- Nihon Shinbun Kyokai
- NSK News Bulletin
- NSK News Bulletin September 2012
NSK News Bulletin September 2012
Asahi Ties Up with U.S. Investigative Journalism Nonprofit
The Asahi Shimbun has tied up with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a global network of reporters who collaborate on in-depth investigative stories.
ICIJ is an offshoot of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, intended to extend the Center’s style of investigative journalism, focusing on international and cross-border issues. The Center was founded in 1989 as a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organization.
The Asahi in its July 17 morning edition carried an ICIJ-sourced article ? exposing the active international trade in human body parts -- for the first time since the tie-up was formed. The Asahi drew praise from readers who highly rated the article for casting light on a particularly shady element of international criminal activity.
Under the tie-up, the ICIJ provides the Asahi with articles focusing on international investigative reporting and related materials that the Asahi can use on condition that it acknowledges the source and author. The ICIJ-provided articles are then embargoed, with the Asahi allowed to trim the articles at its own discretion on the further condition that it not change the focus of an article.
The tie-up is two-way: the ICIJ also publishes on its Web site the outcomes of any Asahi follow-up investigations. The Asahi aims to increasingly involve itself in earlier-stage newsgathering related to such investigative stories, an Asahi official said.
Newspaper, News Agency Employment Down for 20th Year
NSK’s annual employment survey has confirmed that its member newspaper companies and news agencies are continuing to let full-time employment slide, with such jobs dropping 2.2 percent from last year to 44,962, for a 20th yearly decline.
The percentage of employees aged 60 and higher rose to 4.1 percent, but new hiring also rose for the first time in four years.
The survey assessed employment as of April 1, based on responses from 96 of the 99 NSK newspaper companies and news agencies. The figures cover employees, as well as contract or loaned workers, and those on leaves of absence. Company board members, advisors and temporary staff are not included in the figures.
-- Total Employment Data
In addition to the detailed information from the 96 respondent companies, the final figures also include employment at three companies that provided only overall figures.
Total employment at the 99 companies was down 1,002 from last year’s total, falling to 44,962. But the higher 2011 figures were based on data from 100 newspaper companies and news agencies -- one more than was included in this year’s total.
Over the 10 years since 2003, total employment has plunged 10,844, or 19.4 percent. Meanwhile, the number of female employees rose by 16 to 6,902 over the past year, marking a minor year-on-year rise for women for a second consecutive year.
-- Employment by job type, shares
Overall employment marked a year-on-year drop for all job types.
In terms of job distribution, the editorial division held the highest share of all remaining staff at 51.4 percent (up 0.9 of a percentage point in relative terms), followed by the sales division (up 0.1 of a percentage point from the year before), the production/printing/mailroom division (down 0.6 of a percentage point), and a section grouping “others” (down 0.6 of a percentage point).
Compared with the 2003 findings, jobs in the editorial division were up 6.2 percentage points, while those in production/printing/forwarding shrank 6.8 percentage points.
Editorial division employment totaled 20,121 reporters, 3,325 of them women. Female employment made up 16.5 percent, up 0.6 of a percentage point since last year.
-- Age breakdown
As was the case last year, employees aged from 40-44 represented the largest group, followed by those aged 45-49 trailing by just 0.1 of a percentage point. The percentage of those in their 60s rose to 4 percent for the first time ever.
Tracking age-group proportions over the past 10 years, the percentage in their 40s has grown the most, rising 10.6 percentage points, whereas the share of those in their 50s and those aged 29 years or younger fell by 5.8 percentage points and 4.4 percentage points, respectively.
-- Staff additions, losses
In the year from April 2, 2011, there were a total of 478 male new hires (representing a ratio of 65.6 percent) and 251 female new hires (34.4 percent), totaling 729, in the first year-on-year gain in four years. The new staff represented 1.6 percent of total employment, up 0.1 of a percentage point from the year before.
During the year, a total of 1,640 male employees (84.9 percent of the total) and 292 female employees (15.1 percent) quit the responding companies, representing a 4.4 percent drop in total employment.
