- Nihon Shinbun Kyokai
- NSK News Bulletin
- NSK News Bulletin February 2013
NSK News Bulletin February 2013
Newsprint Consumption Turns Up 1.7% for 2012
An annual NSK survey says domestic newsprint consumption for 2012 grew 1.7 percent, marking the first year-on-year gain in six years. The figure includes domestic shipments by Japan’s nine paper producers, as well as the consumption of imported newsprint by Japanese newspaper companies.
Domestic consumption totaled 3,305,948 tons, up 54,750 tons from 2011. By month, the consumption exceeded year-earlier levels from February through May, and from July through August.
By type of product, super-light (SL) newsprint, weighing 43 grams per square meter, accounted for 86.3 percent of consumption by Japanese newspaper companies. Ultra-super-light (USL) newsprint, at 40 grams per square meter, accounted for 6.9 percent of the total.
As of the end of December 2012, inventory stood at 240,565 tons, or roughly 24.9 days’ supply, according to the survey.
Media Views Fuel-Rod Pool at Crippled Fukushima Reactor Site
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) on Feb. 5 allowed media representatives to visit the spent-fuel storage pool at its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. It was the first such media access granted since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami “3/11” disaster.
The media contingent included 15 reporters from 13 media-company members of the press club at the Fukushima Prefectural Government. The press club comprises 16 newspapers, news agencies and broadcasters. The media visit coincided with an inspection by the prefectural commission on the safety of decommissioned reactors.
All still and video photography was assigned exclusively to a photojournalist from the Mainichi Shimbun and a TV cameraman from TV-U Fukushima.
Due to security considerations, no photography was allowed at the entries or exists of the storage-pool facility, nor near the sites of security-monitoring cameras. The storage structure is located on the western side of the 4th Unit Building containing the No. 4 nuclear reactor.
Asahi Shimbun forms Tie-up with Osaka Job-Info Company
The Asahi Shimbun on Jan. 29 announced that it has entered into a business and capital alliance with a job-information and staffing company in Osaka.
The Asahi and the Osaka company, Gakujo Co., aim to collaborate in promoting education and human resources development through exchanges of management resources and business knowhow, Asahi officials said.
Gakujo Co. provides job information to graduating university students and jobholders seeking new employment, offering in-house training and seminars for corporate clients, job fairs for graduating students, and a job-information website named “Gakujo Navi.”
The Asahi Shimbun and a subsidiary, Asahi Gakusei Shimbunsha, which publishes a daily paper for elementary school pupils and a weekly for junior high students, will each hold 5 percent of Gakujo’s shares. The tie-up makes the Asahi group the largest shareholder in the Osaka company.
Further specifics of the business alliance are to be ironed out by the three collaborating parties, the officials said.
