[Feature: Jiji Shimpo and Japanese Journalism] Panel Discussion: Considering the Ideal State of Media through Jiji Shimpo

Although it had not actually been publishing a newspaper, the Jiji Shimpo-sha, which had continued to exist for about 70 years by entrusting its management to the Sankei Shimbun, resolved to dissolve last year and completed its liquidation this year.

The "Jiji Shimpo," founded by Yukichi Fukuzawa in 1882, was dissolved once before the war in 1936 and revived after the war. However, in 1955, it merged with the Tokyo edition of the Sankei Shimbun (temporarily using the title "Sankei Jiji"). Even after the word "Jiji" disappeared from the title, the corporate organization continued to exist for a long time. Today, I would like to take this opportunity to reconsider the role that the Jiji Shimpo played in Japanese newspaper journalism.

First, under the theme of "The Jiji Shimpo and I," I would like to ask each of you about your relationship with the Jiji Shimpo. Mr. Tsushima, you were a reporter for the Sankei for a long time, and furthermore, you served as an auditor during the final processing of the Jiji Shimpo-sha. On top of that, your ancestors were involved with the Jiji Shimpo, weren't they?

As Mr. Tokura mentioned at the beginning, the Jiji Shimpo-sha has now been dissolved. I was the last auditor of the Jiji Shimpo-sha and served until the final shareholders' meeting this February. Since a company that is not operating cannot maintain trademark rights, the trademark rights for the "Jiji Shimpo" and others were transferred to the Sangyo Keizai Shimbun (Sankei Shimbun). In the future, it will be utilized as a business of the Sankei Shimbun, such as in the pages of the "Sankei Shimbun." Another reason for the dissolution is that, due to changes in social conditions, the trend of listed companies, which are shareholders, letting go of strategic shareholdings has accelerated.

I was a reporter for the Sankei Shimbun, but my great-grandfather, Kennosuke Tsushima, was born in the first year of Meiji—to be precise, January of the fourth year of Keio. Around the age of 17, he came to Tokyo from a place called Tokidate Village in Minamitsugaru District, Aomori Prefecture (now Fujisaki Town) and entered Keio University. He studied under Yukichi Fukuzawa for about two years and, after graduation, joined the Jiji Shimpo. This was about two or three years after the Jiji Shimpo-sha was established.

Later, in 1898, he concurrently served as a secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce in the Okuma Cabinet, but he continued to be a reporter for the Jiji Shimpo. It seems he also served as the Editorial Officer, and furthermore, his younger brother, Ki Tsushima, also served as the Editorial Officer.

Kennosuke then moved to the "Osaka Mainichi (Daimai)." I heard that many reporters went from the Jiji Shimpo to the Osaka Mainichi. Then, Kennosuke's third son, Yoshitake Tsushima, became a reporter who served as the economic news manager of the Mainichi Shimbun and the president of Mainichi Eigasha. Because of such connections, I might have been asked to be the auditor at the end.

Actually, before that, I served as the president of a company called Sankei Sogo Printing. Its predecessor, a company called Jiji Printing Office, was the company that did the final printing of the Sankei Jiji and also printed the Jiji Shimpo. So, there are actually various connections.

There are various connections beyond just your ancestors.

Now, let's move on to Mr. Matsuo.

After graduating from the Keio University Faculty of Letters, I joined the Osaka headquarters of the Sankei Shimbun. There is a term "demo-shika reporter" (someone who becomes a reporter because there's nothing else or just because), and I was one of them. I came to Tokyo from Hyogo Prefecture because I admired the city, but due to circumstances, I was told to "come back," so I joined the Osaka headquarters of the Sankei Shimbun, thinking, "I might as well become a reporter." In other words, from the very start, it felt like I began from a point slightly off the main path.

By "off the main path," I mean Osaka relative to Tokyo, or the Sankei relative to the "Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri." It is one step back from the mainstream. I feel that this positioning has been projected onto my subsequent life and my perspective in research after retiring from the newspaper company.

During my time at the Sankei, I felt somewhat proud that the newspaper I worked for traced its lineage back to the Jiji Shimpo, but in reality, I knew nothing about it.

I didn't even know about the "Osaka Jiji Shimpo," but later, I left the Sankei to pursue a career as a researcher and wrote a paper using the Osaka Jiji as my subject. Seeing that, my former employer, the Osaka Sankei, asked me to write a series about the founder, Hisakichi Maeda. I compiled that into a book titled "Hisakichi Maeda: The Osakan Who Built the Sankei Shimbun and Tokyo Tower." This Hisakichi Maeda was also an important figure for the Jiji Shimpo, being the person who carried out the merger between the Jiji and the "Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun" in 1936.

In tracing the lineage of the Osaka Jiji Shimpo or Hisakichi Maeda, the keywords I often used for my research were "second-rate" or "loser."

I might be scolded for saying "What do you mean by second-rate?", but my understanding of second-rate is that it is not first-rate—meaning it doesn't sell as much—but it possesses dignity. I even use it with an implication like a "sense of freedom," extending it from there.

Fukuzawa himself, in the Meiji society where officials were honored and the people despised, was not on the side of power or a top runner; he was, after all, a figure in the private sector, and one could say he was second-rate. He was a challenger and anti-establishment. I am very attracted to the freedom, light-footedness, or rebellious spirit that was born from that, and I believe the essence of the Jiji Shimpo or the Osaka Jiji Shimpo lay there, or should have lain there.

