Takashi Uesugi

Who is Takashi Uesugi?

Takashi Uesugi, is a Japanese freelance journalist and former research assistant for the New York Times, born in Fukuoka Prefecture and raised in Tokyo. He is also former aide to Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Kunio Hatoyama, and author of numerous books, most recently The Collapse of Journalism. He also wrote a book about the first Abe administration, Kantei Hokai, published in August 2007.

Uesugi graduated from the Department of English Literature at Tsuru University. He says he got an offer letter from Japan's national broadcasting company NHK. He, however, failed to graduate college. NHK withdrew the employment offer. He also said NHK had hired him, and worked as a reviewer for NHK in the other opportunity. Uesugi wrote NHK protested that he had never worked for NHK in his blog. From age 26, he worked for 5 years as a secretary for Kunio Hatoyama before quitting this job to become a research assistant for the Tokyo branch office of the New York Times.

He is one of the loudest critics in Japan of Tokyo Electric Power Company's handling of the Fukushima I nuclear accidents. In March 2012, he fabricated a story in the daily paper Yukan Fuji that two cities in Fukushima had been deemed unlivable, based on fake Wall Street Journal journalists' comments. Yukan Fuji retracted the article later that day and printed a correction in its following edition. He refused to apologize for this.