-- Rehiring of retirees
The number of employees rehired after reaching the retirement age of 60 now totals 2,185, representing 4.9 percent of current total employment. They include 555 previously rehired up to April 2, 2011. By job, editorial divisions were the largest re-hirers, keeping on a total of 244.
-- Employment of people with disabilities
A total of 594 people with disabilities were registered as regular employees at the responding companies as of April 1 this year. That figure was lower by seven individuals from a year ago.
If a severely disabled person is counted as 2.0 and a disabled part-time employee working more than 20 hours and less than 30 hours a week as 0.5 (as stipulated by the Law for Employment Promotion of People with Disabilities) the figure translates into 835.5 (up 14.0 from a year ago).
Dentsu: Newspaper Ad Space Surge 9.9% in Jan.-June 2012
Dentsu Inc., Japan’s top advertising agency, has released its first-half of 2012 ad-sales report, showing a 9.9 percentage jump in advertising space sold in newspapers over the same period of 2011 ? representing a year-on-year rise for a second consecutive semiannual period.
The surge represents a correction of the steep cuts in page space occupied by advertising in newspapers in the January-June period of 2011 due to the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March of last year.
Television advertising allotments soared a hefty 25.2 percent, in the first year-on-year increase in 12 semiannual terms. After the earthquake, regular TV programs were replaced by reports about the disaster, leading regular advertisers to refrain from placing ads. The airwaves were instead filled with Advertising Council of Japan public service announcements. However, while program commercials soared, spot TV commercials fell 0.8 percent.
The report said radio commercials also marked year-on-year recovery growth for a second consecutive semiannual term, and that ads in magazines saw their first year-on-year increase in 23 six-month periods.
The Dentsu report covered 118 newspapers; 15 key TV broadcasting stations in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya; 10 radio stations in Tokyo and Osaka; and 380 magazines. The advertisers were broken down into 21 industry sectors.
By industry, advertising in four key sectors rose in all four traditional media ? newspapers, television, radio and magazines. Those most-affected four key sectors included “foodstuffs,” “precision instruments/office supplies,” “automobiles/related products” and “transportation/leisure.” However, ads in the “classified ads/others” sector fell in all media.
-- Newspaper advertising details:
In the newspaper category, advertising marked a year-on-year increase in all types of newspapers ? national newspapers, regional “block” newspapers, local newspapers and sports dailies. The ad-page count was higher for all types of newspapers, surging 5.0 percent from a year ago. The ratio of ad space per page also rose 1.5 percentage points to 34.0 percent.
Among the industry sectors that posted gains were “beverages/cigarettes” (up 39.2 percent, mainly on ads for cosmetics and nutritious drinks), “precision instruments/office supplies” (up 23.7 percent), “apparel/fashion/accessories/
personal items” (up 23.4 percent) and “home electric appliances/AV equipment” (up 22.8 percent).
Ad placements in the high-volume “transportation/leisure sector” grew 11.8 percent, and ads in “distribution/retailing” rose 13.9 percent.
Year-on-year drops were recorded in only two sectors ? “classified ads/others” (down 1.1 percent) and “finance/insurance” (down 0.7 percent).
January-June 2012 Book and Magazine Sales Down 2.4%
Japan’s Research Institute for Publications says sales of books and magazines fell 2.4 percent in the first half of the calendar year 2012 compared to the same period of 2011, dropping to a net value of \901.6 billion.
Jan.-June sales of magazines declined 2.0 percent to a value of \433.7 billion in a 6th straight first-half decline. Sales of books dropped 2.9 percent to \467.8 billion, in a 15th consecutive annual fall for the same six-month period, the institute reported.
Commenting on the absence of any sign of an end to the sales downtrend in magazines, an institute official cited the aging readership and called for exploring new markets among younger readers. “Publishers have yet to create new demand from new targets,” the official said.
But the official also said that readers in their 30s and 40s, who grew up reading magazines, are sustaining the sales, and that publishers can’t be sure of solid sales unless they continue to focus their marketing at the segment aged in their 30s and older.