So it's a kind of "pride in being second-rate" in the history of Japanese media. I think how to evaluate one's "positioning" is very important for the Jiji Shimpo.

Now, how about you, Mr. Odaka?

I studied in Professor Setsu Kobayashi's constitutional law seminar at the Faculty of Law, Department of Law. I seriously wanted to protect the freedom of the press that maintains democracy, so I joined the secretariat of the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association. I served as the director of the Japan Newspaper Museum for six and a half years starting in the fall of 2017, retired last summer, and have just begun activities to connect "education and media" with people from various fields.

The materials related to the Jiji Shimpo held by the Newspaper Museum, even excluding the main paper and extras, amount to 890 items, including sugoroku games, maps, calligraphy and paintings, supplements such as manga, photographs, photo news, promotional flyers, signs, and happi coats, as well as tickets for sponsored events. In addition, there are 70 items related to Takuzo Itakura.

While newspapers were becoming party organs due to the intensification of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, the Jiji Shimpo's achievements were significant in establishing the current form of a reporting newspaper by advocating independence and self-respect, and in promoting the newspaper advertising field by seeking its foundation in economic activities. I became interested after learning that it was the greatest leading organ of public opinion throughout the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras, as well as the scale of its business, and I also studied in the 17th cohort of the Fukuzawa Bunmeijuku.

In the permanent exhibition renovated in 2019, in addition to the inaugural issue from 1882, we also display the Russo-Japanese War extra from 1905 ("Osaka Jiji"), the international scoop on the "Abolition of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Formation of the Four-Power Treaty" by Masanori Ito and Takeo Goto in 1921, and the Sunday supplement "Jiji Manga" (1922).

Among the five major pre-war newspapers, although the publication of the Jiji Shimpo ceased, I have paid attention to the fact that connections with people from other newspapers have been at work. For example, in the lineage from the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun to the Daimai and Mainichi Shimbun, the Jiji Shimpo's tradition of hanging photographs of Grand Sumo champion wrestlers and the Music Competition of Japan were inherited. Hikoichi Motoyama, who made the Daimai a national newspaper, was at the Jiji Shimpo.

Also, Motoko and Yoshikazu Hani, who founded "Fujin no Tomo" and Jiyu Gakuen, were reporters for the Hochi Shimbun, but Motoko's younger brother, Masao Matsuoka, was a member of the Keio Rugby Football Club in its early days and became the chairman of the Jiji Shimpo after serving as an editorial advisor for the Daimai. In 1907, he published the educational magazine for youth "Seinen no Tomo" together with Yoshikazu.

We also held a 120th-anniversary exhibition for The Japan Times at the Newspaper Museum. That paper was created by Sueji Yamada, a relative of Fukuzawa, and others, based on advice from Fukuzawa. We have also received a visit from Tottori University, the hometown of Yamada and his colleagues.

I think it's interesting to see not just the meaning of Fukuzawa and the Jiji Shimpo in the newspaper world, but also how that existence influenced others.

Next, Mr. Ariyama, please.

The reason I am focusing on the Jiji Shimpo is that I believe Fukuzawa and others consciously tried to create a high-end newspaper, a so-called quality paper. I don't know if Fukuzawa or those associated with Keio used the term "quality paper," but it is clear they had that awareness. To use Mr. Matsuo's phrasing from earlier, the second-rate papers were the Asahi and Mainichi (laughs).

The quality papers were the "Jiji Shimpo," Katsunan Kuga's newspaper "Nippon," and Soho Tokutomi's "Kokumin Shimbun." These first-rate newspapers had high status and were respected by society.

Moreover, the Jiji Shimpo succeeded to some extent as a high-end newspaper. It was able to sustain itself as a high-end newspaper at least until the 1930s. That is very rare; for instance, "Nippon" was sold after the Russo-Japanese War.

Alternatively, Soho's Kokumin Shimbun quickly converted after the Russo-Japanese War, saying "from now on, it's the era of quantity," and became a popular, common newspaper. It couldn't be maintained as a high-end newspaper.

Later, when the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun temporarily came under the ownership of Takaaki Kato, it is said to have imitated the British "The Times." But that also didn't succeed, and the Tokyo Nichi Nichi came under the ownership of the Mainichi Shimbun. Most of them failed.

However, only the Jiji Shimpo managed to maintain itself as a high-end newspaper for a while after that. Why a quality paper like those in Britain did not take root in Japanese society is a question closely related to the structure of Japanese society, the political system, and political consciousness, and the Jiji Shimpo is very important in considering that.

To explain the pre-war state of the Jiji Shimpo by dividing it into periods, I think it can be broadly divided into about four periods until it was dissolved in 1936 and the title was entrusted to the Tokyo Nichi Nichi.

The first is the period from its founding while Fukuzawa was still alive. The important event during this time was, of course, the Sino-Japanese War. The second period is from after Fukuzawa's death (1901) until after the Russo-Japanese War, around 1905. During this period, the Jiji Shimpo was stable in terms of management and had a very high social reputation.

The third period is from after the Russo-Japanese War to the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923), which roughly corresponds to the Taisho era. This is when society entered what is called a period of "populist tendencies." There, the Jiji Shimpo, which had held high prestige until then, became relativized. Meanwhile, the Asahi and Mainichi began to expand. Furthermore, during that period, the Jiji expanded into Osaka. The Osaka Jiji Shimpo was founded in 1905.

