An Asahi Shimbun photographer who was found to have plagiarized from a Yomiuri Shimbun article has also plagiarized from another article in the Yomiuri and yet another from a local newspaper in Niigata, the Asahi announced Tuesday.
The Asahi said it would fire the photographer, Toshimichi Niwa, 46, who belonged to its photograph center. He was transferred to its Tokyo headquarters' administrative division after the first case was uncovered.
It also replaced Kenji Takeuchi, general manager and Tokyo head office managing editor, and Momoki Yamaguchi, photograph center manager. They also were given pay cuts.
According to the Asahi, an article in its Toyama Prefecture edition issued on Jan. 21 bore a close resemblance to a Yomiuri article titled "Training at a waterfall on daikan [said to be the coldest day of the year]," carried in its Toyama Prefecture edition on Jan. 21 last year.
Another article carried on the city news page in the evening editions published by Asahi's Nagoya head office and Seibu head office on Jan. 26 and in its Niigata Prefecture edition published on Jan. 29 was plagiarized from an article in The Niigata Nippo titled "A red-tinted snow field," printed on Jan. 21.
According to the Asahi , Niwa said during internal investigations that he had "referred" to the articles of other news papers. "I didn't have any confidence in writing stories and felt pressured when I had to write," he was quoted as saying.
"We'll reflect on ourselves seriously and take measures to prevent any recurrence as soon as possible," said Akihiko Miura, the Asahi's senior general director and executive editor, at a press conference held at the Tokyo head office on Tuesday night.
"Plagiarism is unforgivable, but we feel very responsible for insufficient supervision because we transferred a photographer who wasn't used to writing to a place where he had to write," said Tadashi Matsumoto, general director in charge of public affairs.
The Asahi inspected 16 articles written by Niwa after he was transferred to the Niigata general bureau in April last year. At first, he was writing articles referring to past Asahi articles, but started around January to refer to articles in the Yomiuri and other news papers, it said.
