The Asahi Shimbun admitted with an apology in its Aug. 5 morning edition that there were factual errors in some of its articles on the so-called wartime "comfort women" issue. But the major Japanese daily emphasized that the facts about the issue were "not intentionally distorted."

While some experts hail the Asahi Shimbun for carrying verification articles which acknowledge that some of its articles were false, some other critics raise questions about Asahi's reporting stance.

In its two-page spread examining its past articles on "comfort women," Asahi tried to verify the credibility of statements made by Seiji Yoshida (deceased) who had revealed his own experience of rounding up women against their will. The article said that the Asahi Shimbun had published articles 16 times since 1982 based on Yoshida's statements, including the one which said he "hunted out" 200 young Korean women on Jeju Island. The Asahi said, however, that although it had gathered additional information on the issue on Jeju Island for verification purposes, it could not obtain corroborative evidence to back up Yoshida's statements. The Asahi Shimbun then said it deemed the statements were false and therefore it would retract the articles.

With respect to the Asahi Shimbun's articles on "comfort women," there have been a flood of online postings criticizing a particular Asahi reporter by name. The reporter wrote an article on testimonies from former comfort women in August 1991, ahead of South Korean media. Because a South Korean woman who supports former comfort women in their court battles is the reporter's mother-in-law, there have been online postings suspecting that the reporter took advantage of his relations with the woman to write stories in favor of former comfort women.

The Asahi Shimbun examined the reporter's coverage of the comfort women issue this time around. The newspaper quoted the reporter as saying, "I went to South Korea after being contacted by the then bureau chief in Seoul. I have never reported for the purposes of benefiting my mother-in-law and others." The reporter was also quoted as saying, "I have never taken advantage of my kinship to obtain special information." He went on to say that he had never intentionally avoided inconvenient stories dealing with the personal history of former comfort women.

In a front-page article, Asahi Shimbun Executive Editor Nobuyuki Sugiura argued that little research on comfort women had been done in the early 1990s when the issue of comfort women began to come under the spotlight. He then explained the background in which "volunteer corps" at Japanese munitions factories and "comfort women" had been mixed up. He then said he would never accept such arguments that the Asahi Shimbun had fabricated the comfort women issue and that there is no reason for Japan to apologize to former comfort women.

The Mainichi Shimbun has reported on the comfort women issue since the early 1990s when the issue began to attract attention at home and abroad, based on its coverage of former comfort women themselves, their support groups as well as government officials, experts and other relevant sources.

On the front page of its Oct. 19, 1991 Tokyo morning edition, the Mainichi carried an article on a private research group releasing a list of about 126,000 women who were forcibly drawn from the Korean Peninsula. In the Jan. 11, 1992 evening edition, the Mainichi reported on the discovery of documents suggesting that the former Imperial Japanese Army had set up and managed brothels.

With respect to Seiji Yoshida, the Mainichi reported in its morning editions on Aug. 12 and 13, 1992 that he had visited South Korea to make apologies. In the articles, the Mainichi quoted Yoshida as saying that he had carted off comfort women and other people, while simply reporting that he apologized directly to former comfort women during a Seoul event.