Newspapers Focus on Daily Necessities after Deadly Niigata Quake

At 10:13 am on July 16, a major earthquake measuring 6+ on the Japanese seismic intensity scale jolted Kashiwazaki City and Nagaoka City in Niigata Prefecture and Iizuna town in Nagano Prefecture. The quake, with a focus about 17 km under the seabed off Niigata Prefecture, left 10 dead and 1,842 injured.

The Niigata Nippo and other newspapers, including the major nationals, reported in detail on the damage and devoted pages to information on services vital to those in affected areas.

Newspapers have also been scrutinizing safety at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, which had to suspend operations due to radioactive water leaks and other problems caused by the quake.

Starting with its evening issue for July 17, the Niigata Nippo began carrying a front-page slogan encouraging residents to recover quickly from the quake and pledging to support its readers. The newspaper had carried the same call on its front pages after Niigata was hit in October 2004 by a magnitude-6.8 quake that killed 40 and damaged more than 6,000 homes.

Starting with its July 17 morning issue, the Niigata Nippo began devoting two inside pages to vital information for residents, covering lifeline utilities, hospital facilities and access to financial services. Director and managing editor Kiroku Takeuchi said, “The 2004 quake taught us that what readers want most after a natural disaster is information for daily life. That's why we have been giving them that information since right after this quake.”

In addition to its print edition, the Niigata Nippo has since July 16 been delivering the latest information related to the quake in a blog on its online edition. The online edition also carries on-the-spot reports from citizens via e-mail. It offered similar services after a serious snowstorm at the end of 2005. An official with the newspaper’s Information and Culture Center said they are making full use of the online edition for information delivery in emergencies.

Major national newspapers issued daily information for residents in the quake area. The Asahi Shimbun ran columns titled, “Current lifeline facilities” and “Supporting your life.” The Mainichi Shimbun also ran an information column.

The Yomiuri Shimbun started a “Post-Quake Bulletin Board,” featuring maps of key railways and roads, showing service disruptions. The day after the quake, the Yomiuri sent a public-address vehicle to Kashiwazaki City to deliver hundreds of copies of an evening edition printed at its factory in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, to evacuation centers. On July 20, the Yomiuri distributed about 3,000 copies of a special edition to evacuation centers and other sites. The 1-page B4-format edition carried messages collected from volunteers by the Yomiuri public relations division. A Yomiuri PR official in Tokyo said the staff aimed to cheer residents up with the special edition.

The quake led to many problems, including a fire in a transformer and a leak of radioactive water, at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, leading the municipal government to order the plant to shut down. The focus of the quake was along an active undersea fault off the area near the plant. But the presence of the fault was never taken into consideration in the plant's design, throwing further doubt on the safety of the nuclear facility.

All newspapers picked up the nuclear issue. Niigata Nippo managing editor Takeuchi said, “This quake has again raised concerns about the safety of nuclear power. We are focusing on reporting on this issue, which is vital to the safety and security of local residents.”

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NIE Convention: Newspapers a Tool to Broaden Student Perspectives

About 850 educators and newspaper people turned up at the Convention Center in Okayama City for the 12th annual NIE National Convention on July 26-27. The Newspaper Foundation for Education and Culture sponsored the meeting on “Broadening Student Perspectives with Newspapers in Education (NIE),” with the backing of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

The first day featured a local senior high school student who told a panel discussion how he broadened his perspectives with an NIE class. Some teachers called on school administrators to deepen their understanding of NIE. On the second day, teachers from elementary, junior and senior high schools described the ways that they had used newspapers in their classes.

In his address to open the convention, Mainichi Shimbun president and newspaper foundation head Masato Kitamura said children acquire lifelong tools for collecting information by reading newspapers. Yasuo Kadono, head of the Okayama Prefectural Board of Education, the local co-host, called newspapers a cornucopia for young people to develop language skills, linking a lack of such skills to the chronic decline in scholastic ability. Takamasa Koshimune, president of the Sanyo Shimbun, the host local newspaper, said that educational and newspaper circles want young people to heighten their awareness of society and their local communities through newspaper-reading as the basis of the NIE drive.

