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NSK News Bulletin Online
August 2002
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*Diet Session Ends Without Passing Media Regulation Laws
*Newspark Featuring Exhibition on Atomic Bombings
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*Topics
--NSK Seeks Continued Discount Postal Rates for Newspapers
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Story of the Month>>>
Newspaper in Education (NIE) Activities Gaining Momentum
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Diet Session Ends Without Passing Media Regulation Laws

The 154th regular session of the Diet ended on July 31 without passing two much-disputed bills on the protection of personal information and the protection of human rights. The bills have been carried over for deliberation at a future extraordinary session. A 42-day extension of the past Diet session brought it to a total of 192 days.

A broad spectrum of Japanese society stood up in opposition to the two so-called 'protection' bills. Publishing and broadcasting companies, news-reporting organizations, and of course NSK, have protested against the two bills as posing a threat of restricting media activities (see related articles in the April and May issues of the NSK News Bulletin). Nevertheless, the government remains committed to trying to pass the two bills in the extraordinary Diet session due to be convened in early October. It sees the bills as top-priority legislation and appears ready to make some revisions to the draft bills in order to move them through parliament.

Ever since the personal information protection bill was first submitted to the Diet in the spring of 2001, NSK and other media-related individuals and organizations have condemned it as a threat to the freedom of expression. They have also protested against the bill's stipulation that a cabinet minister is to be given full authority to judge whether particular media activities should be permitted as exceptions to regulations under the proposed law.

Just before the start of debate on the bill at the latest Diet session, the Yomiuri Shimbun proposed amendments to the two bills that prompted Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to indicate that he was ready to revise the bills. The Yomiuri's surprise move added fresh fuel to the heated debate over the bills in and outside of the Diet.

As these debates continued, there was a scandalous revelation that senior officials at the Defense Agency had improperly drawn up lists of the names and other information about citizens who had sought freedom-of-information disclosures from the agency. It was also revealed that the officials had circulated those lists inside the agency. These very-public revelations underscored the current administration's lax regard for the privacy of personal information and had the effect of derailing the planned enactment of the personal information protection bill.

In a similar fashion, media-related individuals and organizations, as well as and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, have led the opposition to the human rights protection bill, which defines so-called "media scrums," or the overly aggressive pack pursuit of a story, as a human rights violation potentially subject to "special relief" such as punitive measures ranging from formal warnings to official public denunciations. Critics condemn the bill for proposing to give a semi-independent Human Rights Commission the power to investigate media organizations. No substantial debates were held by the Diet on this second bill after brief explanations of its purpose were read out at a plenary session of the Upper House in late April.

In further developments in the fields of privacy and human rights, the government on Aug. 5 put into effect a new online national resident registry network. The controversial new system covers detailed information about individual residents, including their names, addresses, dates of birth, gender, resident registration codes and all data changes to that data. Control of the data has been transferred from city, town and village governments to the sole management of the Local Autonomy Information Center, a body under the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry.

A new debate ensued over the potential threat to personal privacy posed by putting the national resident registry online on a computer network. Some local autonomous authorities have refused to make their resident databases available to the network on the grounds that Japan has no legislation to protect the confidentiality of the data. But the government ordered the scheme to go forward despite the growing public criticism and concern.

These related moves with respect to the national resident registry have created new pressures in favor of the imposition of some legal framework for privacy protection through a personal information protection bill. But the opponents to the existing bills are continuing to insist that those bills must be changed to eliminate the potential restrictions of the media. There are also now a growing number of calls for the addition of punitive provisions to apply to government officials entrusted with safeguarding personal information. The bills carried over to the next session of the diet contain no such punitive provisions for government officials, yet they still retain punitive provisions that could be applied to the media. Changes to eliminate such discrepancies must be implemented before any enactment can even be attempted.

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Newspark Featuring Exhibition on Atomic Bombings

August has a special significance in Japan as the month in which we remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Every August, Japan appeals to the rest of the world to abolish nuclear weapons, speaking from the unique position of being the only country ever subjected to atomic attacks.

On this Aug. 6 anniversary of the atom-bombing of Hiroshima, Newspark, the Japan Newspaper Museum in Yokohama, opened its doors to a special month-long exhibition titled "Atomic Bomb Exhibition Through the Press." The event's sub-theme, "Message for the Future: Hiroshima Must Be Passed On to New Generations," focuses on how the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was reported upon in its entirety, and presents the atomic bombings and nuclear weapons in general as an issue that must be addressed now and in the future.

The main sponsor of the exhibition is the Chugoku Shimbun, a regional newspaper based in Hiroshima City. Other sponsors include the Hiroshima Prefectural Government, the Hiroshima Municipal Government, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, the Kanagawa Prefectural Government, the Kanagawa Prefectural Board of Education, the Yokohama Municipal Government, NHK and Chugoku Broadcasting Co.

It is the first time that a leading regional newspaper has organized a special exhibition at Newspark.

The displays include about 160 photographs taken shortly after the dropping of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The photos by Mr. Yoshito Matsushige, 89, who worked as a photographer with the Chugoku Shimbun, are mostly pictures of bomb victims and personal belongings of the dead, such as remnants of clothes and steel helmets. The Chugoku Shimbun published the photos in July 1979 in a serial special titled "The Evidence of Hiroshima." NHK and Chugoku Broadcasting Co. are also contributing TV documentary materials on Hiroshima to the exhibition.

The Newspark exhibition will on Aug. 10 host a memorial lecture program on the theme, "Thoughts on the Atomic Bombs and Peace Today." Photographer Matsushige will recall his memories of the day of the atomic bombing, and Waseda University law professor Asaho Mizushima will discuss the importance of passing on the experience of Hiroshima to future generations. Chugoku Shimbun senior editor Akira Tashiro will talk about the negative legacy of the so-called Nuclear Age.