The fourth period is after the Great Kanto Earthquake. It suffered a decisive blow from the earthquake and was subsequently unable to compete with the quantitative expansion of the Asahi and Mainichi. Large-scale sales methods were employed, such as discounts, sales with premiums, or "hibai" (exclusive sales), where distributors were prevented from selling newspapers other than their own. As a result, the management of the Jiji continued to deteriorate, leading finally to its dissolution.

I believe Fukuzawa himself intended to create a high-end newspaper. It had a high subscription fee and many pages. It was rich in economic information and carried difficult editorials. In 1890, the subscription fee for the Jiji Shimpo was 50 sen. The Kokumin Shimbun, Nippon, and Tokyo Nichi Nichi were 30 sen, and the Tokyo Asahi was 25 sen—half the price. Moreover, it is said that the Tokyo Asahi and others gave many discounts. The subscribers were clearly different. This means the Jiji was a high-end newspaper that only a specific class read, and people from other classes could not read.

Since a high-end newspaper is a kind of class media, it is not something everyone reads; only a specific class reads it. And the core concept of the Jiji Shimpo's discourse and reporting was "Kokumin" (the nation). It's not for me to say again, but Yukichi Fukuzawa's important theme was to create a modern nation-state in Japan. In a broad sense, that meant forming nationalism. In that case, "Kokumin" was not the people as they actually existed, but a kind of ideal. It was the idea that such a nation should be the one to carry Japan, and it was not a quantitative existence.

During the same period, Nippon and the Kokumin Shimbun also used the concept of "Kokumin." The Kokumin Shimbun's title was exactly that, and Nippon said, "We are the ones who stand for nationalism (Kokumin-shugi)." The "Kokumin" was a very important concept, and Fukuzawa was at the center of it.

However, one thing we must consider here is that class media and nationalism contain a contradiction. The concept of "Kokumin" includes the meaning of all the people throughout Japan. Yet, on the other hand, there is a class. During this period, only a specific class discussed the affairs of the state. I believe Fukuzawa also advocated "Kokumin" to a specific class and developed his discourse and reporting for them.

Looking at materials from a small town called Yanagawa in Fukushima Prefecture, around 1900, the penetration rate of newspapers was about 20%. Among them, regular subscribers were about 5%, and in a small town of less than 10,000 people, there were only 51 such households. This town was very wealthy, an advanced area dealing in silkworms. However, during this period, only 17 households in this town were reading the Jiji Shimpo.

Therefore, newspapers were read by people who were economically well-off and had leisure time. These 17 households were the virtual social, economic, and cultural leaders of the town of Yanagawa, and the social class reading the Jiji Shimpo was likely the class Fukuzawa was aiming for.

However, as we entered the period from the Sino-Japanese War to the Russo-Japanese War, the "Yorozu Choho" and "Niroku Shimpo" began to use the city news section as a selling point, writing scandalous things. The price was cheap; the Yorozu Choho cost only 1 sen per copy. Even for a monthly subscription, it was 25 sen. By making city news their selling point, they rapidly expanded their circulation.

However, the Jiji Shimpo during this period clearly had its own identity, believing that its newspaper was different and that the ideal of a newspaper lay on its side. The same was true for Nippon and the Kokumin Shimbun of the same period. Fukuzawa had already passed away, but Katsunan Kuga called the Yorozu Choho a "newspaper merchant." In short, he used it as a term of contempt, meaning they were making a business out of the newspaper.

However, after the Russo-Japanese War, quality papers were again forced into great instability. This was because populist tendencies began during that period, industrialization and urbanization progressed, and the distinction between readers became blurred. Complaints and dissatisfaction, such as being in financial distress, erupted onto the surface of the political stage, and this became energy for the Niroku Shimpo and Yorozu Choho. Broadly speaking, we entered an era of populist nationalism.

When that happened, newspapers turned into a quantitative competition within the reporting race. During this period, "Nippon" became unsustainable. Katsunan Kuga said until the end, "I don't want to publish city news," but that era had long since ended. The Kokumin Shimbun was also forced to convert. Moreover, the major challenge after that was universal suffrage, and the concept of "Kokumin" gradually became a quantitative concept.

I believe the Jiji Shimpo was also gradually swept up in this. From a management perspective, what we must consider is that at this time, unlike the Kokumin Shimbun or Nippon, the Jiji Shimpo expanded into Osaka and sought to grow its business.

However, even if political equalization occurred, social equalization had not progressed that far. In Yanagawa, Fukushima, the number of households subscribing to the Jiji Shimpo during this period was 33 to 36. Until the global depression of 1929 decisively affected this town, the leading class of this town continued to subscribe to the Jiji Shimpo. So, I think it was still stable, but the Jiji Shimpo's expansion into Osaka was a very big gamble.

Then, the Great Kanto Earthquake burned down all of Tokyo, and the newspaper's sales and advertising mechanisms had to be rebuilt. They had to acquire new readers and advertisers. In the end, it became a quantitative expansion race, and the Jiji Shimpo was targeted by the monopoly agreement between the Asahi and Mainichi. This was the so-called "hibai" (exclusive sales). Even though the Jiji Shimpo had readers, the Asahi and Mainichi were put in their place—a very aggressive competition with no morals at all, and the Jiji lost.

However, looking at it from the side of the Jiji Shimpo, it also means that the Jiji Shimpo had become a newspaper that could be replaced by other newspapers.

