newspaper covering a conservative government likely to remain in power for some time, sakura-gate is her latest opportunity to make life uncomfortable for Abe and his colleagues.

snip

But it is in the sombre setting of government briefing rooms where Mochizuki has arguably had the greatest impact on Japan’s staid political reporting culture.

When she started asking difficult questions about the environmental impact of a US marine corps base under construction in Henoko village, Okinawa, the government responded by attempting to frustrate her reporting. In a letter to the cabinet office press club – a body of accredited journalists assigned to report on the office’s activities – it called for “restrictions” on questions by a certain reporter, whom it accused of spreading “misinformation” about the potential damage landfill work could inflict on the marine environment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/27/isoko-mochizuki-the-troublesome-thorn-in-shinzo-abes-side

[madaboutharry]

1. "A Cherry Blossom viewing party...."

Sakura-gate. How utterly poetic.

[marble falls]

3. I wish this was the sort of scandal we had here.

[Act_of_Reparation]

2. The LDP has been in almost continuous power since 1955.

This sort of thing is fairly commonplace, if I understand correctly.

[UTUSN]

4. Who knew any SHITLER asskisser might have ethical lapses?!1