[Special Feature: Changing Media and Journalism] Roundtable Discussion: News Today and Tomorrow

As digital media has evolved and the media environment has shifted, I believe the changes in news production and consumption over the last decade or so, accompanying the growth of social media, have been significant.

What exactly is happening on the front lines of news creation? How are the ways of making and delivering news changing? And how are individual journalists or journalism organizations responding to these changes? Furthermore, I would like to consider with everyone today what has changed—and what has not—regarding how we perceive and think about news and journalism.

Additionally, how the relationship between journalism/media and society, as well as politics and democracy, is changing with digitalization as a catalyst is an important point of discussion.

First, regarding changes in how news is made: how is digitalization affecting the organizations and individual journalists who have traditionally carried Japanese journalism? I would like to start by asking Mr. Hatta of Nikkei about the impact at the organizational level. Nikkei was quick to respond to digitalization by launching its digital edition.

In the mid-2000s, I was reporting on the media situation in the United States. In the U.S., it was already becoming common to view all news on the internet.

At that time, Nikkei had been running the free "NIKKEI NET" for about 10 years, but only 30% of the articles appearing in the print newspaper were distributed online; the rest could only be read in print. Similar to the U.S., reader demand to read all newspaper articles online was rising in Japan. On the other hand, there was a debate about whether it was right to continue distributing everything for free if we moved it all to the web.

If we opened up all news to the web for free according to customer needs, would the business truly be viable relying solely on being free—that is, on advertising revenue? Another point, which is more important: I have worked for a newspaper company and been a reporter for nearly 20 years, and information is the result of reporting that takes considerable time and cost. We felt that readers should bear a certain amount of compensation for that.

Based on that awareness, the decision at the time was to put all articles published in the newspaper online. However, we reached the conclusion that we would ask for some contribution in the form of a subscription fee.

Currently, the Nikkei Shimbun is evaluated as being the most successful in terms of a paid digital edition at the national newspaper level. Will the future of the Nikkei Shimbun involve a gradual transition from print media entirely to digital?

As our current corporate management policy, we aim to become a "Technology Media" company. This means actively adopting new technologies to realize things that are more useful for our readers and customers.

To be honest, it is difficult to increase the circulation of print media from here on. Japan's population is also shrinking. In particular, the Nikkei Shimbun has a large reader base of working professionals, and we have to think about how to keep them reading even after they retire. One answer is digital. For example, if you read the newspaper on an iPad, you can make the font quite large. By using rich graphics and videos, it might be easier for university students or new employees who are less familiar with the economy to understand. We have a sense of crisis that if we don't continue such efforts, we won't be chosen and won't survive.

In the transition from print to digital, are there any major changes in how news is produced?

Before that, I think there are things that must not change. Whether it is print or digital, I believe the role of media consists of three things: gathering information, organizing information, and delivering information. These three roles probably won't change even a millimeter for the media, even if it is digitalized. Among those, what we want to value most is conveying accurate facts. Sincerity—integrity, in English. In other words, we will maintain strict quality assurance.

On the other hand, there are naturally parts that must change. While the three roles remain the same, I want to change the "method" flexibly. For example, President Trump and Prime Minister Abe are meeting today; in the newspaper, we write "Bei Trump Daitoryo" (U.S. President Trump). That's fine for a print newspaper, but when distributed online, you would normally write "Amerika no Trump Daitoryo." This is a big difference. Even Google's search engine won't pick up "Bei." It may seem like a small detail, but such things become important.

Article length is another example. Some people in the company think that because the internet has infinite space, we should post long articles that don't fit in print, but there is a bit of a misunderstanding. Looking at the reading data for the Nikkei Shimbun, the average daily reading time for the digital edition is about three minutes shorter than for print. This means readers want to know a lot of information more compactly. This leads to the hypothesis that it might be better to make articles shorter for digital.

It is necessary to think about how to produce news while overlapping the characteristics of digital technology with reader needs. However, the core parts remain unchanged.