Until then, the Jiji Shimpo was qualitatively different from the Asahi and Mainichi, so it could not be replaced. The richness of the economic columns, the speed of market reports, and the accuracy of foreign news—the Asahi and Mainichi could not compete with those. However, after the earthquake, the Asahi and Mainichi also began sending correspondents abroad and established rapid reporting systems. When a sales competition occurred there, the Jiji Shimpo was forced into a situation where it had to lose as capital.

In the town of Yanagawa, not a single reader of the Jiji Shimpo remained. The newspaper distributor of a man named Chobei Abe of Abe Kaishundo, who had preserved the materials for this town, took the side of the Asahi and completely stopped selling the Jiji Shimpo. The reason why it had to be the Jiji Shimpo disappeared. When that happens, the Jiji Shimpo can no longer be maintained as a high-end newspaper.

After that, there was the National Spiritual Mobilization, which captured the nation as a quantitative entity and homogenized the people. The key concept of "Kokumin" also became a hollowed-out, quantitative existence from what Fukuzawa had aimed for. When considering the media history of modern Japan, I believe the positioning of the Jiji Shimpo as a newspaper very intensively reflects the problem of the transition of the concept of "Kokumin" and the changes in society.

Based on Fukuzawa's awareness of the problem of "creating a nation," you view it as Fukuzawa having the intention to create a high-end paper and that the Jiji Shimpo was aimed at a specific class. What do you think about this point?

My view is slightly different. While Fukuzawa's newspaper certainly would not compromise on dignity, I don't think Fukuzawa intended to create a "high-end" paper, and I understand that rather than aiming at a specific class, he was trying to aim for the opposite.

For example, in the early Meiji period, there was a clear division between "O-shimbun" (large newspapers) that were for intellectuals and emphasized political discourse, and "Ko-shimbun" (small newspapers) that were tabloids for the common people. The Jiji Shimpo aimed for what could be called a "Chu-shimbun" (middle newspaper). I feel it created mechanisms to involve and pull up readers of the small newspapers as well.

As one example, when the National Diet was established in 1890, the world was in a frenzy over politics with the general election and the opening of the Imperial Diet. That year, Fukuzawa certainly discussed politics, but on the other hand, he reported very earnestly on topics completely unrelated to politics. It was almost comical. He would hold popularity polls for sumo or exhibits at exhibitions, solicit theater reviews for Kabuki, or conduct fundraising activities—anyway, he tried hard to relativize politics, saying that politics is not the only thing in the world. It would have sold much better if he had published political news, but he deliberately tried to move away from it.

In addition, the Jiji Shimpo was a pioneer in creating a cooking corner and an American joke corner. As Mr. Odaka also mentioned, the "manga" in the Jiji Shimpo is characterized by its emphasis on non-political satire. My view is that the characteristic of the Jiji Shimpo was the awareness of creating a "Kokumin" by involving everyone, not just specific people in the upper layers of society.

That is the idea of creating a society through so-called enlightenment. Yukichi Fukuzawa's idea was that unless a broad and healthy society is created, politics will not sit well on top of it.

However, the fact remains that there were not many people in the layer that read the Jiji Shimpo. On the other hand, the nationalism Fukuzawa was thinking of was, in a sense, an open nationalism, not the idea that "we are the only ones who carry nationalism." That is certainly true.

In the first place, if we think about why he thought of founding the Jiji Shimpo, in 1874, he translated the word "speech" as "enzetsu" and started the Mita Public Speaking Event, and the following year he built the Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall). What was the motivation for that?

I believe it was to spread his enlightenment thought. The Enzetsukan could only hold about 200 people. No matter how many speeches he gave in front of 200 people, his ideas would not spread. How could he spread them? So, I understand that the motivation for founding the Jiji Shimpo was to spread printed material through the means of a newspaper seven or eight years later.

It was about broad enlightenment. Fukuzawa probably didn't use the term "O-shimbun," and in the first place, people at large newspapers didn't often call themselves "O-shimbun."

However, what Fukuzawa was facing at this time was also the final stage of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. At that time, some Freedom and People's Rights newspapers published small newspapers and used very radical methods of enlightenment, using large illustrations, manga, graphic novel-like things, and serialized novels.

In response to that, Fukuzawa said, "No, this is different from what I am thinking." In that sense, the Jiji Shimpo was a high-end paper, and while it certainly put effort into manga, I think it is a matter that must be distinguished.

The lineage of such very radical and extreme language in small newspapers was passed down to the Niroku Shimpo and Yorozu Choho, but I think his approach was to create their own enlightenment, different from that, and to create such a style.

Fukuzawa was saying that they should engage in high-level discussion in order to enlighten. But since that alone wouldn't attract readers, he created what we would now call the city news, culture, or entertainment sections, such as the manga and cooking that Mr. Tokura just mentioned. I think Fukuzawa had the idea that creating the form of what we now call a general newspaper would be better for drawing in the nation as readers.

How does that point compare with other newspapers?

At the Newspaper Museum, we introduce that in the early Meiji period, there were "O-shimbun" that developed political arguments in a classical Chinese style, such as the Yubin Hochi and Choya, and "Ko-shimbun" for the common people, such as the Yomiuri and Asahi. We then convey that after the appearance of the Jiji Shimpo, which advocated "independence and self-respect," newspapers moved from being party organs to reporting newspapers.

Considering the current media environment of filter bubbles caused by SNS, I felt it was easy for visitors to understand that he tried to support the management of a medium for "taji soron" (diverse opinions and vigorous debate) and presenting both sides of an argument, based not just on a subscription fee from enthusiastic readers who support the same ideas, but on the two pillars of subscription fees and advertising revenue.

