Tsuneo Watanabe, the influential Japanese media mogul and baseball visionary, has died aged 98.
Watanabe, editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun daily and chief of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, died of pneumonia on Thursday.
He played a significant role in Japanese media and politics, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said in an obituary of the news baron.
As The Yomiuri Shimbun editor, Watanabe fostered relationships with top politicians and published a controversial proposal to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution in 1994.
The Yomiuri Shimbun under Watanabe’s leadership exceeded 10 million in daily circulation. The paper was recognised by the Guinness World Records in 2010 as having the highest daily circulation in the world, and for being the only newspaper with a morning circulation surpassing 10 million copies, according to Kyodo News.
Watanabe, a University of Tokyo graduate, joined The Yomiuri Shimbun in 1950 and rose through the ranks as political reporter and editor. He was made president of the newspaper in 1991 and later of Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, which publishes the paper and controls the country’s largest commercial television network Nippon.
He chaired the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association from 1999 to 2003 and received the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun in 2008, one of Japan’s most prestigious national honours.
Japan’s political leaders expressed condolences on Watanabe’s death with prime minister Shigeru Ishiba calling him a “great journalist”, and chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi referring to him as “a witness of postwar politics who knew many politicians”.
“I wish he would have taught me how Japan should be in the years to come,” Mr Ishiba said.
Watanabe served in the Japanese army during World War II and reportedly endured daily beatings during his service. He joined the Japanese Communist Party after the war but left due to its rigid discipline.
As The Yomiuri Shimbun’s chief editorial writer from 1979, he shifted the paper towards conservatism but opposed prime ministerial visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, condemning military leaders as criminals for wartime decisions like kamikaze attacks.
Former prime minister Fumio Kishida said Watanabe’s death felt like “the end of an era”.
In addition to the media, Watanabe played a key role in Japanese baseball as the owner of the Yomiuri Giants from 1996. In spite of resigning twice due to scandals — in 2004 over a scouting money issue and in 2016 after a gambling scandal involving the team’s pitchers — he significantly shaped the sport in the country. He introduced major changes, such as the free agent and the reverse draft systems.
He was instrumental in bringing baseball legend Shigeo Nagashima back to the team as manager.
“You cannot change the world if you don’t have power,” Watanabe said in an interview with Kyodo News in the 1990s. “Fortunately or unfortunately, I have the 10 million circulation. I can move the prime minister with that. Political parties are in my hands and the reductions in income and corporate taxes were carried out as the Yomiuri reported. Nothing is more delightful than that.”
