THE SHIMBUN BOOM
Newspapers on the Rise in the Land of the Rising Sun
by
TAJ
Each day, Japan distributes some 67 million newspapers - enough newsprint to circle the earth more than 10 times. This figure gives Japanese newspapers the second highest circulation in the world, trailing only the USSR, and a diffusion rate of 5.7 copies for every 10 persons, first among all nations, ahead of Sweden's 5.3 and East Germany's 5.2.
It's easy to point to the country's high rate of literacy as a key factor behind the success of the newspaper industry here. But although Japanese newspapers may resemble their Western counterparts in basic form, offering news, views, and entertaining features in plain black on white, there are significant differences in the ways they are published, edited, and sold. In many respects, the Japanese shimbun (newspaper) is like no other form of printed matter in the world, and its many unique characteristics helped make Japan a giant in journalism.
Rich History
Surprisingly, the nation's very first newspaper was not issued in Japanese. An English-language biweekly, Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser, published by Englishman A.W. Hansard, led the way in 1861. A year later, the first truly indigenous paper was launched, the Tokugawa shogunate's Batabia Shimbun, printed in a magazine format from woodblocks.
In the 1870s, following the Meiji Restoration, the real business of newspaper publishing got underway, producing no fewer than five dailies that have survived in one form or other until this very day. In their earliest versions, most papers carried government announcements and proclamations written in classical Chinese, and were read mainly by the upper classes, especially intellectuals and former samurai. Exceptions to this trend were the Yomiuri Shimbun (founded in Tokyo in 1874) and the Asahi Shimbun (Osaka, 1879), which catered to the general public, including women and merchants. Their articles featured foreign culture and human interest items that helped them attain circulations of several thousand.
In the latter part of the 19th century, Japanese newspapers began taking a keen interest in politics, aligning themselves with the newly inaugurated parties. The government, however, took a dim view of these burgeoning alliances and enacted a new press law to permits sanctions against or closing of opposition-oriented publications. This repressive act actually had a positive effect on the papers in that it forced them away from political editorializing toward a more balanced coverage of the news. By 1888, Japan's first news agency, Jiji Tsushin Sha, was established.
The 20th century saw the rise of capitalism in Japan, and the newspaper industry changed with the times. Production techniques were modernized to include the use of rotary presses even at the local level. Photographic plates and color printing were also introduced. As the circulations of major newspapers grew to more than 100,000, their corporate profits and social influence increased correspondingly. Special supplements, extra pages, reader-opinion polls, and other devices were employed as sales competition intensified between rival presses.
Almost as proof of the journalistic adage "no news is good news, but bad news is the best news," the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 came as a real windfall to the Osaka-based Asahi and Mainichi newspapers. With their Tokyo competitors temporarily out of business, these two regionals were able to take advantage of the news vacuum and extend their circulation nationwide. By New Year's Day of 1924, their print runs had topped a record one million copies each, firmly establishing national distribution as a hallmark of the Japanese newspaper industry.
Two world wars, of course, took their toll on all of the nation's private enterprises. Many papers were forced to merge, newsprint shortages often cut the number of pages per issue down to both sides of a single sheet, and at absolute low ebb, the total number of active dailies in the country dropped from a high of 1,200 to a mere 55. Yet the industry managed to revive in concert with the Japanese economy during the 1950s and '60's. The larger papers began setting up their own independent sales and delivery outlets across the country, introducing new technological innovations such as kanji (Chinese character) telex systems and facsimile printing, and competing for shares of an expanding market. As Japan hit high economic growth, advertising revenues skyrocketed and overall readerships doubled from slightly under 30 million in 1951 to about 60 million in 1976, even though the country's population increased by only 30 percent during the same period. The shimbun had come to stay.
The Papers at a Glance
Today, there are some 178 general-interest daily newspapers published in Japan. This figure includes five major nationals - the Asahi, Mainichi, Nihon Keizai, Sankei, and Yomiuri - prefectural newspapers, community newspapers, four English-language papers, and so-called "bloc" papers serving more than one prefecture or a certain region, such as Hokkaido, Chunichi, and Nishi Nippon. The nationals alone account for about half of aggregate circulation, the largest of them being the Asahi, with a readership of over 8 million.