The exhibition at Newspark in Yokohama will run until Sept. 8.

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Topics.......Topics.......Topics........

NSK Seeks Continued Discount Postal Rates for Newspapers

NSK on July 24 presented a written request to the government, calling for continued special discount postal rates for newspapers and other periodical publications. NSK President Tsuneo Watanabe addressed the request to Mr. Toranosuke Katayama, the minister of the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry.

The Diet's approval and enactment of postal reform-related laws on the same day set the stage for the establishment of the Japan Postal Services Corporation as a public corporation to replace the Postal Services Agency next April, ending the government monopoly on mail services.

There has been no announcement yet as to whether the third-class special discount system for the postage of newspapers and other periodicals will be retained by the new public corporation.

The NSK request said that eliminating the discount postage system would interfere with the dissemination of newspaper culture. "Any repeal and the resulting increase in prices would boost the substantial financial burden for people who subscribe to newspapers by mail," the letter said, arguing for maintenance of the current rate scheme.

At present, the postage rates for items classified as third-class and fourth-class mail are purposely set below ordinary postage rates. "Newspapers issued at least three times a month" and "periodicals issued by associations for physically and mentally handicapped people" fall into the category of third-class postage. Materials for education by correspondence, mail sent by blind people, seeds and seedlings for agricultural use, and academic journals are all treated as fourth-class mail.

The package of four laws transferring all postal services to a state-run public corporation was enacted at the plenary session of the Upper House on July 24. The laws include one to establish the Japan Postal Services Corporation and another for the enforcement of related regulations and guidelines.

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Story of the month>>>>

Newspaper in Education (NIE) Activities Gaining Momentum

The Newspaper Foundation for Education and Culture, an affiliate of NSK, held the 7th NIE (newspaper in education) annual convention on Aug. 1-2 in Sapporo City. A total of 512 delegates -- 386 people in education and 126 from newspapers - took part in discussions on the status of Japanese NIE activities and future goals.

In order to reduce childhood illiteracy and familiarize the younger generation with the culture of printed matter, NSK has promoted broader NIE programs in schools. Specifically, NSK has called for 1) full-fledged use of the entire editorial contents of newspapers, including the articles, photographs and advertisements, from the front to back pages, as school educational materials; and 2) classroom comparisons of multiple newspapers.

Starting in 1989, NSK began pilot projects for initiatives in organizing an NIE promotion council to bring newspaper representatives together with local educational and administrative officials in all 47 prefectures. Such councils have so far been set up in 36 prefectures.

In Europe and the United States, NIE activities are promoted mostly as part of newspaper companies' business projects. In Japan, however, newspaper and education representatives are cooperating closely in an NIE drive. For instance, newspapers provide multiple numbers of copies to schools at a special discount rate for a set period, while simultaneously working for the establishment of NIE councils in every prefecture.

The NIE-designated schools to which newspapers are provided are part of a unique Japanese scheme. In an effort to raise the number of teachers who are able to conduct NIE activities, NSK launched a program in fiscal 1995 in the aim of designating up to 400 schools to be the focus of newspaper-related teaching programs. In the current fiscal year, a total of 368 schools nationwide have been selected for participation, representing an increase of 20 schools from one year ago. That total includes 123 elementary schools, 134 junior high schools, 109 senior high schools and 2 other schools.

Each school can take part in the NIE program for up to two years. During that period, the Newspaper Foundation for Education and Culture, which was established by NSK in 2000, shoulders part of the subscription fees for newspapers delivered to the designated schools, and provides various other additional NIE-related information.

In fiscal 2001, about 2,500 teachers took part in NIE activities at a total of 348 schools, involving some 80,000 students. Local NIE councils generally approach schools about participation in the NIE activities and select participating schools with the consent of the foundation's NIE Committee.

Government-initiated educational reform is also serving to facilitate NIE activities. A sweeping Education Ministry revision of curriculum guidelines for elementary and junior high schools in 1998 introduced what is called a "comprehensive studies" class. The change has been called the most far-reaching reform of Japan's educational system since the end of World War II.

The newly introduced comprehensive studies classes are aimed at fostering the qualities and capabilities needed to "voluntarily find tasks, learn by oneself, think by oneself, make judgments subjectively, and solve problems in a better way." The Education Ministry is urging each school to conduct educational activities in an effective and original way through the newly introduced classes. In this context, NIE has been gaining attention as a study program that matches the aims of the "comprehensive studies" classes.

The new classes were fully incorporated into the curriculums at elementary and junior high schools as of fiscal 2002, and are due to be in place at senior high schools by fiscal 2003. Of the 368 schools selected as NIE schools in the current fiscal year, 201 are planning to introduce NIE activities in their "comprehensive studies" classes, in addition to incorporating them in conventional classes such as Japanese language and social studies.

Newspaper publishers are also increasing the volume of NIE-related materials that they publish in their pages.

According to a survey by the foundation's NIE Committee, 37 newspapers, or about one-third of the NSK member companies, are now regularly carrying NIE-related articles intended for school students. Many of these newspapers also issue an extra edition once or twice a year as a "newspaper for children" that carries articles written by elementary school or junior high school students. Such NIE-related editions feature 1) large illustrations, color photos and graphics; 2) kana printed above difficult Chinese characters (to show how they should be pronounced) and articles written in an easy-to-understand format; as well as 3) a choice of topics about school campuses and introductions of teachers or students.

In order to help students improve the level of their submissions for publication in such NIE-related pages, 38 newspapers now send professional reporters into NIE schools to teach the students about newsgathering practices as well as to instruct them in the basics of page layout/composition. In some cases, the newspaper reporters even get involved in helping the students to produce their own school newspapers.

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Nihon Shinbun Kyokai
The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association
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