An amendment in June to Japan's 54-year-old Canon of Journalism apparently reflects the sense of crisis within the nation's news organizations over the apparent growing public dissatisfaction with the industry.

In June, the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association, which is composed of major newspaper and broadcasting companies, issued a new code of conduct calling for special attention to be paid to the rights of people mentioned in news stories.

The previous canon's clause concerning "fairness to individual people's reputations" provided those accused of wrongdoing in stories with the opportunity to respond.

The new code, however, made "respect of human rights" an independent clause, specifically stipulating that media organizations are obliged, in the event that an individual or group has been unjustly maligned, to take "adequate steps to rectify the situation, including providing the people concerned with an opportunity to counter." Public criticism of suspected human rights violations in media reports has grown louder in recent years. People have lashed out at unfounded information on criminal suspects, sensationalist accounts of crime victims and disturbances to communities due to media "invasions" in search of stories.

Against this backdrop, political and government attempts to regulate reporting -- under the guise of protecting human rights -- are growing.

A Justice Ministry panel is now discussing the establishment of an institution with the power to investigate newsrooms in order to address human rights abuses, and the coalition is preparing to submit to the next Diet session a so-called privacy bill that would use the public interest argument to impose legal boundaries on journalists' attempts to obtain information.

But public cynicism is not the only factor behind attempts to exert legislative controls over the freedom of the press.

The newspaper industry has enjoyed various forms of legislative favors -- especially the resale price maintenance system.

The system, which allows the industry to fix newspaper prices to avoid price competition, has also been the focus of debate by a government deregulation panel.

Industry sources said they fear the government may force them to accept regulatory constraints in exchange for maintaining the price system.

The newspaper association's national convention this year also reflected on the degree to which the ethics of the media have seriously affected the freedom of the press.

Addressing the convention in Yokohama in October, Kiyofuku Chuma, senior managing director of the Asahi Shimbun and the leading figure behind the revision of the canon of journalism, said news organizations must take steps on their own to improve ethics "before it is too late."

"It is anticipated as a result (of doing nothing) that we will be compelled to accept official intervention (in news reporting)," he said.

The newspaper association, however, is not ready for the establishment of an industrywide press council to handle complaints, which has been proposed by commentators, lawyers and journalists as well as politicians, as a way to uphold ethics without resorting to legal limits on the freedom of the press.

In Sweden and Britain, for instance, councils made up of professional journalists and members of the public keep an eye on the media in a bid to ensure they are abiding by their codes of ethics.

"There would be a lot of work for such a council if it is to handle all the complaints coming to all our member companies from across the country," said a member of the newspaper association's secretariat, citing the enormous circulations of Japan's newspapers, the largest in the world.

He also said it is technically difficult for executives of all the member companies to frequently meet and reach agreement on individual problems.

Meanwhile, efforts by individual news organizations to improve the professional ethics of their staff are expected to be more visible.

In perhaps the most conspicuous example, the major daily Mainichi Shimbun last month launched a "committee for an open newspaper," which includes outsiders and media critics, to monitor the newspaper's handling of complaints and express opinions in the paper.

"We have been thinking about how we can make readers understand we are handling (complaints) seriously," said Yutaka Asahina, deputy managing editor and creator of the system. "Then we decided to disclose the complaints."

Asahina said he does not believe the monitoring system is at present the best way to achieve progress. "But I believe all newspapers should first make their best efforts, bearing in mind that their pride is at stake," he said.