Major news organizations in Japan have been somewhat insulated from the seismic shift taking place in online journalism around the world. Helped by their still strong, if waning, presence in print, Japan's five national newspaper companies, each boasting millions of copies in daily circulation, have been slow to adapt to the digital age.
But if what's happening to major news outlets worldwide is any indicator, mainstream Japanese media have no time to lose, and should remodel themselves quickly for the "new world," according to researchers from U.K.-based Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
Two representatives from the institute, based at the University of Oxford, were in Japan last week to share findings from its Digital News Report 2014 (www.digitalnewsreport.org), its third annual report on online news consumption across 10 countries, including the U.S., the U.K. and Japan. Some 20,000 people were polled on their newsgathering habits and preferences.