The opening session led into a lecture by writer Kiyoshi Shigematsu, an Okayama native who holds a teacher’s license. He said young people have a strong desire for idols and heroes, and suggested using sports dailies in NIE classes to help students find positive role models.

Okayama University professor Naoshi Morikawa heads the NIE promotion council in Okayama Prefecture and moderated a panel discussion titled “Rediscovering NIE ? What Can Be Seen Through Newspapers”. The panel included Masafumi Hirota, a Kurashiki City elementary school teacher; Machiko Yokota, a junior high school deputy principal also from Kurashiki City; Atsuko Maeda, an official of the Okayama Prefectural Education Center; Miyuki Kageyama, a female reporter with the Okayama Shimbun, and Takanori Tomiya, the student from Okayama prefectural senior high school. Tomiya is the first student ever to sit on a panel at an NIE convention.

Tomiya told the panel that as a student, he had learned from the newspapers used in an NIE natural science class. “That class deepened my thinking and broadened my perspectives,” he said.

Kageyama referred to her own experience as a guest lecturer at NIE classes, telling the panel that NIE helps students understand the role of those who transmit information. She said taking part in the program also helped her to better appreciate her own responsibility as a journalist.

Maeda, from the prefectural education center, said many teachers want advice from reporters about using newspapers in class, and asked if newspaper companies would do more to support the program, beyond just sending out reporters to give lectures. Reporter Kageyama said that if needed, newspapers are certainly ready to raise the level of their communications with schools.

There were many comments from the floor about the need for a deeper understanding of NIE by school administrators and on the relationship between the NIE program and school curriculums.

Newspaper, Agency Employment Down 2.6 %, Post-retirement Rehiring Up

An NSK annual survey has found that full-time employment at its 102 member newspaper companies and news agencies is down 2.6 percent from last year, falling to 50,911 in a 15th straight annual decline.

The annual drop was the second-largest since 1993, when the slide began, smaller only than the 3.2-percent decline of 2005 (See Table I). The number of workers signed on for post-retirement work upon hitting the retirement age of 60 has risen in response, marking a 0.6 point increase.

--Total employment ( Table I)

Total NSK member employment has since been sliding ever since it peaked in 1992. In the 10 years since 1998, total NSK employment fell 10,133 to 50,911. The percentage of women has risen 0.3 percent over the same period.

Table I 　 Total Number of Employees

--Employment by job type ( Table II)

The total work force at the 80 companies that provided detailed data was 48,069 as of April.

By job, the editorial division represented the highest share at 48.8 percent (up 0.9 point from a year ago), followed by sales (down 0.3 point), a section grouping “others” (up 1.2 points), production/printing/forwarding (down 1.2 points), general affairs/administration (down 0.1 point), and publishing, business, and electronic media (down 0.6 point).

The percentage of sales staff fell after six straight years of year-on-year increase, while “others” surpassed “production/printing/forwarding.”

Over the past decade, editorial staff surged 7.4 points, while production/printing/forwarding staff fell 13.0 points.

In the editorial division, there were 19,124 reporters, of which 2,631 were women, with their share rising 1.1 percentage points to 13.8 percent over the past year.

-- Age breakdown ( Table III)

Based on the data from 80 companies, workers aged 55 to 59 were the largest group, but their share was down 0.9 point. They were followed by those 50-54, 35-39, and then 30-34. The shrinking levels continued for those under 20 and 50-54.

Over the past decade, the percentage in their 40s rose most, up 4.0 points, followed by those in their 30s, up 3.0 points, while the percentage in those under 20 dropped 5.7 points.

-- Staff additions, losses ( Table IV)

In the year from April 2, 2006, to April 1, 2007, there were a total of 923 male and 431 female new hires. The new men represented 68.2 percent and women 31.8 of that total. New staff now makes up 2.8 percent of the total payroll, up 0.3 point from the year before.

The percentage quitting the respondent companies amounted to 4.6 percent, up 0.1 point from the year before.

-- Post-retirement rehiring

1,300 employees (1,269 men, 31 women) were rehired after hitting 60. They include 530 rehired up to April 1, 2007, up from 288 in the year before. By job, editorial divisions were the largest re-hirers, at 237.

Table IV　 Number of New Employee and Displaced Worker

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