Unlike newspapers elsewhere in the world, the biggest Japanese dailies cannot be classified as either morning or evening papers. In reality, they are both, for they offer their subscribers "sets" rather than individual editions. A set consists of a 20 to 24-page morning edition every day and an 8 to 12-page evening edition on all but Sunday. This unique system, offered by 51 companies, serves about 20 million readers, and it is a main reason why Japan's newspapers surpass all others in the world in terms of the number of editions published daily.
Another factor that distinguishes Japanese newspapers in the absence of "quality" and "popular" papers that are often found in the West. Instead, most shimbun can be considered "common" papers, combining characteristics of both types. Their pages present straight news with a high degree of objectivity, offering a wide variety of national and international articles. They also deliver interviews, features, columns, comic strips, sidebars, commentaries, and sensational news items aimed at pleasing less-sophisticated readers, and reporting is done in a manner easily read and understood by the average high-school graduate.
As for advertising, Japanese newspapers hold a position that is the envy of the industry worldwide. In fiscal 1981, newspaper advertising expenditures totaled 757,200 million Yen ($2,753 million), second only to television among all. Japan's mass media and holding a 30.7 percent share of the nation's total advertising expenditure. In volume, that adds up to 3.9 million columns of print or about 43 percent of all pages published, and the amount has been increasing year by year, not only in total volume, but also in number of full-page and four-color advertisements run.
Considering the extremely high circulation and advertising figures, it is obvious that Japan's press rests on a solid base. But the larger newspapers have found that diversification is the best hedge against fluctuating economic conditions, and the extent of their business undertakings is phenomenal. The Asahi, for example, publishes no fewer than five weeklies, four monthlies, two quarterlies, nine annuals, and an English-language evening paper in addition to its nation-leading daily. It also operates one of the country's top television networks and a major culture center in Tokyo. The Yomiuri holds majority shares in 23 companies, from a TV broadcasting system to a travel agency to an amusement park and Japan's most popular professional baseball team, and operates two junior colleges and a medical clinic. Other endeavors sponsored by newspapers include art exhibitions, performances by foreign orchestras and ballet troupes, golf tournaments, and welfare campaigns for handicapped children, all of which demonstrate how active papers can be in making news as well as printing it.
Readers Surveyed
According to one Audience and Consumer Report issued by video research, Inc., 87.7 percent of all males and females between the ages of 12 and 69 living within 30 kilometers of central Tokyo read at least a morning edition each day. Dentsu, the world's largest advertising firm, conducted a survey of 15-59 year olds in the Tokyo area and found that the average reader spends about three-quarters of an hour with newspapers on weekdays - 31.2 minutes each morning; 17.2 in the evening - and 33 minutes going over Sunday's morning-only edition. Similar studies conducted in other parts of the country indicate that newspapers are just as popular outside the capital as in, with 30 minutes per day as the mode for readers nationwide.
Why is there so much interest in newspapers? Questionnaires distributed and analyzed in the mid-1970s showed a strong correlation between education and newspaper preferences, with the less-educated favoring televisions their main source of information. But overall, about 60 percent of Japan's readers turn to newspapers whenever they want to learn of trends in public opinion, form a basis for judgments and opinions, or enhance the level of their culture; 53 percent use papers to seek knowledge of developments at home and abroad. Such statistics readily affirm the importance of newspapers as vehicles influencing public attitudes.
On a more specific level, respondents were asked to indicate what types of news they seek out in their papers and how often they read certain subject matter. Least popular are stock reports, trade news, and science articles; most readers occasionally look at foreign news, travel/leisure articles, letters to the editor, health features, serialized literature, and book reviews; and sports, politics, and society news (including crime reports) rank highest among all categories, with the exception of TV/radio program listings, which more than half the readers turn to each day. Editorials, economic news, and the arts fall just slightly above average in popularity, attesting to the wisdom of publishing "common" rather than "quality" papers in order to achieve a high circulation among the public at large.
