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NSK News Bulletin Online
May 2009 -------------------------------------------------------------------
*Topics Psychiatrist Found Guilty of Leaking Investigation Records, Appeals Ruling - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Story of the Month>>> Court-Ordered Damages, Libel Awards Chill Climate for Magazine Publishing -------------------------------------------------------------------
“Happy News” Prizes Awarded, Happy Stories About Proud Brother, Olympians NSK held a ceremony at the Press Center Hall in Tokyo on April 2 to honor the winners of its annual “Happy News” awards. The winning newspaper readers were selected on the basis of articles they submitted for NSK’s annual search for the news stories that made readers the happiest in the fiscal year 2008. A total of 10 “Happy News” submissions were selected as winning articles -- one of them taking the grand prize. Nine articles were selected for “Happy News -- Youth” prizes, with the awards for the nominating young readers being divided equally among elementary, junior high school and senior high school students. The award for being the “Happy News Person” of the past year cites the individual whose actions as reported in a newspaper brought the most joy to readers. It was the fifth year of the competition, with one of the awards going to Nobuharu Asahara, the veteran sprinter who won a bronze medal in the men's 4x100-meter relay at the Beijing Olympics last summer. Anchoring the team, Asahara helped Japan win its first Olympic medal in 80 years in track and field. Female TV personality Kaori Manabe presented certificates and trophies to winners including Asahara, selected as a “Happy News Person”, grand prize winner Tomoko Kawano, a 53-year-old woman from Bungo-Ono City, Oita Prefecture, and schoolboy Rin Yonezu, a 7-year-old elementary school pupil who won the “Happy News Person” of the year prize. That top prize was based on Kawano’s submission of an article from the Oita Godo Shimbun. The article about schoolboy Rin from Ashiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, appeared in the morning edition of Jan. 12, 2009. Rin was born after the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, in which his brother Kuniyuki, then 7, and sister Miri, then 5, were killed. His father had recovered Kuniyuki’s school bag from the debris of the apartment in which the family had lived and had kept it for more than 10 years as a memento. Last spring, when Rin reached the age to enter a local elementary school, his father asked him whether he wanted to get a new school bag. Rin replied, to his father’s delight, he wants to use his deceased brother’s worn school bag, saying “I want to carry my brother’s bag on my shoulder.” In her submission about the story, Kawano wrote that the article had deeply moved her and had filled her with emotion about Rin’s deep respect for his late brother. The judges agreed and named Rin the “Happy News Person” of the year based on her comments. A special “Happy News Person” prize went to Asahara in honor of all the Japanese athletes whose performances at the Beijing Olympic Games prompted many readers to send in Olympics-related submissions as “heart-warming” articles. A special “Happy News” prize went to the Meijo University-attached senior high school in Nagoya City and to the Osaka Prefectural Korigaoka Senior High School, where many students had sent in submissions for the “Happy News” campaign for a number of years. At the awards ceremony, the participants and prizewinners received a 12-page, full-color, tabloid-size “Happy News Newspaper” featuring all of the award-winning happy articles and an interview with singer-TV caster Sho Sakurai. There was a record total of 10,749 submissions for this year’s competition. That included 7,376 submissions from senior high school students as well as from some other, younger students. Takuo Takihana, chairman of the Yomiuri Shimbun’s Tokyo head office and head of the NSK Committee for Promoting Newspaper Media, said in a speech at the ceremony that he was delighted to see the numerous submissions from so many young people. He said, “The word on the street is that modern youth don’t read newspapers… but we are very happy to declare that’s obviously not true!”
Winners of the Happy News Prizes NSK Survey: Video Content, Mobile Services reflect Trend into Digital Media The NSK Digital Media Development Committee on March 26 released the results of its 2009 internal survey on the state of the electronic media. According to the annual survey, an increasing number of NSK member firms are offering video content and images of their print editions on their Web sites, capitalizing on the stepped-up penetration of high-speed “broadband” Internet. With prospects for circulation and ad revenues from print editions waning, many media firms are developing new revenue sources through multimedia businesses, including pay services delivering content to mobile phone users. The survey tracks entries into the electronic media field by NSK member companies, as well as evaluating their business strategies. A total of 87 member companies responded to the latest survey. As of Jan. 1, a total of 47 companies -- up by five from last year -- were providing moving images, or video content, on their Web sites, with staff reporters shooting and presenting the video material. More firms launched new projects to offer material via external Web sites specializing in sharing and/or posting video content. For instance, the Saga Shimbun opened an official channel on the “NICO NICO DOUGA” video posting and sharing Web site, in October 2008. The Asahi Shimbun set up its own channel on the “YouTube” video-sharing Web site in March of this year. Many of the survey respondents categorized their initiatives as content-providers for mobile phone users and other mobile information devices as businesses with profitable prospects leveraging the existing high diffusion rate for newspaper circulation in Japan and the established associated billing systems. However, some respondents expressed concern about a prospective collapse of the business model of targeting mobile phone users as such devices begin to incorporate more advanced functionality enabling users to access conventional Web sites for PCs and thereby freely obtain information that had previously needed to be specially formatted and packaged for mobile phones. The latest survey found that a total of 69 firms -- up four from last year -- are providing information specific to mobile phone users and that four have begun to bill users of their sites over the past year. For instance, the Kahoku Shimpo, the Akita Sakigake Shimpo and the Yamagata Shimbun have all started providing news content to paid subscribers via the “Disney Mobile” site for mobile phones. Disney launched the service as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) by leasing access to an underlying network of base stations from Softbank Mobile. The Asahi Shimbun and the Sankei Shimbun have