It is customary for the annual National Newspaper Convention to hold a round-table meeting to discuss issues facing the Japanese newspaper industry.

At the 56th national convention in Kumamoto City, four veteran editors led a discussion on "Today's Newspapers, Tomorrow's Readers."

The panelists were: Yutaka Asahina, the managing editor of the Mainichi's Tokyo head office, Toshiei Kokubun, the managing editor of Kyodo News, Takao Shiokoshi, a director and managing editor of Too-Nippo, and Keisei Tagawa, a director and managing editor of the Kumamoto Nichinichi. Yasuhiro Kobayashi, an executive director of the Asahi Shimbun, served as the moderator.

At the outset, each panelist made brief presentation, as follows:

Kokubun: There is no doubt about the fact that newspapers remain a principal player in the media world. It is only newspapers that can provide news, prepared by specialist reporters, in an organized manner. Newspapers can be described, as a "slow-food medium," while TV stations and the Internet are "fast-food media." It is difficult for the fast-food media to report what is happening in this complicated society in an easy-to-understand manner.

Shiokoshi: As the media becomes increasingly diversified, it is a foregone conclusion that newspapers will see a relative decline in influence. Yet, the tendency of youth not to read newspapers could be ascribed to the waning attractiveness of newspapers. The attitude of young newspaper reporters is changing and their news-covering prowess is on the decline. An increasing number of young people just enter a newspaper company out of their desire to belong to a newspaper company, not out of their desire to become journalists. Indeed, the newspaper industry is reaching a turning point.

Asahina: We should not see the future of newspapers so pessimistically. Yet, there is something in the prevailing view that the editorial contents of newspapers are not interesting. As infringements of human rights or privacy by news reporting have been made an issue, there is a tendency among editors and reporters to lose their initiative in the face of mounting criticism. At the same time, the control and manipulation of information by the authorities is becoming increasingly well-organized, and politicians and the authorities are becoming more skillful in using the media for their own purposes. Unless we are more alert, there is danger that we will write articles based merely on what is announced at press clubs.

Tagawa: Newspapers are losing the journalistic spirit. Many reporters take for granted whatever informants or sources say. The problem of regulations on media activities is that it would increase the momentum of the decline in interest in newspapers. For instance, it is becoming the norm for police to withhold the identities of people who fall victim to crimes or accidents. When reporters confirm the identities through their own investigations and report them in articles, newspapers receive complaints from many readers. In the past, readers were siding with newspapers, but now, they are supporting the police, and newspapers are at loggerheads with their own readers.

Following the presentations, the panelists discussed how to address the tasks at hand:

Shiokoshi: Kyodo News has created a system in which some senior editors do not belong to any section and are given assignments to pursue their respective issues. As for training reporters, on-the-job training should be basic and usually, newcomers are assigned to cover the police where they can learn the basics of news reporting.

Tagawa: Newcomers are assigned to police, sports or lifestyle. Coverage of the police is a good opportunity to learn the basics of news reporting, but there is a danger that reporters might forget the fundamental need to keep an eye on the authorities from the standpoint of ordinary citizens. Covering sports news provides reporters a good lesson in writing articles featuring human dramas in a short time frame from the perspectives of readers, while learning the importance of collecting data.

Asahina: All newcomers are assigned to local branch offices where they cover the police, while also serving as a sports reporter. However, the function of the local branches as the venue for on-the-job training has declined, compared to 10 to 20 years ago. The increase in the workload and the changes in the environment at local branches are the main reasons. In addition, young reporters have fewer opportunities for person-to-person communication with senior reporters and editors, or news sources. Therefore, we are organizing training sessions for newcomers at the head office in June, September and November to hear their concerns and to set up venues for personal exchange.

Tagawa: The conventional organizational setup is not corresponding to the changes of the times. For instance, reporters in the economic news division cover corporate bankruptcies, but no reporter writes about how employees' lives are affected by the fall of their companies. As for the reforms of the pension system, the city news division's coverage of its effects on general readers' lives is insufficient. The long-standing news-reporting setup is the cause of this problem.

Asahina: In order to eliminate the negative effects of sectionalism resulting from a vertical organizational setup, we are introducing an inter-sectional task force to cover certain issues.

Kokubun: We are promoting personnel exchanges among various sections of the editorial department by, for instance, moving reporters from the foreign news section to the political news section. We also are holding meetings frequently on each issue and are facilitating the sharing of information among different sections.

Asahina: Since the spring of 1996, we have been putting by-lines on as many articles as possible. By putting on the by-lines, the writer's perspectives and the achievements of his or her efforts are brought to light, thereby boosting morale. As part of these efforts to win readers' confidence, we have set up a grievance panel and have invited outsiders to join. All complaints from readers are reported to the panel. Through the activities of this third-party panel, we are able to show our readers that our newspaper is really dealing with complaints.

Finally, the panelists discussed how newspapers should address future tasks:

Shiokoshi: Newspapers should make further efforts to incorporate the Internet. Visitors to the Web site apparently react most strongly to different kinds of news than our newspaper readers. The Internet is also becoming a new venue for youth expression. Interactivity may hold the key to incorporating our visitors in the Web site.

Tagawa: On a proposal from reporters in their 30s, we have been carrying a series of features depicting the lifestyles and lives of people in their 30s who are struggling in contemporary Japanese society amid the prolonged economic slowdown. The chief of the task force is a reporter in his 30s. We have published the names and ages of all the reporters and photographers in the project. We have had a big reaction, especially from readers in their 20s and 30s. Some readers hailed the project as breaking a newspaper "taboo", while others said they sympathized with the lives of people in the same generation. This project has provided us food for thought in our efforts to identify tomorrow's readers. We must repeatedly ask the question of whether we are providing our readers what they really need and whether we are making pages that can instill a sense of belonging to each other.

Asahina: We carried articles by a reporter who wrote about his experiences as he died of cancer. They received a big reaction from readers in their teens and 20s. This may be because the articles raised the question of death to the younger generation, who have had little close personal experience of matters related to death. Many say that youth are shunning newspapers, but newspapers themselves might have been shunning the youth.

Kokubun: It may be taken for granted, but we would like to attach real importance to investigative reporting. The media tend to play up articles that attempt to see the future from the present, but more effort should be made to promote investigative reporting in which the past, the present and the future are dealt with as one stream.