What's perhaps most encouraging to publishers, however, are the figures that have been compiling concerning the credibility of Japanese newspapers. In an April 1981 survey, the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association found that about 70 percent of all readers trust newspapers in terms of fairness, social service, and other factors. Some 74 percent of those surveyed believe their papers are reporting news accurately, and a large majority find the information provided sufficient and useful to their daily lives. This all adds up to a receptive and friendly environment for press operations.
Extra! Extra!
Like any mass market product, a newspaper must be efficiently promoted and distributed if it is to succeed amid strong competition. Toward this end, Japanese publishers depend heavily on the sales and delivery services offered by newspaper agents throughout the country. These agents may be exclusive to an individual newspaper, multi-exclusive (dealing with two or three majors only), or regional (jointly serving all the papers sold in a specified district). As of February 1981, there were 22,541 such sales agents in Japan, each responsible for 2,000 to several tens of thousands of copies per day.
Rather than stand on street corners and shout "read all about it," these agents send their employees door-to-door in search of new customers. They sell monthly subscriptions to newspaper "sets" for about 2,600 Yen, and as enticements they frequently offer new subscribers special bonuses, such as boxes of detergent, tickets to baseball games, towels, calendars, and vacuum bottles. It's not uncommon for a subscriber to change papers several times a year just to take advantage of these many free gifts, so agents try to sell longer subscriptions whenever possible or offer resubscription presents when they fear losing a customer.
Besides selling papers, agents provide an advertising service for businesses. For a fixed per-copy fee, they insert advertisers' promotional leaflets into the newspapers before delivering the morning editions. This is an excellent method of boosting their income and allowing local merchants, banks, and restaurants a way of reaching people in a well-defined area.
Altogether, Japan's newspaper sales agents employ 412,908 workers, mostly male adults, though the percentage of female employees has been growing steadily. Morning editions are delivered between five and seven a.m.; evening editions between four and six p.m. Because of this dual delivery schedule, the agents prefer to hire adults rather than teenagers, the former being able to carry 250-300 copies per day and canvass neighborhoods afternoons and evenings, while the latter work only part time, delivering 100 copies of a single edition. It is thus felt that the days of the paperboy are numbered in Japan, even though the home delivery system itself is going strong.
At present, direct delivery accounts of a whopping 91.9 percent of all newspaper sales in Japan. Only 7.5 percent are distributed through newsstands and 0.1 percent via mail order. The significance of this is most evident in printing: almost every copy that's run is already sold, so there is virtually no return and very little waste.
The Editorial Side
On the other side of the printed word in Japan, there are editors, photographers, layout people, printers, proofreaders, and journalists, and theirs too is a world with a difference. The typical Japanese newspaper employee is hired on a lifetime basis and treated in much the same way as a worker at any large Japanese corporation. After passing a battery of tests and interviews given to recent college graduates, new employees are trained on-the-job for months, gaining experience in various departments and becoming acquainted with the overall operation of the paper. Their talents will be assessed and some will become full-time reporters. Others will go into sales or production. Promotions and pay raises will be granted according to seniority, and retirement will follow at 55 or 60 after a career of service to a single newspaper. Employees rarely jump from one paper to another.
Since the articles produced by a paper are generally a team effort, involving several reporters, editors, and subeditors, by-lines are the exception rather than the rule. Furthermore, front-line reporters can expect to serve only a few years gathering and writing news before they are promoted to desk jobs as editors or administrators. For these reasons noted journalists are quite rare in Japan - only a very few editorial writers and columnists ever achieve a measure of public fame for their work. The journalist's hours, partly because of the double-edition system, are usually long; the salaries are adequate but unremarkable. At best, newspeople enjoy fairly high status in comparison with other professionals, and they can take pride in their social role of seeking truth and providing information.
