Tokyo Shimbun journalist says she is buoyed by ‘ordinary people’ to shrug off abuse and efforts by Abe’s administration to frustrate her

“Even Abe’s friends in the media can’t ignore this,” says Isoko Mochizuki over lunch in between interviews and chasing down the day’s most important political story – a scandal involving accusations that Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, used a taxpayer-funded cherry blossom viewing party to reward political supporters. “I think the prime minister’s office is quite concerned.”

For Mochizuki, a reporter on a left-leaning newspaper covering a conservative government likely to remain in power for some time, sakura-gate is her latest opportunity to make life uncomfortable for Abe and his colleagues.

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