An independent panel's findings made public last week on Asahi Shimbun's retraction of a series of past articles on the "comfort women" issue offer important lessons to reporters, editors and management of media organizations — the need to promptly examine and make corrections, if necessary, when suspicion arises about the trustworthiness of news reports, to cast aside the desire to save the face of their organization and to prevent management's excessive intervention in reporting activities.
At the same time, the mistakes made by the Asahi should not be used as an excuse to refuse to objectively look at the problems of Japan's wartime behavior. The public and politicians as well as experts should resist any moves to put those problems into oblivion.
On Aug. 5, the newspaper retracted 16 articles published from 1982 to 1997 about the testimony of a man who claimed to have been involved in rounding up Korean women on Jeju Island during World War II to force them into sexual servitude for Japanese soldiers at frontline brothels.