One aspect of the Japanese news-gathering process that differs greatly from circumstances elsewhere is the existence of "press clubs." Over the past 80 years or so, these exclusive groups have been organized for reporters by government offices, political parties, economic organizations, private associations, police headquarters, and other influential bodies in order to channel newsworthy information to the public. Approximately 400 such clubs exist in Japan, and their press conferences are customarily open only to members appointed by major newspapers. This system has evoked a great deal of criticism from journalists excluded from participation, particularly working for Japanese magazines and the foreign press. Non-members claim that the closed nature of press clubs monopolizes information and encourages collusion between sources and reporters. In some cases, clubs may even suppress news of vital interest to the public.
Kinji Kawamura, managing director of Japan's Foreign Press Center and former foreign affairs editor/Washington bureau chief for the Asahi Shimbun, sees the press-club system as both good and bad. "There is some danger," he says, "of information being manipulated by the clubs. Monopolization is possible. But the clubs also serve society in a positive way by applying pressure on sources within the bureaucracy. The press can summon responsible officials to the club for cross-examination and force the release of information."
Moreover, news-gathering activities are not limited to attendance of club-sponsored conferences. Japanese journalists are infamous in government circles for their ""night raid"" tactics, visiting key officials at their homes in the middle of the night to pressure them for disclosures. Investigative reporting is becoming more and more prevalent as the newspapers step up their competition and vie for attention-grabbing scoops.
Law of the Land
Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution provides the legal foundation for all press activities in Japan, guaranteeing the unabridged "freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression." Anyone can start a newspaper here, without fear of government reprisals in reaction to political or social writing critical of the status quo. In fact, no newspaper has been forcibly closed in Japan since the end of World War II.
Of course, newspapers are still subject to criminal and civil law, the same as all enterprises. There is no Freedom of Information Act on Japan's books, nor is there any law protecting reporters who refuse to reveal their sources. Libel suits occur often enough that editors frequently insert "A-san" or "B-san" (Mr. A or Mr. B) for the real names of people when reporting controversial or unresolved events. The papers also practice self-restraint in reporting kidnappings, crimes committed by minors, and events in which people's privacy might be unduly violated, such as rape and insanity cases.
By and large, this policy of prudence in reporting had led to a close relationship between Japan's newspapers and courts. The papers see it as their obligation to respect and uphold the Constitution that guarantees their freedom, while the courts realize the need to ensure the freedom of the press to dig for truth. One example of their unparalleled cooperation: In September 1982, the Supreme Court began implementing a plan to send active judges to newspapers on work-study assignments. It was reasoned that by spending a month learning news editing, reporting, and writing, Japanese judges would become better acquainted with the "real world" outside their chambers and thus be less likely to abuse their authority.
News of Tomorrow
In the years ahead, Japanese newspapers can be expected to progress with the times. News reporting should continue to gain in sophistication as papers intensify their investigative efforts, forming ad hoc task forces of reporters and editors to expose misdealings in government and business. More papers may follow Sankei Shimbun's lead in giving by-lines to journalists or placing their initials at the bottom of articles. And the Op-Ed pages should continue to fill out, as editors invite greater participation from their readers and outside writers.
The biggest changes, however, will be seen in production processes. Already, the major dailies are incorporating new technology that is doing away with traditional typewriters and printing presses. In 1980, the Asahi Shimbun completely computerized and automated its production facilities, installing NELSON ( New Editing and Layout System of Newspapers) to help handle all copy input, photo scanning, editing/correction, page make-up, transfer of materials, plate-making and offset printing. This IBM-Fujitsu-NEC developed system took over the work done by 600 Asahi employees, yet the company managed to retain them all and retrain them for other jobs. Not a single employee was laid off. Then, in October 1982, the Mainichi Shimbun followed suit, introducing to its Osaka headquarters a computerized typesetting system called MARS (Mainichi Auto-composing and Renovating System) to replace its century-old, hot lead type equipment. FAX, computers, and word-processors will give an entirely new look to the Japanese newspaper office of the future, and planners envisage a day when whole pages of news will be transmitted electronically direct to homes and offices via facsimile machines or videotex hook-ups, thereby bringing this nation of avid newspaper readers even closer to the source.
This article first appeared in Tradepia International, Spring 1983
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