Often available for free at Japanese supermarkets and restaurants in major U.S. cities, Japanese community papers are competing hard with online media, including bloggers, for readers and struggling to generate ad revenue.
The rise of community papers, meanwhile, has been partly responsible for at least two conventional paid newspapers serving the Japanese community being forced out of the market.
The United States has two of the three largest communities of long-term Japanese residents outside Japan. According to October 2012 data from the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, the largest was Los Angeles with 71,435 residents, while New York was third with 53,365, after Shanghai's 57,458.