both started services to provide information directly to users of “smartphones” such as iPhone-style devices. Of the 19 media companies now providing images of their print editions, 10 are charging fees for the service. Starting in April, the To-o Nippo Press and the Yamagata Shimbun started providing electronic editions on their respective Web sites for paid subscribers so that readers living in areas outside of Aomori and Yamagata prefectures can read all pages on PCs. The survey also found that 50 media firms -- up 2 from last year -- had already entered the database retrieval business, charging user fees. Only 38 member companies had entered this field as of 2007. The databases of these companies are now also accessible via membership database service sites such as “Nikkei Telecom 21” and “G-Search.” The number of Web sites run by NSK member companies has increased by 16 over the past year to 188. New sites include movie-centric “Cinema Hochi,” run by the Hochi Shimbun, publisher of the sports daily “Sports Hochi.” The Nikkei Shimbun likewise runs its own specialized “WebCG” site for car lovers. Other sites are also springing up, many providing a specialized focus to better respond to readers’ desires. According to the survey, a total of 31 companies -- up eight from the previous survey -- now offer QR codes, which unable internet access via mobile phones with camera. And 38 companies, or up one from last year, have blogs linked to their Web sites, while nine firms -- also up one from last year -- are operating social networking services (SNS). The survey found that NSK members are increasingly integrating digital media divisions into their editorial departments through organizational reforms, thereby centralizing and consolidating editorial operations for both print and online editions. Companies that made such organizational changes over the past year include Kyodo News, the To-o Nippo, the Akita Sakigake Shimpo, the Kanagawa Shimbun, the Kyoto Shimbun, the Sanyo Shimbun, the Nishinippon Shimbun and the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun.
Kyodo: New Manifesto for News Agency Journalists Syncs with Multimedia Era Leading Japanese news agency Kyodo News has unveiled what it calls a “New Manifesto for News Agency Journalists,” outlining the tasks and new challenges for news agency reporters in the multimedia era. In its declaration, Kyodo News says it will aim to provide content in different forms ranging from text, to movies, to multiple types of media. To this end, it will deploy reporters strategically to reinforce its newsgathering capabilities, it said. Shuichi Ito, a director and managing editor at Kyodo News, said, “The entire media environment is undergoing sweeping changes. Today, anyone is able to send out information, meaning that the raison d’etre of the media is being called into question… This is why we must redefine the mission of a news agency in this new era.” Ito said that, “In the era of multimedia, we must reaffirm the critical importance of freedom of the press as the main core of the spirit of journalism, and our new declaration therefore incorporates this focus.” The manifesto addresses five main elements: 1) the use of diverse means of expression; 2) enhancing the influence of the “newspaper”; 3) transmitting content in diverse forms at home and abroad; 4) reinforcing collaboration with corporate subscribers; and 5) adapting to globalization. On the use of more diverse means of expression, the manifesto calls for Kyodo to provide video content in addition to text and still photos. By this June, about 700 reporters active in the front lines of newsgathering in Japan and abroad are due to be issued video cameras. “It may take time for reporters to get accustomed to video cameras. For the time being, they will be asked to carry the devices at all times,” Ito said. In order to help enhance the influence of newspapers in the Internet era, Kyodo is set to proactively provide backgrounders, analytical articles and prognostic yet accurate articles. “Today, people can obtain breaking news through the Internet. Our reporters on the front lines should therefore recognize the reality that people still expect newspapers to provide them with in-depth articles,” Ito stressed, adding that Kyodo will address the challenge of nurturing specialist reporters deeply versed in particular subjects. The manifesto says Kyodo will provide a full range of content to diverse receiver audiences via devices including mobile phones. As one of Asia’s leading representative news agencies, Kyodo will also send out content in multiple languages, including English and Chinese. While optimizing the delivery of content in a manner best suited to the specific characteristics of respective forms of media, Kyodo will also deliver detailed information, such as schedules of upcoming news conferences, as swiftly as possible, in addition to presenting its regular news content. On reinforcing collaboration with newspapers, radio and TV broadcasters as well as other corporate subscribers, Kyodo will promote joint editorial projects and exchanges of articles and video content with subscribers. Ito said that subscribers, mired in the harsh business environment, want higher value-added content from Kyodo. By collaborating with local subscriber newspapers, which maintain overwhelming newsgathering might in their respective areas, Kyodo will contribute to enhancing the versatility of the newspapers’ editorial content and to the exploitation of their “new markets,” he said. The manifesto states that Kyodo will also assign reporters strategically to cope with the demands of globalization. To date, it has been customary for young reporters to first be assigned to local Kyodo branches for about eight years. However, starting in May, such assignments will be cut to four to five years. Following up on their experience in local areas, reporters will then be transferred directly to the head office in Tokyo to work there for about three years, and will later be re-assigned to local branches for two to three years. By way of example, reporters on the beat at the Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo will be sent to local areas as heads of a team covering the prefectural police. Reporters from the economic news division in Tokyo might be deployed to a so-called “company town” in regional areas. “Our strategic deployments aim to encourage reporters to fully utilize their new experience at the head office and to thereby boost their motivation,” Ito explained. The major social issues at the heart of newsgathering are transcending borders. As a result, staff members from the foreign news division need more exposure to civic and economic news in Japan before going to overseas branches as correspondents. Also as a part of the new changes, more reporters from other sections will be assigned to join members of the foreign news division at overseas branches, working there as foreign correspondents as well, according to Ito.
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