Top 2008 News for the Japanese Media Industry

The editors and reporters of NSK’s weekly media industry paper “Shinbun Kyokai-Ho” (The NSK Journal) have published a summary of their top 2008 industry-related news stories. The key items (not necessarily in order of importance) included:

NSK Issues Guidelines Related to Lay Judge System

NSK on Jan. 16 issued guidelines for newsgathering and reporting related to Japan’s planned introduction of a citizen-judge, or lay-judge legal system. The system is to be introduced in May and media companies were drafting reporting guidelines to meet a heightened need for even stricter impartiality and balanced coverage.

Noting that each media company has been focusing on human rights, the new NSK guidelines aim to ensure that legal suspects are not treated as if they were culprits in newsgathering and reporting. The objective is to avoid influencing lay juries toward prejudging cases on the basis of media reports.

The guidelines call on the media to:

1) Work to play down the impression that leaked suspect testimonies from pre-trial investigations are invariably accurate and truthful;

2) Ensure that there is adequate reporting of a suspect’s character profile and human relations as needed for the public to have a balanced understanding of a case, and exercise caution in publishing any prior criminal records or personal history details; and

3) Avoid leaving any impression that a suspect is guilty through the publication of comments presented as analysis by persons identified as experts or informed commentators.

New Laws Aim to Protect Youth from Potentially Harmful Web Content

New laws that took effect in June are intended to regulate Web site information considered to be potentially harmful to young people. The much-disputed rules define information seriously inhibiting the sound upbringing of youth as “harmful information” and oblige mobile phone service companies to block minors from accessing such information. A third-party private-sector body has been commissioned to determine what information is harmful, while keeping the government out of directly involving itself in such determinations.

Asahi, Yomiuri, Nikkei to Expand Joint Printing, Distribution

Collaboration among Japan’s three main national newspapers ? the Asahi Shimbun, the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Nikkei ? is expanding into mutually consigned printing and the sharing of distribution networks. The three newspaper companies plan to keep expanding tie-ups and mutually reinforcing management as the business environment for the newspaper industry continues to worsen.

Under a tie-up announced in October, the Asahi’s Funabashi plant in Chiba Prefecture will print about 200,000 copies of the Yomiuri’s daily for the eastern part of Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture, starting around 2011. The Yomiuri’s Sakaide plant in Kagawa Prefecture will in return start printing about 150,000 copies of the Asahi for the four-prefecture Shikoku region by 2013. The printing swap will allow the Asahi to close a factory in Marugame, Kagawa Prefecture. The Nikkei has also indicated support for sharing printing facilities among the three partners.

As for joint delivery services, the Asahi and the Yomiuri teamed up in joint delivery of their newspapers in Gunma, Tochigi and Fukui prefectures in the summer of 2008, even prior to announcing a tie-up agreement. With the agreement on sharing printing facilities, the two companies are considering expanding their delivery cooperation to areas linked to the Funabashi and Sakaide factories, in addition to Kanagawa and Kagoshima prefectures, as well as the northern part of Kyoto Prefecture.

Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings President Hitoshi Uchiyama said the measures are just the first round of planned greater collaboration, adding that over the longer term, the companies might close some factories at the expected times for facility renewals and instead ask partner companies to make their factories available to print other newspapers on consignment.

Editorial Integration Tightening Between Print and Online Editions

A growing number of newspapers and news agencies are incorporating digital media divisions into their print-edition editorial operations to create an “integrated editorial department.” The Asahi Shimbun, the Sankei Shimbun, Kyodo News, To-o Nippo Press Co., the Kanagawa Shimbun, the Nishinippon Shimbun, and the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun are among the companies making organizational changes to streamline breaking-news services and to promote multi-media operations. The companies see enhanced Web-based divisions as promising potential areas for developing new revenues.

With integrated editorial operations, reporters on the beat are getting used to posting articles for the Web site without waiting for the editorial deadlines of their print editions. Some companies have already achieved a several-fold increase in the volume of articles posted to and distributed over the Web, in addition to posting some analytical articles and commentaries exclusively on their Web sites. The expanded posting of video-clip contents is also going forward as a major way to enrich Web content and to more fully harness the power of the Internet.

