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Tsuneo Watanabe (渡邉 恒雄, Watanabe Tsuneo, May 30, 1926 – December 19, 2024) was a Japanese journalist and newspaper executive. He was the Representative Director and Managing Editor of Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, which publishes the largest Japanese daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun and substantially controls the largest Japanese commercial television network Nippon Television Network.[1][2] He served as the Managing Editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun from 1985 until his death in 2024.
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During World War II, he served the Imperial Japanese Army, but later noted that he was subjected to harsh treatment which included daily beatings.[3] He managed to enroll in Tokyo University before the war ended.[3] After World War II, Watanabe joined the Japanese Communist Party and opposed the Japan's imperial system.[3] However, his political views would change with the times.[3] He would leave the Japanese Communist Party due to its policy of prioritizing discipline over individual initiative.[3] He would adopt more conservative political views.[3] However, he would conitnuehold lifelong opposition towards Japan's role in World War 2, and oppose things such as visits by Japanese prime ministers to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine.[3]
He would graduate from the University of Tokyo in 1949.[3]
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Watanabe first joined the The Shimbum in 1950. Starting 1952, he served as a reporter in the newpaper's Political News Department, covering prime ministers from Shigeru Yoshida.[4] He was particularly favored by Banboku Ōno and emerged as a prominent political journalist.[5] He would become a member of the newspaper's Washington bureau, and was later appointed as a director and chairman of the editorial board at The Yomiuri Shimbun in 1979 after serving as one of the newspaper's political news editors.[4] In this role, he would help encourge The Yomiuri Shimbun to hold an even more conservative ideology.[4]
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Watanabe was also an advisor to Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. As a result, the Yomiuri Shimbun began writing articles with a pro-government stance. Some voices criticized it as an improper relationship between Watanabe and Nakasone.[6]
In 1991, Watanabe would become president and editor-in-chief of The Yomiuri Shimbun.[3] He would retain this poisition until his death.[7] Under Watanabe's leadership, the daily circulation of The Yomiuri Shimbun topped 10 million by 1994.[3] He became president and editor-in-chief of Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings in 2002, and later chairman and editor-in-chief in 2004.[3] Referring to himself as "the last dictator," Watanabe's leadership over The Yomiuri Shimbun was controversial.[3] Among the things he would do was not allow the newspaper to carry stories that contradicted its editorial tone and excluded anyone who objected it.[3] As head of the The Yomiuri Shimbu, Watanabe was at the forefront of the news industry.[4]
In an interview with Kyodo News in the 1990s, Watanabe boasted that "You can't change the world if you don't have power" and that "Fortunately or unfortunately, I have the 10 million circulation (of the daily). I can move the prime minister with that. Political parties are in my hands and reductions in income and corporate taxes were carried out as the Yomiuri reported. Nothing is more delightful than that."[3] By 2010, The Yomiuri Shimbun would recognized by Guinness World Records for having the highest daily newspaper circulation in the world, and also as the only newspaper with a morning circulation in excess of 10 million copies.[3]
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When the Japan Professional Soccer League was established, he insisted that each football club should put each company's name on the football clubs. Usually, in Europe and the United States, each professional team or club put each city's name on the team. In August 2004, Watanabe resigned as Yomiuri Giants (owned by the Yomiuri Shimbun) president after it was revealed that the Giants baseball club had violated scouting rules by paying ¥2 million to pitching prospect Yasuhiro Ichiba. Ten months later, Watanabe was hired as chairman of the team.[8]
In 2004, Japanese professional baseball held its first-ever strike. Watanabe faced public criticism for remarking to Atsuya Furuta, the head of the players' union, "You are mere players. You should know your places."[9]
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Concerned by the way unfinished business concerning the war continued to hinder Japan's progress, Watanabe set up a War Responsibility Re-examination Committee at Yomiuri Shimbun to undertake a 14-month investigation into the causes of Japan's Pacific War. The committee concluded that, "not only high-ranking government leaders, generals and admirals should shoulder the blame."[10]
Watanabe had close ties with a number of powerful Japanese political figures, including former Prime Ministers Yasuhiro Nakasone and Shinzo Abe.[3] Under Watanabe's leadership, The Yomiuri Shimbun presented its first draft amendments to Japan's Constitution.[3] He would form a united front with Nakasone to alter the war-renouncing supreme law. Under Abe, Watanabe headed an advisory council on Japan's secrecy law from 2014 to 2016.[3]
Despite his advancing age, Watanabe would regularly show up his Yomiuri Shimbun office until late November 2024.[3]
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Watanabe died of pneumonia on December 19, 2024, at the age of 98.[11] Numerous Japanese political figures, including former Japanese Prime Ministers Fumio Kishida and Yoshihiko Noda, were among those who paid tribute to Watanabe.[3]
Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (2008)
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