Also, related to Mr. Tokura's talk about "involving everyone," there must have been a desire for people to know about various social movements and lifestyle information not only from political, economic, and social reporting (journalism) but also from advertising (commercialism), and he was responding to that.

In terms of both media management and conveying a wide range of information, both hard and soft, to the people, I think it can be said that he created the subsequent newspaper company business model and role. When I give exhibition commentary saying that a place for "taji soron" is necessary while talking about the information environment of SNS, visitors were convinced.

Fukuzawa was a man of great pride, so I think he intended to show a model, saying, "This is how a newspaper should be done," once he started. In that sense as well, he thought properly about management, and because management is stable, the discourse can maintain its dignity. He quickly presented a good cycle for a sustainable newspaper. I think that focus was indeed very groundbreaking.

In touching upon the Osaka Jiji Shimpo, the question of whether the Jiji Shimpo is "second-rate" came up. What are your thoughts on that point, Mr. Matsuo?

I was listening to Mr. Ariyama's remarks thinking, "I see." I use the words second-rate and first-rate in a somewhat inverted way.

Where did I pull these words second-rate and first-rate from? It was from a commentary in a newspaper internal report called "Gendai Shimbun Hihan" (Critique of Modern Newspapers) by Kajita Ota, a former Asahi Shimbun reporter, during the pre-war Showa period.

According to that, "first-rate" refers to newspapers that sell well and are dominant. In contrast, "second-rate" refers to newspapers that have dignity but do not sell. And "third-rate" refers to scandal newspapers. For example, newspapers of the geisha world; their management is actually good. Second-rate is difficult. However, to put it the other way around, isn't it possible to find dignity, freedom, and pride there that are not found in either first-rate or third-rate?

According to Mr. Ariyama's periodization, the Osaka Jiji started from the second period, right? My research also starts from Sutajiro Fukuzawa in the second period.

Mr. Ariyama brought up the word "Kokumin" as a keyword, but there is another word, perhaps overlapping but different, which is "Taishu" (the masses). From around the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake, the word "Taishu" appeared, and a "mass society" emerged at the end of the Taisho era. Yukichi Fukuzawa's ideals collided with that and suffered. That path seems to overlap with the trajectory of the Osaka Jiji Shimpo that I researched. There are parts where I deliberately express that with the word "second-rate" or the word "loser."

However, the Osaka Jiji Shimpo did not forget the Fukuzawa spirit. If it had forgotten it, it wouldn't even be second-rate, so I think its glory and downfall are connected to that. Yukichi Fukuzawa was no longer there, but because that spirit remained until the end, I believe there were various struggles.

However, at the timing of 1936, the "Jiji Shimpo" was dissolved once, and then the Tokyo Nichi Nichi (Mainichi) took the form of holding the title, partly due to the relationship with Shingoro Takaishi and others, but it had effectively ceased publication. One could say that not having experienced the war was a strength of the Jiji Shimpo. That is why, after the war, it came to the revival of the Jiji Shimpo in a new era, wiping away the era of war.

In that regard, what was Hisakichi Maeda's intention in reviving the Jiji Shimpo?

Hisakichi Maeda was likely a thorough rationalist. He prioritized his own interests and was not the type to willingly take a loss, even if he took a detour. Regarding his move to Tokyo before the war to reconstruct Jiji, he claimed he was reluctantly asked by Ichizō Kobayashi and Shingorō Takaishi, but I suspect that at the core, he had the ambition to plant his flag in Tokyo.

The fact that he revived Jiji after the war was also likely driven by a utilitarian motive to seize newspaper paper allocations by using Jiji's name value.

However, Hisakichi Maeda was more than just that; he likely had a sense of reverence for Tokyo, the center, or the Keio network. I think his relationship with Takuzō Itakura is very symbolic. In an interview with the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association after Itakura's death, Maeda spoke quite ill of him, saying things like, 'He's difficult.' On the other hand, Itakura also said things like, 'He's a merchant, after all. He has to be someone with a head for something.'

In reality, however, Maeda continued to treat Itakura as the editor-in-chief of Sankei even after Jiji merged in 1955. Meanwhile, Itakura realized the sale of the land in Otemachi, which Maeda could not do, by having Shigeru Yoshida mediate.

Even within the currently struggling Fuji Media Holdings, the Sankei Building is the core of their earnings. It is historically interesting that Takuzō Itakura, who had no business sense at all, built that foundation, and it is possible to see it as a miraculous realization of mutual understanding or respect.

The post-war Jiji Shimpo has not been researched at all, and there are parts where a common understanding of its position has not been sufficiently established. I believe that Jiji Shimpo within the post-war political and discourse space had characteristics in a different sense from Fukuzawa's era.

Mr. Tsushima, how do you think the fact that the post-war Jiji Shimpo, led by Masanori Ito, Takuzō Itakura, and others, is positioned as one of the origins of Sankei connects to the current character of Sankei?

Before going to the post-war period, Jiji's management deteriorated rapidly during the Shōwa Depression starting around 1929. At that time, Ikinoshin Kadono served as chairman. Kadono was the person who took over all three of Fukuzawa's enterprises, serving as the acting President of Keio University and the chairman of Kojunsha. This person is actually a relative on my mother's side.

