Shinnosuke Abe Coverage Raises Questions Over Nippon TV’s Editorial Choices

Grabbed her by the collar and threw her

“I have tarnished the name of the manager of the prestigious Giants organization, and I am filled with deep remorse and a sincere desire to apologize.”

Former manager Shinnosuke Abe (47) was arrested in the act on May 25 on suspicion of assaulting his eldest daughter (18) and was released in the early hours of May 26. Before noon that same day, he held a press conference at the Yomiuri Shimbun Tokyo headquarters in Tokyo, tearfully apologized, and announced his resignation as manager.

The first report of the incident broke on the night of May 25.

At around 6:00 p.m., Abe was reportedly trying to stop a fight between his daughters at his home in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward when he became angered after his eldest daughter talked back to him. He allegedly grabbed her by the collar, threw her to the ground, and assaulted her.

Afterward, the eldest daughter reportedly consulted the AI chatbot ChatGPT, saying:

“I was assaulted by my father.”

The chatbot advised her to contact a child consultation center, prompting her to report the incident. The child consultation center judged the situation to be urgent, and police went to Abe’s home and arrested him on the spot.

At the press conference, a letter said to have been written by his eldest daughter was read aloud by his attorney.

“The person most shocked by the arrival of the police was myself, and when I saw my father being taken away by the police, I broke down in tears right in front of them. (Omitted) My father and I have already reconciled, so please don’t worry.”

While many people were moved by the family’s statement, the matter did not end as merely a family quarrel.

On the morning of the same day, Abe met with Giants owner Yamaguchi, offered his resignation, and it was accepted. Yamaguchi also expressed the view that:

“Violence by a manager is an extremely serious matter, and resignation is unavoidable.”

The immediate directive

The Yomiuri Group’s swift response was not limited to immediately cutting ties with Mr. Abe. A Nippon TV insider revealed the following to this site:

“As soon as the first report of Mr. Abe’s incident came in, a directive was immediately issued. While it was unavoidable to refer to him as the Giants’ manager, we were told not to use footage of him in uniform or any images featuring the Giants logo. The instruction was passed from senior executives in Nippon TV’s sports division to the sports desks at affiliated stations, and from there to the producers of news programs. At the same time, programming management likely contacted each individual show as well.”

Within the Nippon TV network, including “news zero,” which first reported the story, neither the affiliated television stations nor Yomiuri Group publications such as the “Yomiuri Shimbun” and “Sports Hochi” used images of Mr. Abe in his Giants uniform in their initial coverage.

“I checked other programs and sports newspapers, and the only outlets that did not use footage or photos of Mr. Abe wearing a Giants uniform were Yomiuri-affiliated media, including Nippon TV. He’s the current manager, so ordinarily you’d expect them to use images of him in uniform. I was surprised by what seemed to be an effort to convey that ‘the Giants have nothing to do with Abe’ and that this was an incident Abe caused entirely on his own as a private individual,” said the same Nippon TV insider.

Tsuneo Watanabe, the former owner of the Giants who passed away at the age of 98, upheld the motto “Always be gentlemen” and strictly disciplined players under the belief that they should serve as role models for society. Whether this rapid response itself was truly a gentlemanly one remains an open question.