NSK Presents Community Contribution Awards

NSK held its first awards ceremony for a series of new“community contribution” awards in Tokyo on Nov. 21. The awards have been set up to recognize and promote activities by newspaper sales agents and their employees that significantly contribute to local communities.

The recipients of the top award, a special award, and other prizes received certificates and medallions at the ceremony held at the National Press Center Hall in Tokyo’s Uchisaiwai-cho district.

To mark the creation of the NSK Community Contribution Awards, NSK sponsored a special exhibition on community-based activities of newspaper sales agents at the Japan Newspaper Museum, NEWSPARK, in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Nov. 22. The display features photographs and descriptive panels on the activities of the recipients of this year’s awards.

In his address at the presentation ceremony, NSK President Masato Kitamura said that for many years, newspaper sales agents’ low-key activities in their neighborhood communities had gone relatively unnoticed. The new NSK awards mark the beginning of a publicity drive, Kitamura said, adding that NSK aims to keep publicizing the contributions that result from the presence of newspapers in the community.

The top award granted this year in the new prize series recognized the charitable activities of a group of women owners and wives of owners of newspaper sales agents affiliated with the Kochi Shimbun in Kochi Prefecture. The women’s group has been organizing a charity bazaar regularly since 1990 to donate to the Kochi Shimbun-initiated foundation for the improvement of local medical services.

Ms. Sachiko Nakaya, the head of that group, said that newspaper sales agents are conducting community-based activities at a time when youth are shunning newspapers. Yet she said her group would continue such activities to contribute to the local community.

This year’s special award went to Ms. Toshiko Kuwayama, who works for an agent dealing exclusively with the Chunichi Shimbun in Aichi Prefecture. That award recognized her 14 years of assistance to financially troubled students from Sri Lanka (see November Bulletin).

The special exhibition on newspaper sales agents at NEWSPARK features about 280 photos, panels and other items. The exhibits outline the status of such agents, as well as their routine jobs and award recipients’ community contributions. Also on display are advertising signboards made of enamel, that were in common in the 1950s and 60s, and bells used to announce extra editions, as well as award-winning slogans for newspaper delivery and about 40 community papers issued by newspaper sales agents. The show will run until Dec. 24.

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Japan-South Korea Editors' Seminar Calls For Deeper Bilateral Understanding

The 44th Japan-South Korea Editors Seminar on Cheju Island and in Seoul ran from Oct. 31 through Nov. 3. Ichiro Ue, a senior editor from the Yomiuri Shimbun’s Tokyo head office, led an 11-member Japanese delegation representing 11 Japanese media companies. A total of 26 editors from 25 South Korean media joined in discussions on the theme, “Present Status and Challenges to News Coverage by Japan and South Korea.”

In his keynote speech, Hisashi Hirai, a senior editor with Kyodo News, recalled that when the textbook-accuracy issue came up in the past, many South Korean restaurants and taxi drivers refused to serve Japanese. But despite the territorial issue over the ownership of disputed islets in the Sea of Japan, Japanese tourists visiting South Korea are walking on streets in an unconcerned manner, according to Hirai.

Noting that the recent fad for Korean pop culture, particularly movies, among Japanese is a factor behind their apparent change of interests, Hirai emphasized that the deepening mutual exchange of popular culture is inducing a change in the nature of nationalistic sentiment in each country.

Roh Jae Hyun, an editorial writer for Jong-Ang Ilbo, a major South Korean daily, delivered a keynote speech titled “The Empty Deductive Method of South Korean Journalists versus the Narrow-Minded Inductive Method of Japanese Journalists.”

He said that Japanese media tend to elaborately build up facts by proving A equals B, and then, that B equals C, when reporting on what is happening in South Korea, but they never conclude A equals C. South Korean media tend to report on Japanese affairs from the permanent standpoint that all past problems are attributable to Japanese wrongdoing, Roh observed. He said that each side should learn more about the other and show more consideration to the other.

After a 4-hour discussion, the Yomiuri’s Ue, who chaired the session, summarized the debate, saying that it is children, wives and women who have made journalists realize how shallow their understanding is of their neighboring country. Noting that journalists maintain their nationalities, but never need to carry around their national borders, Ue said that journalists need to try to discuss a broader range of subjects by folding up their divisive national flags.

2007 Press Photographers' Awards Announced

The local branches of the Press Photographers Association have been announcing their respective recipients of annual association awards for 2007.

In this issue, we cover the winning photographs from the Hokkaido Press Photographers Association and the Kansai Press Photographers Association. Toward the end of February, we will feature the award-winning photographs of the associations in the Tokyo, Tohoku, Chubu, Kansai (sports) and Kyushu regions.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF KYODO NEWS

***The Kansai Press Photographers Association (77 member companies and 1,060 individual members)

PHOTO COURTESY OF YOMIURI SHIMBUN OSAKA HEAD OFFICE