The reason Jiji collapsed in that era was that management could not be sustained just by saying serious things. So, of course, they did cartoons and such, but I feel that the reason for the collapse was that this tendency became extreme.

Therefore, when Hisakichi Maeda revived it after the war, I think he emphasized aspects other than that quite strongly. Takuzō Itakura's son, Jōji Itakura, served as the president of Mitsui Bank. I believe Maeda and Itakura emerged because post-war management could not be sustained without people who think about management rather than just those who prioritize ideals.

Regarding the Sankei Shimbun, I joined the company in 1976, and at that time, it was quite a major newspaper. It created the 'Seiron' (Fair Argument) column and at one point had a legal battle over freedom of speech with the Japanese Communist Party. This was a lawsuit brought against them, but in short, it is a newspaper that has experimentally tried to create a 'Seiron' line and a conservative discourse space, and the current paper is the same.

Maeda was not originally of that ideology, but he created it in a way that the Fukuzawa spirit could not be inherited without creating such a newspaper. I was a reporter for 40 years and maintained the same stance, and I think the current reporters also feel that way; that is the Sankei Shimbun.

So, in that sense, I believe that the ideas of Fukuzawa, an Enlightenment thinker, have been inherited quite a bit by the post-war Jiji Shimpo or Sankei Shimbun.

Mr. Ariyama, how do you view the post-war Jiji Shimpo?

I haven't researched it properly, but there is a major trend of newly emerging newspapers after the war, and that is very difficult to understand. In short, it's the issue of paper allocation and dummy companies. Companies like Asahi also published newspapers through dummies to get paper and then diverted it, so while the actual situation is hard to grasp, there is no doubt there was reflection on the war, and so they created new newspapers. It is unclear whether that part inherited the pre-war lineage or not.

Returning to the pre-war period for a moment, in the 1920s, Jiji Shimpo expanded into various businesses such as publishing, not just the newspaper. I believe we should properly evaluate that. Since Fukuzawa wrote in his essays that different media must be used for different purposes, there is no doubt it was managed based on the ideas Fukuzawa held. We need a perspective that views Jiji Shimpo not just as a newspaper, but as a publishing business as well.

Tokutomi Sohō also ran publishing businesses like the Kokumin Shimbun and Min'yūsha. That was based on the idea that one must enlighten using various media, and he was conscious of Yukichi Fukuzawa's ideas.

Earlier, we talked about it being an extension of speech, but I think Fukuzawa was a person who would use any means to enlighten. One was Jiji Shimpo, another was Keio University, and yet another was the social venue Kojunsha. Including Keio University and Kojunsha, he continued to put out more and more branches to spread his ideas to the world. I think he published the newspaper as one of those means, as a pillar of that effort.

In his essays, Fukuzawa says that newspapers are published daily, and through them, intentions are formed. He also says that by publishing opinions summarized in something like a monthly magazine at certain points, one connects them to public opinion. In modern terms, that is like a media mix, and Fukuzawa was thinking about such things properly. I think that was a very sharp observation for that time.

That's why he published so many books. In that era, there were few people who published that many books. He used media as a means to spread his ideas. I think he had the idea from the beginning that he had to create various forms of media.

He recognized well that a newspaper is media. I think Fukuzawa understood best the awareness that media is, in short, something that mediates in order to enlighten.

Therefore, he was a person with very high sensitivity to how things would be read, how they should be written, whether to include furigana, or whether to write in hiragana.

Fukuzawa used the term "Jinmin Kōtsū" (in Transition of People's Way of Thinking). In short, in modern terms, it is a kind of communication; it means assuming an audience or reader, acting in response to them, and through that, using material entities like magazines, newspapers, books, or public speaking and social interaction in a broad sense.

I think the perspective of positioning Jiji Shimpo within that is an important point when considering Jiji Shimpo in modern Japan.

As you said, there are editorials that say a newspaper is something that catches the eyes of people all over Japan all at once on that day and becomes trash the next day. But if you publish it as a book, it will influence people over many years, soak in, and change them. So, he said things to the effect that the work of truly creating a citizenry is the job of publishing.

I heard that Ms. Odaka is also interested in the various projects and themes of Jiji Shimpo.

At the News Park (Japan Newspaper Museum), even during my time as director, there were Jiji Shimpo exhibits for every special exhibition. This time, curators Michie Kudo and Yuki Suganaga confirmed them, so I will introduce the main ones.

First, manga. The special exhibition was held before my appointment, but as mentioned earlier, Jiji Shimpo has the credit of introducing it from the US to Japan as a way to "convey difficult things to many people in an easy-to-understand way."

In a company announcement dated February 6, 1890, the translation of "caricature" as "manga" was the first appearance in Japan; it is now the world's "MANGA." Japan's first daily newspaper four-panel manga was "Hyakkanme no Chikaramochi" (July 4 of the same year), which Fukuzawa's nephew, Ippyō Imaizumi, brought back from the US. Jiji Shimpo's first original four-panel manga, "Mugen no Undō" (September 27 of the same year), was also introduced on NHK's "Chiko-chan ni Shikareru!" Later, Rakuten Kitazawa was invited to create the "Jiji Manga" column on January 12, 1902, which became a Sunday supplement in 1921.

Another feature is that it contributed early on to growth as a "newspaper advertising" medium. With the talent of Hikojirō Nakamigawa, it is said to have achieved the purification of advertising, especially as a measure against criticism of exaggerated advertising. Famous is the "Message to Merchants" on October 16, 1883, which was a far-sighted appeal for the utility of newspaper advertising as a framework to support a fair and neutral news organization.

