Tsuneo Watanabe, the representative director and editor-in-chief of the Yomiuri Shimbun Group, died Thursday at a hospital in Tokyo, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun. Watanabe, who was 98, had pneumonia, the daily said.

Watanabe played a prominent role in Japan's political and professional sports arenas.

Born in 1926, he graduated from the University of Tokyo with a degree in philosophy and joined the Yomiuri Shimbun in 1950.