Next, I'd like to consider changes for individual journalists. Mr. Hatachi, you moved from the Asahi Shimbun to BuzzFeed Japan. What was the reason for that?

I left the Asahi Shimbun and moved to BuzzFeed at the beginning of my fifth year. There were two reasons. One was that, as a reporter, my articles weren't reaching people of my own generation. Even though I have many friends with relatively high information sensitivity, in four full years, I was never told "I read your article." I think part of it was that I was mainly writing for local editions, but I began to feel it was meaningless if my own generation wasn't reading them, and I thought it might be better to move to the online media that those people interact with.

Another aspect is the way reporters at major media outlets work. Following issues like death from overwork, questions are being raised recently about reporters' working styles and harassment. As a worker, I was also feeling the limits of the so-called "night-attack, morning-rush" reporting style, where you work without even time to sleep.

After moving to a digital-only media outlet, did your reporting methods or writing style change?

Basically, it's the same. The actions of meeting people, listening to them, reporting, and turning that into an article haven't changed at all. However, not being a member of the press club for administrative, police, or fire department reporting is quite a barrier, and there are many cases where I can't reach primary sources. Due to staffing issues, there has certainly been an increase in the style of relying on what newspaper companies—the primary sources—have written and summarizing that further in a cited format.

About how many reporters are there at BuzzFeed Japan?

In the news department, there are about a dozen people, including those who also serve as editors.

Does an editor check the article after you've reported and written it?

That hasn't changed either. It might differ by company even in online media, but we basically have a system where articles go through a desk, whom we call editors.

Has your work-life balance changed?

When I was a junior employee at Asahi, leaving the assigned jurisdiction was basically prohibited. Working on Saturdays and Sundays was also quite frequent. Local bureaus were very short-staffed, but after changing jobs, the situation where I couldn't even take a day off has improved dramatically.

What about the reporting you want to do?

I can do that now as well. Basically, I am not given instructions. My beats aren't strictly decided either; it's a style where I move and write on my own. Unlike newspaper companies where beats are divided by government agency, it's nimble—or rather, relatively flexible—and I can cross various themes. I don't think it's just a matter of it being online media, but I feel it's a very easy environment to report in.

Mr. Ogiue, you are well-acquainted with both the worlds of broadcasting and online digital media, and you have commented on media in various publications. What are your thoughts on the changes in journalism or news production due to digitalization?

I am not a reporter and I don't create news myself, but I was running something that called itself a news site individually more than 10 years ago. It was 2003, the so-called "Year One of Blogging." At that time, there was no Twitter or Facebook, but my awareness of the problem was that while there was various interesting content in the world, there was no good "flow." So, I operated it individually as a volunteer to become a platform that generates such flow.

However, as time passed, content became richer, many people were able to upload easily, and SNS platforms simpler than blogs emerged. On the other hand, through things like Twitter, "flow" began to be generated daily to an excessive degree. Also, when editor-like roles that could edit existing things into a certain form—like Togetter or NAVER—became possible, there was no longer much need to introduce things in the form of a news site.

Therefore, looking only at these last dozen or so years, the internet society itself has actually changed significantly. Because of that speed of flow, or because we can send and receive data on a larger scale than before, rich content like images and videos can "buzz" (become a hot topic online). Now, how to capture instantaneous attention online has become a challenge for online media. Recently, there has been a movement among various newspaper companies to upload viral movies to Twitter for even 10 seconds so they can be viewed without clicking.

On the other hand, the younger generation in particular doesn't search on Google or Yahoo; they search directly on individual sites like pixiv, YouTube, or Instagram. If they do that, then "what isn't there doesn't exist," so every company has to have its own version of media on those platforms. Now, I tell various media outlets, "First, you must have a YouTube channel dedicated to news and have YouTubers for each station."

In such an environment, you have continued "SYNODOS."

Rather than covering the lack of flow that used to exist, I wanted to improve the quality of "stock," so I launched "SYNODOS" (at the time, "SYNODOS JOURNAL").

