While Yahoo Japan's news service has grown bigger and more powerful with the rise of the Internet, it has become tougher for the media to broadcast news with important value to its audience, said Michihiro Okumura, who leads a team that selects Yahoo Japan's news topics for its front page.
"I feel the media are expected to be something that send a warning to society. But when I look at the access ranking (of news stories), that idea is forgotten. Working in Internet media, I strongly feel that significant things are not reaching people," Okumura, a former Yomiuri Shimbun reporter, said Monday at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo.
Okumura pointed out that stories on entertainment and sports tend to attract readers, saying that 30 percent of news accessed in May was entertainment-related.