Japan has always had trouble explaining itself to the rest of the world in English, but for the past 50 years, several national newspapers have tried to publish English-language newspapers. While not all of them prospered or succeeded, a few of them did, and one of the best was the popular ”Daily Yomiuri” — which has now been remained since April as “The Japan News.”
It’s published daily both in print and online. For Westerners living in North America or Europe, and for that matter, for all English-speaking people around the world, the online site is a deal: it’s free and no paywalls ever.
Published by the Yomiuri Shimbun, the sister paper that owns the English-language daily, the paper serves as a public relations vehicle for the Japanese government and assorted ministries. It’s not a real newspaper in the Western sense of the word, since it does not offer readers balanced views of controversial subjects.
The small paper in English toes the Yomiuri line, which is a bit right of center, and conservative, but not redneck or racist in any way, and while not everyone agrees with the paper’s editorial board views on heated topics such as who started the ”Pacific War” in 1941 or whether Japan recruited sex slaves from Taiwan and Korea to serve as army ”sex workers” — called “comfort women” in both Japanese and English, to offer “comfort” to the young soldiers before they went off to die for their Imperial Emperor God! — it’s still a good and important newspaper for foreigners to read. I am
sure the new U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy is reading the print edition every morning in her office there.
Politics and geopolitics aside, The Japan News offers readers around the world a very good window on Japan. Open it and go in.
In a blog post in April, the editors of The Japan News noted: “Amid Japan’s declining international presence, the nation is facing a challenge over its ability to communicate information and knowledge about itself to the world.”
With the world’s largest print newspaper circulation, nearly 10 million daily — read that again: 10 million readers daily! – the Yomiuri Shimbun is an influential Japanese newspaper. As The Japan News is now the only English-language daily published by a national newspaper in Japan, all eyes are on it to see how it does.
If you’re interested in online news from Japan, the real Japan and not the Hollywood version of Japan, The Japan News offers articles and columns about food, culture, slang terms, movies, books and Japanese sports. Come the 2020 Summer Olympics, the website will become more and more important to the outside world, so bookmark it if you want.
The Land of the Rising Sun is not rising anymore as it did in the 1980s and 1990s, but it’s still doing pretty well, and anyone interested in the goings on there can benefit from an online newspaper edited by exapats living in Tokyo.
There’s also the very good Japan Times online as well. Check it out. As English becomes more and more of a global language, even in Japan, where hundreds of English “loan words” are used on a daily basis, reading a Japanese newspaper can serve a good purpose. You don’t have to be Japanese to love Japan. I’m not and I do.
