Mainichi Shinbun

The Mainichi Shimbun (毎日新聞 Mainichi Shimbun^?, lit. "Daily News") is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by The Mainichi Newspapers Co., Ltd (株式会社毎日新聞社 Kabushiki-gaisha Mainichi Shinbunsha^?).

History

The history of the Mainichi Shimbun begins with founding of two papers during the Meiji period. The Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun was founded first, in 1872. The Mainichi claims that it is the oldest existing Japanese daily newspaper with its 136-year-long history. The Osaka Mainichi Shimbun was founded four years later, in 1876. The two papers merged in 1911, but the two companies continued to print their newspapers independently until 1943, when both editions were placed under a Mainichi Shimbun masthead. In 1966 the Tokyo office was moved from Yurakucho to Takebashi, and in 1992 the Osaka office was moved from Dojima to Nishi-Umeda.

The Mainichi has 3,200 employees working in 364 offices in Japan and 26 bureaus overseas. The Mainichi is one of Japan’s big three newspapers in terms of circulation and employee numbers, and has 79 associated companies, including Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS) and the Sports Nippon Newspaper.

Two former Mainichi Newspapers Chief Executive Officers have gone on to become prime ministers of Japan. The Mainichi is the only Japanese newspaper company to have won a Pulitzer Prize. The Japan Newspapers Association, made up of 180 news organizations, has granted the Mainichi is Grand Prix award on 21 occasions, making the Mainichi the most frequent winner of the distinguished prize since its inception in 1957.

In addition to the Mainichi Shimbun, which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English language Web version of the defunct Mainichi Daily News, and publishes a bilingual news magazine, Mainichi Weekly. It also publishes paperbacks, books and other magazines, including a weekly news magazine, Sunday Mainichi.

Partnership with MSN

On 15 January 2004, Mainichi Shimbun and MSN Japan announced they were to merge their websites. The partnership has been known as MSN-Mainichi Interactive, effective since 1 April 2004^[1]. On 18 September 2007, Mainichi announced the launch of their new website, mainichi.jp, which would include "heavy use of social bookmarking, RSS and blog parts" and will "pay attention to bloggers". The new website began operations on 1 October 2007, marking the end of MSN-Mainichi Interactive, and was replaced by mainichi.jp. The English-language Mainichi Daily News also moved to the new website^[2]. MSN-Japan switched to Sankei Shimbun^[3].

WaiWai controversy and cancellation

Since 1989, the Mainichi Daily News ran a feature called the WaiWai, which featured articles translated from Japanese weekly tabloids but Mainichi Daily News glossed over articles' sources.^[4]. Their disclaimer noted that their veracity was always suspect, but that they were presented for entertainment purposes only^[5].

In May 2008, bloggers on the Japanese bulletin board 2channel complained to the Mainichi Shimbun that the WaiWai articles were incorrect^[6]^[7]. The editorial board of the newspaper blocked access to the archived past stories and announced a “fundamental review” of its editorial policy regarding the feature. Upon receiving further criticism, the Mainichi Shimbun promised “to severely punish the head of the Digital Media Division, which is responsible for overseeing the site, the manager responsible for the corner and the editor involved with the stories.”^[8]^[4] On 21 June, 2008, Mainichi Shimbun decided to cancel the corner.

On 27 June 2008, the Mainichi Shimbun announced punitive measures for the staff writer in charge of the column (Ryann Connell^[9]), who was suspended for 3 months ("issuing three months' disciplinary leave"), MDN Managing Editor Hiroshi Takahashi, "stripped of his title" for 2 months, Mainichi Shimbun Digital Media Division General Manager Akihiko Isono, "stripped of his title" for 1 month, Mainichi Shimbun Director and Digital Media Division Executive Supervisor Atsushi Hasegawa, "ordered to return 20 percent of his directors compensation" for 1 month, and Mainichi Shimbun Digital Media Division President Yutaka Asahina, "ordered to return 10 percent of his directors compensation" for 1 month^[4]^[10]. The Mainichi Shimbun also stated that it will take legal action because of "a flood of messages and images have appeared online" defaming and slandering female staff writers and other employees of the newspaper company^[4].

2channel bloggers claim that even if the Mainichi Shimbun WaiWai articles were quotation articles, it should be responsible for the content of those articles. According to a 2002 legal precedent^[11], a newspaper company must take responsibility for its own articles even if they are citations from a credible news agency, much more from an incredible news source. The bloggers also question the paper's integrity because it used publications widely considered unreliable in Japan as the base of the stories without verifying them nor telling the readers that the sources it quoted were unreliable. One case where the Mainichi Daily News staff writer "had added information that was not contained in the original magazine" was confirmed, causing the cancellation of the column.^[4] Other cases will be investigated by a third-party institution.^[4]

Many advertisers responded to consumers' complaints by pulling their ads from Mainichi Shimbun's online news site.^[12]

On July 20, 2008, the Mainichi Shimbun announced that on August 1 they would re-organize the Mainichi Daily News Editorial Department, and on September 1 they would re-launch the MDN as a more news-oriented site. A female employee will be appointed as the new chief editor^[13].

Offices

Contents

History

Partnership with MSN

WaiWai controversy and cancellation

Offices

See also

References

External links