The "25th Anniversary Commemorative Issue" special feature on March 1, 1907, had many advertisements from Fukuzawa's students who had succeeded in the business world, and it was 224 pages long, the largest in Japanese newspaper history. The original paper is kept in the storage vault, but for the "Meiji 150th Anniversary Exhibition" in 2018, we carefully transported and exhibited the actual item.

I wonder how they distributed it.

Looking at the actual item, I feel the same way. Regarding war reporting, in 1936, the year Jiji Shimpo suspended publication, it issued "Jiji Shimpo Photo News" showing the state of the city after the February 26 Incident. "Photo News" was a street medium with a few lines of current affairs commentary attached to news photos, like today's digital signage. In 2019, the News Park opened a special exhibition called "War and Post-war Bulletin Boards," showing photo news issued by various papers in the early Shōwa era. Since it was for the masses, it is also pointed out that it fanned the people's fighting spirit.

The Jiji Shimpo materials go up to 1936, edited by the Domei Tsushin photo department and published by Jiji Shimpo. They show the state of the imperial capital under martial law, and also tell the story of Charlie Chaplin eating his favorite tempura when he visited Japan.

In disaster reporting, in the 2023 special exhibition "100 Years since the Great Kantō Earthquake," it was introduced as a company whose building was destroyed by fire. On the afternoon of the day after the earthquake, with the cooperation of Nippon Typewriter Co., they printed and distributed thousands of extras using hand-printing machines. From the September 12 issue, they published a four-page newspaper using a newly installed rotary press, carrying essays and satirical cartoons about the damage and reconstruction of the Ansei Great Edo Earthquake, and they even did the photoengraving in-house. They continued publishing within the Keio University Mita Campus buildings.

During this great earthquake, an incident occurred where Captain Masahiko Amakasu of the Tokyo Gendarmerie and others murdered the anarchist Sakae Ōsugi, his wife Noe Itō, and Ōsugi's nephew. The Metropolitan Police Department, under instructions from the Ministry of War, prevented the leakage of the incident, but Jiji Shimpo reported it in the September 25 issue. Regarding the massacre of Koreans, an article on October 23 pointed out that while rumors were rampant, the military and police might have also encouraged them.

Finally, regarding the 2023 special exhibition "Diversity: What Media Changed, What Changed Media." I planned it myself, and a book version is currently in progress. We also introduced the 1885 editorial "On Japanese Womanhood," in which Fukuzawa preached the importance of improving women's status centered on equal rights for men and women.

Currently in Japan, DEI declarations by companies and organizations and the selective dual-surname system for married couples are hot topics, but Fukuzawa proposed creating a new surname by taking parts from both the man's and woman's surnames after marriage. We also borrowed and exhibited Fukuzawa's handwritten draft of "Couples Creating a Surname" from the Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Archives. Among the approximately 330 exhibits, I think it attracted the most attention.

Fukuzawa also wrote editorials asking men to share the hardships of their wives' pregnancy and childbirth, and for fathers to participate in childcare and education, right? Having lost his father early, helped his mother with housework, and grown up in a female-dominated family, I think Fukuzawa also understood the meaning of "care labor" that supports society. Jiji Shimpo was also the first newspaper in Japan to create a menu column ("What Shall We Have Today?").

I think Jiji Shimpo was always conscious of what media should be. Also, in terms of discourse, there was the story of the Amakasu Incident, but I think it was a newspaper that took pride in having said what should be said at key points.

What's interesting is that there was an editor-in-chief named Motoaki Ishikawa who succeeded Yukichi Fukuzawa. When he was compiling the Fukuzawa Zenshū (The Collected Works of Fukuzawa) in the Taishō era, he included a note saying, "I have run Jiji Shimpo following the teachings of Yukichi Fukuzawa, and that is why I wrote this editorial at the time of the High Treason Incident," insisting that "I want to include at least this" in the Fukuzawa Zenshū.

I think the interesting thing about Jiji Shimpo is that they had a pride that "this is the one thing we are protecting, this we will not yield," and an awareness that there was a single thread running through it. Even in the editorial on the day it ceased publication in 1936, it wrote that rather than selling itself and bending its pen, it would resolutely break its pen.

Finally, I would like to ask everyone about the "contemporary significance of Jiji Shimpo."

About 15 or 20 years ago, there was a thought within both the Sankei Shimbun and within Keio to revive Jiji Shimpo once more. The president of Sankei at the time said, "Let's think about what kind of thing we can make," but no matter how we thought about it, no difference emerged between the current Sankei's 'Seiron' line and the Jiji Shimpo of Fukuzawa's era.

In short, even if we try to create some new media in the Fukuzawa style or Jiji Shimpo style, we cannot differentiate it from the Sankei Shimbun we are making now. I take pride in the fact that we, the Sankei Shimbun, are creating our pages by inheriting the ideas of Jiji Shimpo to that extent.

As for the way of expressing "Fukuzawa said it should be like this," in short, Jiji Shimpo might have already done everything that should be done. From the perspective of us successors, Jiji Shimpo was a company that created so many types of media that we can't even think of more. I am very much looking forward to seeing what kind of media the younger generation will create in this age of SNS that surpasses that.

Listening to everyone's stories, I thought that Jiji Shimpo might look quite different when viewed from Osaka.

