After further examination of the stories in the column, it was confirmed that in one story the staff writer had added information that was not contained in the original magazine story. e reflected on the fact that we had disseminated information that lacked moral character, and cancelled the column completely.
We subsequently ran an explanation of this problem and an apology on our Japanese and English sites. We also published an apology in our morning edition of the Mainichi Shimbun on June 25.
During in-house investigations, the staff writer said: "I introduced what I thought were aspects of Japanese customs by quoting magazine stories, but the selection of stories that I quoted was inappropriate. I'm sorry."