More Newspapers Adopting Bigger Fonts, Wider Columns

Since the spring of 2008, a large number of Japanese newspapers have raised their font sizes and have introduced a format with 12 columns per page. According to an NSK Production Committee survey in April, a total of 71 NSK member newspaper companies have adopted a larger font size since 2007. Of those 71, 28 also introduced a 12-column page format in a departure from the 15-column format that had been the industry-wide standard since 1951. The column-number reduction works to make up for the increased number of physical line breaks resulting from using a larger font, ensuring that the text does not become harder to read.

Some newspapers sticking with the conventional 15-column format raised their font size without changing the number of words per line, while others cut the number of words per line from 11 to 10.

Revised School Curriculum Cites Newspapers as Educational Resource

Revised curriculum guidelines for Japan’s compulsory elementary and junior high school programs, released by the Education Ministry in March of last year, referred to using newspapers as teaching materials. The official mention of newspapers is expected to further promote the newspaper industry’s “newspaper in education” (NIE) drive. The new educational outline is due to be implemented in elementary schools starting in fiscal 2011 and in junior high schools starting in 2012.

The guidelines cite “improving the mastery of the national language” as one of the new main challenges in school education. By defining the better learning of the language as a foundation for intellectual activities, communication skills and enhanced sensitivity, the guidelines urge educators to focus on fundamental reading and writing skills in Japanese in classes on the national language and other subjects. The guidelines also refer to a comparison of information obtained from newspapers with that from other sources and the making of an in-house newspaper in class, among other prospective uses of newspapers as teaching materials.

2007 Spending on Newspaper Ads Continued Steep Decline

According to Japan’s largest advertising agency, Dentsu Inc., advertising spending on newspapers in 2007 fell 5.2 percent to 946.2 billion yen for a third straight annual decline.

While total ad spending across all sectors rose in a fourth straight annual increase, the four key traditional sectors of newspapers, magazines, radio and television all suffered declines in ad spending for a third consecutive year, with their combined share dropping to 50.9 percent.

The continued decline in advertising spending in newspapers was attributed to generally worsening corporate earnings and a marked increase in ad spending on the Internet. Ad spending on the Internet surged 24.4 percent to 600.3 billion yen, with its share of total ad spending rising to 8.6 percent.

Terminations of Evening Editions Continue

The Mainichi Shimbun announced on May 13 that it would stop circulating its evening edition on the island of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost prefecture, as of Sept. 1. Mainichi’s move was followed by the Akita Sakigake Shimpo, the publisher of a major daily newspaper based in Akita Prefecture, which also discontinued its evening edition at the end of September, and the Minami-Nippon Shimbun, based in Kagoshima Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture in the Kyushu Region, which is to do the same at the end of this February. Behind these moves lie the continued slump in circulation and ad revenues, coupled with a steep rise in the price of newsprint.

In addition, the Nagoya Times, publisher of the daily evening newspaper, terminated its evening edition and disbanded completely at the end of October. The company had raised its monthly subscription price in May but could not manage to resuscitate itself due to the harsh environment facing the publishers of evening newspapers.

There was a broad push to raise monthly subscription fees in 2008. In addition to the former Nagoya Times, a total of 11 newspapers turned to price hikes to stabilize finances. The companies raising fees included the Shimin Times, a regional community-oriented paper in Nagano Prefecture, the Sankei Express, the Nihonkai Shimbun in Tottori Prefecture, the Yamagata Shimbun in Yamagata Prefecture, the FujiSankei Business I, the Yukan Fuji, the Mutsu Shimpo in Aomori Prefecture, Tokyo Sports, Osaka Sports, Chukyo Sports and the Naigai Times in Tokyo.

ASDF Colonel Dismissed Over Secrets Leak

The Defense Ministry dismissed an Air Self-Defense Force colonel on Oct. 2, accusing him of leaking classified information about a Chinese submarine to a Yomiuri Shimbun reporter. The police unit of the Ground Self-Defense Force had earlier filed a criminal complaint on him with the Tokyo Regional Public Prosecutors Office, alleging that he had violated the Self-Defense Law, which bans any leak of defense-related secrets. However, Tokyo prosecutors on Oct. 15 decided not to charge the colonel. The colonel’s dismissal was the first such punishment of an SDF member for leaking secrets to the media.

In response to the Defense Agency’s dismissal of the officer before any criminal action was pursued, media organizations and experts voiced fear that the agency’s action could intimidate reporters and public servants approached by reporters for information. They say that the punishment could have the effect of infringing upon on the freedom of newsgathering and reporting, thereby limiting the people's right to know.