Table I 　 Total Number of Employees

Table II 　 Sectionally Total Number of Employees

Table III　　 Employees Breakdown by Age
〈Unit:%〉

Table IV　 Number of New Employee and Displaced Worker

Further Penetration Into Families and Communities Urged to Expand NIE

The Newspaper Foundation for Education and Culture(NFEC) held its 11th Newspapers-In-Education (NIE) national convention on July 27-28 in Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture. A total of 860 educators and newspaper delegates turned up for the convention on the theme, “Spread NIE Activities From Schools to Families and Communities.”

The first day featured a keynote speech, a commemorative lecture and a panel discussion on the new concepts of “NIE in families” and “NIE in communities” and their significance. Discussions addressed the question of what form NIE could take as continuous education promoted by an alliance of schools, families, communities and newspaper companies.

On the second day, participants formed sub-groups on elementary, junior high and senior high education, including one group that focused on families and community activities, and involved demonstrations of NIE classes and study sessions. There was also a panel discussion on how newspaper companies can better support the NIE drive.

In his opening address, Mainichi Shimbun President Masato Kitamura, who is also the president of the NFEC, said a record 490 schools have NIE programs in effect this fiscal year, proving that NIE is continuing to penetrate deeper into the education system. He expressed confidence that NIE will help fight a growing trend against reading newspapers among young people. Kitamura especially praised Ibaraki Prefecture, the host prefecture of the NIE convention, as one of the most advanced prefectures in using newspapers in education.

Kitamura was followed by Mitsuo Ishijima, the principal of a local public junior high school, who gave a keynote speech warning about problems resulting from urbanization, the falling birthrate and falling community-based human interaction. He described newspapers as an effective tool for fathers to become more “father-like,” for mothers to become more “mother-like” and for children to develop a richer sense of humanity and closeness to their parents. He cited NIE activities at home as a way for parents and children to read newspapers together and to make reference to the “family newspaper.” The principal said exposure to newspapers in communities would help raise the awareness of children about society and other people, deepen human relations in the community and motivate people to ponder community issues. He emphasized the importance of NIE activities in communities, underlining the need for access to newspapers at libraries and in community halls, as well as though the publication of community papers.

Nikkei Advertising Employee Arrested for Insider Trading

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office arrested an employee of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun Inc. on July 25 for insider trading. The arrest followed a criminal complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission.

The newspaper fired the employee, who had worked in the financial advertising section at the economic newspaper's Tokyo head office.

Nikkei President Ryoki Sugita issued a statement at a news conference later in the day. “We take gravely and seriously this misconduct, which should never have happened at a media organization, and we deeply apologize to our readers, advertising clients, investors and the public for betraying their trust,” he said.

He also announced a series of corrective measures, including a review of the business related to the publication of legal notices, an improvement of the computer-based advertisement management system, reinforcement of the employee education system, and voluntary restraint on stock transactions by employees, to prevent any recurrence.

The Nikkei employee is alleged to have profited by using information he obtained on planned stock splits from five listed companies before their legal notices on the splits were published in the paper. He allegedly invested 240 million yen (over two million dollars) to trade a total about 94,000 shares in the five companies prior to the splits between December 2005 and January 2006, generating about 30 million yen (about 300,000 dollars) in profits.

According to an in-house probe, the employee obtained the information from the companies’ orders for the publication announcements of legal notices. He allegedly used his access to the computer-based ad management system. He purchased and sold shares using the information he got in advance about planned stock splits. In many cases, stock prices surge after the publication of stock-split legal notices.

In order to access the computer terminals for ad management, users must ID numbers and passwords allocated to various nespaper sections. The worker is suspected of having used the ID number and the password of the Nikkei's investor relations task force, which was affiliated with the financial ad section till March 2002. The task force had access authority due to its planning of investor-relations ad sales.

The employee joined the Nikkei in 1999 in the industrial distribution ad section of the Osaka head office. He was transferred to the financial ad section of the Tokyo head office in 2003. He told an in-house probe that “stock trading is his hobby” and he did it “like a game, for fun.” He said that he had no plan to spend his profits from the illegal trading for any specific purposes.

To prevent any recurrence, the Nikkei suspended sales activities for the time being, for the publication of legal notices, and will restrict such orders to the advertising department of the Tokyo head office, assigning the job to a strictly limited number of employees, and tightening controls over ID numbers and passwords for access to relevant information.

The Nikkei set up an in-house rule on insider trading in 1989 to ensure compliance with relevant laws and regulations. The company is increasing the training of its employees on the issue, requiring all staff to take a training program on insider trading every year.

The Nikkei’s internal rules had barred employees in sections dealing with confidential information from conducting short-term transactions. The Nikkei has now set up a new rule banning all employees, including part-timers and employees on loan to related companies, from short-term stock transactions. At a board meeting in late March, the company adopted a resolution for all board members to refrain from stock transactions. The company has also requested all staff in the advertising, editorial and circulation departments, as well as the editorial writers’ committee, to refrain from stock transactions, short-term or long-term.

What is legal notice?

All traded companies must release balance sheets to shareholders and investors after they close their books, issue new shares or plan stock splits. The legal notices for such announcements must be published in the government gazette, daily newspapers, or Web sites. As a leading daily business newspaper, the Nikkei handles such notices from many companies.

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