"SYNODOS" is basically treated like super-slow news written by researchers. We call ourselves academic journalism, but instead of responding daily to news that many people might be interested in because it's a hot topic, we respond thoroughly over a longer timespan, like a monthly magazine. Researchers have studied that news for 10 or 20 years, and they might be looking at that news with a timespan of 100, 200, or sometimes 1,000 years. I created "SYNODOS" because I felt that for timely things, we dared to need a medium that is read most slowly. To deliver more reliable information, there are truths that can only be delivered with thousands or tens of thousands of characters, and I have continued with the thought that it is important to put such things on the web so they can be searched on Google.

When you make things easy to understand and brief, things like pseudoscience and pseudo-history tend to prevail. I had a desire to create a platform based on certain knowledge that is not like that, provide information firmly from there, and play a role in making information on the web better. For that reason, I created "SYNODOS," which increases stock by only one article a day amidst an excess of flow.

That is a very interesting point. Until now, the way news was made was to some extent institutionalized and patterned, and there were ways of dividing time or expanding diversity within that. Because digitalization broke that once, there are parts where the possibility of making news and practicing journalism in a different way than before is opening up.

That's right. I think the influence of existing media has actually increased because of the internet. Comparing PV (page view) counts as websites, sites operated by major newspaper companies are still mega-sites. However, I feel that they haven't actually been able to utilize the capital and mobility unique to such major sites yet, so I have wanted to supplement that space ourselves.

One awareness of the problem I had when I launched "SYNODOS" was that when there is an educational issue or a crime, a reporter covers it and writes an article, and within that, expert comments are included. They talk for about an hour and it's one or two lines, and to be honest, there are parts where the way it's summarized makes you tilt your head from the perspective of specialized knowledge.

In that case, if the flow of knowledge changes by interviewing that expert directly for an hour about this news and turning it into a manuscript, wouldn't it be better for the expert to transmit it? I wanted to create a medium where specialized knowledge is not neglected but rather picked up.

Next, I'd like to change the perspective and think about news recipients. How will the relationship between news creators and recipients change due to digitalization?

Mr. Hatachi, you said that during your time as a newspaper reporter, your friends didn't read your articles. Since moving to BuzzFeed, do you have a sense that your news readers have changed?

There is a comment section, so reactions are visualized. There were articles that went online during my newspaper days, but with BuzzFeed, the URL includes my name, so if you put my name in the URL, you can see all the articles I've written on the web.

Using measurement tools, I can also see in numbers how much the shares have grown. Not only that, I can see what wording was used when it was shared, receive feedback from the reader side, and connect that to the next article.

Conversely, things can go up in flames immediately, so of course there is the fear of being attacked. Even so, I perceive the fact that I can communicate as something very positive.

Are there cases where such reader reactions trigger or are utilized for the next theme or reporting?

Yes, there are. Not stopping at so-called information provision, I have experienced many cases where readers tell me there are examples like this, or experts share that they have this perspective, and I proceed with further in-depth reporting.

Mr. Hatta, compared to when print media was central, do you feel any change in the reactions of the Nikkei Digital Edition reader base or the reader base itself?

The reader profile has changed significantly. Speaking only of the digital edition, in early spring, one in four new subscribers is in their 20s. And one in four is female. It is shifting that much toward being young and female.

Managers and executives in their 40s to 60s are still a large reader base, but I want to face not only them but also young people and women who are the core readers of the future. If the reader profile is changing, we have to think about the information necessary for those people and write in a necessary way.

Also, as Mr. Ogiue said, whether it's Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, customers won't come unless we put news in those places anyway, so we always put it there.

Regarding reactions, opinions like "Don't write inaccurate things" still come in for the Nikkei brand, so I feel once again that expectations are high.

On the other hand, how do you view online-only news media specializing in the economy, such as "NewsPicks"? Are they rivals? Or are they media developing in a different world?