In the Osaka Jiji Shimpo, for example, there was a woman named Kyōko Shimoyama who specialized in undercover reporting in disguise and was called the "disguise reporter"; she was a pioneer among female reporters. Or Hideo Nanba, who was the head of the social news department in the mid-Taishō era, was almost a communist and was a tough character who fled to Moscow during the March 15 Incident in the early Shōwa era; there were all sorts of people.

I don't know if that can be called the Fukuzawa spirit, but the vessel of Jiji Shimpo had an extraordinary diversity or multilayered nature. That's why Kyōko Shimoyama, who was called a problematic woman for being sexually loose, was able to do what she did because it was the Osaka Jiji. Even if Hideo Nanba supported a union's labor dispute, if he called it social justice, it could be interpreted as the Fukuzawa spirit in various ways. I think there is also an aspect of Jiji Shimpo as such a vessel.

If I were to forcibly link it to the present, it could probably serve as material for thinking about issues like SNS. In the 20th century, the theory of social responsibility of mass media emerged, and through that, a kind of media common sense appeared, saying that freedom of expression is not unlimited. Current newspaper reporters, including myself, have been educated within that.

However, looking at the recent Hyogo Prefecture gubernatorial election where SNS was rampant, if newspapers don't write about something, they are criticized with "Why don't you write about it?" and the common sense of "not writing" itself has become a negative.

Here, if there were an independent and self-reliant superstar like Fukuzawa, what would he have written using the vessel of Jiji Shimpo? Thinking about that could be a thought experiment in the modern era where the existence of superstars is not tolerated.

Originally, "shimbun" was a translation of "news," but in Japan, we have become unable to distinguish between "shimbun-shi" (the physical newspaper) and "shimbun" (the news). I think, "Since a newspaper is news, it doesn't have to be a newspaper printed on paper." No matter what it's on, it's news.

And since newspaper companies produce news, they don't have to supply news by printing it on newspaper paper. That tendency has already clearly emerged. Everyone has been confused until now, but the news and the physical newspaper are different, and they are also different from the newspaper company. I think we are reaching a situation where we can see what news is in reverse.

However, the important thing then is the question of how management can be sustained. Until now, news could be produced by obtaining income from subscription fees and advertising fees. Now, if paper disappears and there is no advertising, it's a very troublesome problem, and that's probably what current newspaper managers and news agency executives are most troubled by.

So, I think the important thing is the question of how to balance management with the production of discourse, reporting, and news in a broad sense. As I mentioned earlier, there was a turning point after the Russo-Japanese War. People like Tokutomi Sohō converted, and 'Nippon' died for its ideals. Jiji Shimpo was the one that chose a different path, so in thinking about that, I think Jiji Shimpo still has an unexpectedly contemporary significance.

We already know the path Jiji Shimpo took, but I think it is an important material for considering a path. I believe there might have been "buried possibilities" rather than just seeing the past as something that is over.

I had the opportunity to participate in a roundtable discussion for the May 2014 issue of this magazine titled "The Present State of Newspapers." The total circulation of daily newspapers (according to the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association) has gone from 45.4 million copies then to 26.6 million copies ten years later.

What I find serious is the reality that even before "newspapers," people have started getting information from SNS that suits their tastes, moving away from neutral "news," and the role of journalism is being undervalued. Even though it is still news organizations—newspapers, news agencies, and broadcasting stations—that support the information distribution structure in the digital space through the publication of electronic versions, distribution to online news, and SNS sharing by people, this fact is not known, and they are even ridiculed as "old media."

Earlier, there was talk of Fukuzawa's media mix, and modern news organizations are also engaged in activities in different forms, such as electronic versions including video distribution and podcasts. In that sense, Fukuzawa, who used Jiji Shimpo as a foundation to issue publications and develop businesses multi-layered for people of various levels while also changing the method of expression, was a person who understood the importance of "communication design." I believe that tradition will be inherited in future newspaper management.

Finally, I will talk about "refinement and dignity." Fukuzawa admonished Jiji Shimpo reporters against the "pen of a closet brave" (kage-benkei no fude)—writing things that one could not say to the person's face. Masanori Ito, who was the head of the editorial department at Jiji Shimpo, carried this over when he became the first chairperson of Kyodo News and the first chairperson of the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association. When creating the association's Canon of Journalism (old version), he included: "Criticism of individuals should be limited to what can be said directly in that person's presence."

This must be an admonition for each of us in a discourse space overflowing with anonymous slander in an SNS society where all 100 million people have become media. I think it is a time for the media to make an effort to have people think about discourse and refinement.

Also, Keio University established the X Dignity Center last summer, and with support from the Yomiuri Shimbun, activities have begun to explore "the nature of human 'dignity'" in the AI era. Here too, I feel the flow of Jiji Shimpo's discourse and business.

As mentioned in our talk, Yukichi Fukuzawa was always conscious of what a newspaper should be, and that led to various attempts and trial and error within Jiji Shimpo. There were eras when it went well and eras when it faced setbacks.

Even during its dormant periods, talk of reviving Jiji Shimpo has come up many times only to disappear, and each time the question was asked, "Then what is the new media that can display the Jiji Shimpo sign?" and in the end, it was decided it couldn't be done.

In that sense, Jiji Shimpo exists as a "treasured sword that is never drawn." People occasionally look at it and debate how they might draw it, only to put it away again. But each time, it allows us to ask "what should media be?" As a good teaching material in a sense, I felt that its value will persist by continuing to be an existence that Keio University looks back on from time to time.

Thank you very much for your time today.