Major papers •
Yomiuri Shimbun (読売新聞). Conservative. First ranked in daily circulation at around 7 million per day. The Yomiuri exchanged a special contract with
The Times. Affiliated with
Nippon Television.
Nikkatsu Film is a grandchild company. •
Asahi Shimbun (朝日新聞). Liberal,
Third way. Second ranked in daily circulation at around 5 million copies per day. Group companies include
Toei (de facto),
Asahi Broadcasting Company,
TV Asahi, and
Asahi Net. •
Mainichi Shimbun (毎日新聞). Centre-left,
Keynesian. Fifth ranked in daily circulation—around 2 million per day. Although the capital tie-up with
Mainichi Broadcasting System /
Tokyo Broadcasting System has been dissolved, it is still a friendship company that exchanges employees and cooperates with the press. In 2020, the circulation was overtaken by the Chunichi Shimbun alone (
Tōkai version), which does not include the Tokyo Shimbun. Deep relationship with
Kodansha and
Shochiku Film. •
Nikkei Shimbun (日本経済新聞). Center, Economic liberal with more centre-right. Fourth ranked in daily circulation at around 2 million copies per day. Economic paper in the style of
The Wall Street Journal. Affiliated with
TV Tokyo. •
Sankei Shimbun (産経新聞). Right-wing. Sankei Shimbun also publishes
Sankei Sports and the tabloid
Yukan Fuji. It belongs to the
Fujisankei Communications Group, a
media conglomerate.
Regional papers •
Chunichi Shimbun/
Tokyo Shimbun (中日新聞/東京新聞). Center-left to left-wing. Largest regional paper. Third ranked in daily circulation at around 2 million copies per day. In the Kanto region, the group publishes
Tokyo Shimbun(東京新聞).
Chunichi Shimbun is published in most of the
Chubu and
Kanto regions, and is a leading newspaper based in
Nagoya. Other nationally known regional papers include
Nishinippon Shimbun (西日本新聞) in
Kyushu,
Hokkaido Shimbun (北海道新聞) in
Hokkaido,
Chugoku Shimbun (中国新聞) in
Chugoku.
Nonprofit newsrooms •
Tokyo Investigative Newsroom Tansa, Japan's first
nonprofit newsroom. Tansa was founded in 2017 by former Asahi Shimbun journalist Matako Watanabe. The paper is the only Japanese investigative nonprofit in the
Global Investigative Journalism Network.
Specialty papers Among niche newspapers are publications like the widely circulated
Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun (The Business and Technology Daily News), the Buddhist organization
Sōka Gakkai's daily
Seikyo Shimbun (), and
Shimbun Akahata, the daily organ of the
Japanese Communist Party. Other niches include papers devoted entirely to predicting the results of horse races. One of the best-known papers in the genre is Keiba Book (). Shūkan Go () is a weekly newspaper that covers the results of professional
Go tournaments and contains hints on Go strategy. As in other countries, surveys tend to show that the number of newspaper subscribers is declining, a trend which is expected to continue.
Claims of media bias Claims of media bias in Japanese newspapers and the mainstream media in general are often seen on blogs and
right-leaning Internet forums, where the "mass media" (
masu-komi (abbreviation of
mass communication) in Japanese) are often referred to as "mass garbage" (
masu-gomi). Signs with this epithet were carried by demonstrators in Tokyo on 24 October 2010, at what was reportedly the first demonstration in Japan to be organized on
Twitter. Among the general public, the credibility of the press suffered after the
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant crisis, when reporters failed to press government and industry sources for more information, and official reports turned out to be inaccurate or simply wrong.
Kazuo Hizumi, a journalist turned lawyer, details structural problems in his book, 「マスコミはなぜマスゴミと呼ばれるのか？」,
"Masukomi wa naze masugomi to yobareru no ka?", (
"Why is mass media called mass garbage?"), which argues that a complex network of institutions, such as elite bureaucrats, judiciary, education system, law enforcement, and large corporations, all of whom stand to gain from maintaining the status quo, shapes the mass media and communication in a way that controls Japanese politics and discourages critical thinking. ==Key stations: television and radio==