At its board of directors meeting on May 30, the Japan National Press Club (a non-profit public interest organization) selected Maeda Hirotomo, executive editor of the Mainichi Shimbun, as the new head of the organization. His term will run through May 2025.

By YOSHIKA UEMATSU/ Staff Writer   Japan ranked 68th among 180 countries and regions in the 2023 World Press Freedom Index released on May 3 by Reporters Without Borders, an international nonprofit organization.   According to the Paris-based group, Japan moved up from 71st last year, but it remains the lowest among the Group of Seven nations.   “Japan, a….Read more

As this year’s Constitution Day on May 3 rolls around, we remain firmly committed to reject any form of violent attacks against freedom of speech and expression.   On May 3, 1987, a masked gunman stormed The Asahi Shimbun’s Hanshin Bureau in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, and opened fire with a shotgun.    Asahi Shimbun reporter Tomohiro Kojiri, who was 29,….Read more

The government appears to be stepping up its unjust intervention in news media to control information, the foundation for the lives and thoughts of the public.   Such suspicions deepened after telecommunications ministry officials admitted that internal documents on the controversial reinterpretation of the Broadcast Law, which were recently made public by a lawmaker, are in fact part of the….Read more

In a company announcement posted in the Feb. 7 morning edition published by its Chubu head office, the Mainichi Shimbun said it will suspend the paper’s evening edition in the three prefectures of Aichi, Gifu, and Mie from Apr. 1. (Abridged)

Tokyo, Feb. 8 (Jiji Press)–Japanese political commentator Minoru Morita, called a “living witness of (Japan’s) postwar politics,” died of malignant lymphoma at a hospital in Tokyo’s Koto Ward on Tuesday. He was 90.     As a student at the University of Tokyo, Morita was involved in campus activism. He joined the Japanese Communist Party and, as a senior figure….Read more

Among the top 10 protest movements on Twitter last year, half of all related posts were generated by less than 10% of the users involved in the campaigns, according to an analysis by The Yomiuri Shimbun.   Such campaigns have spread rapidly since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and claims made by a small portion of users have been….Read more