One of Japan's largest newspapers, The Asahi Shimbun, admitted that it made up an interview two years ago with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.

On Sunday, Asahi stated that it had asked Iwata for an interview, but the request was turned down. The paper said it planned to use quotes from Nintendo's Iwata Asks webpage, which features Iwata interviewing game creators. Asahi says it was under the assumption that Nintendo signed off on this when it published its article on June 8, 2012.

According to Kyodo News (via The Japan Times), Nintendo, however, protested that the story made it appear as though Asahi had interviewed Iwata directly for the piece. And two years later, it finally issued a correction.

Sigh.

Kyodo adds that the Asahi Shimbun has been caught in a series of controversies recently, including a series of articles it published in the 1980s and 1990s in which a Japanese man named Seiji Yoshida recounted how Korean women on Jeju Island were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army. The man's stories were later proven to be historically false, Kyodo adds, and the paper retracted the articles last month.

Photo: Koji Sasahara/AP

Retraction-hit Asahi admits fabricating interview with Nintendo chief [Kyodo via The Japan Times]

*Full disclosure: I write a monthly column for The Japan Times.

 

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