We refer to things like their presentation where they are useful. I think they are indeed skillful. On the other hand, one big question we have is whether they themselves are producing news as primary producers. For example, when we send a push notification for a scoop, about five minutes later, a NewsPicks push notification is sent with the headline we created. It says it's Nikkei Shimbun news, but I often wonder, "What are these people doing without making news themselves?"

In "NewsPicks," the comments of various people themselves become content. Looking at it recently, it's so decentralized that quite a few people are looking only at these comments without reading the original news or commentary. To be honest, I don't really understand what is gained from that.

By the way, how about "Gendai Business" or "Toyo Keizai Online"?

I'm looking at them, all of them (laughs). You might think they are competitors, but I think it's also an ecosystem. They supplement in various places parts that we, as a mega-site, cannot do. I want to imitate parts where they are "skillful." But I don't feel like I'm in a head-to-head battle with them. From the readers' perspective, I think it's a mutually complementary relationship.

Mr. Hatachi, how do you perceive the surrounding online media?

I think all media are rivals. The scale of reporters can't match existing media, but I'm always moving with the desire to put out scoops faster, from a different perspective, and sometimes uniquely. It's no different from when I was competing with other newspaper companies and TV stations during my Asahi days.

No matter what the media is, it will be read more if the article is picked up by Yahoo! Japan topics first or if a news app push comes first. Regardless of whether it's online media or existing media, while they complement each other, don't they have such a tense relationship? However, in breaking news, I'm always thinking about doing it as fast as possible and from as different an angle as possible, but it's hard to compete with existing media that have reporting networks nationwide. So, we call it "1.5 news" or something similar, where we report ahead on themes that are likely to become hot topics or think of other angles. We sometimes call ourselves "guerrilla media," but that's how we fight.

I'd like to move the conversation a bit more toward the recipient side. How do you think the literacy of recipients, such as readers and viewers, has changed due to digitalization? In your recent book "All Newspapers are 'Biased'," you presented the concept of "horizontal literacy," which I found interesting.

I think media literacy theory up until the 90s was linked to civic movements, with the idea that citizens should not be controlled by power—let's not be deceived by mass media, let's not be deceived by state propaganda.

But when people share various emotions or wrong information, there are naturally movements where residents spread things by word of mouth, like the massacre of Koreans during the Great Kanto Earthquake, and this can often happen especially on the internet.

When that happens, if you are only braced to be careful of the state, it can lead to a kind of anti-intellectualism and create another form of populism. In other words, doubt the current monopoly of intellect and believe this—and there are many cases where information flowing on the web is wrong; it has its merits and demerits.

Then, for such a flow of information, shouldn't we acquire literacy not just vertically but also horizontally? It's not something an individual can defend against alone. In other words, it's impossible to say "don't trust your friends" or "become an expert in other fields." For example, to acquire literacy about the problem of pseudoscience or historical revisionism, you have to study considerably. But people are busy.

However, since it's entirely possible that the direction of a discussion flow conducted in limited time is wrong, I want to change the "cascade," the direction of the discussion. It's unavoidable that people go in the direction that's easy to go, but we can build a weir saying "don't go just there." It's unavoidable that hoaxes flow, but we can say "that's a hoax" and discard those hoaxes one by one. I call it responsive journalism, responding in a horizontal relationship to situations where hoaxes or wrong opinions are being formed, saying "No, isn't it like this?" This is "horizontal literacy."

Putting out the first news is, of course, the job of mass media and news people, but I think the role of editors, critics, and personalities is to say, "Let's think about how to react with everyone."

A symbolic example is the issue of the discretionary work system, where Mitsuko Uenishi of Hosei University pointed out problems with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's data on Twitter, and multiple experts confirmed that was indeed the case, leading to an understanding of the problem. That is a fact seen from a certain research style, which is different from the reporting style of hitting up bureaucrats to get a statement. In other words, when people were talking about how the discretionary work system is inhumane, if you bring an angle from a different perspective like "how is it as a statistic in the first place?", you can change the flow of the discussion.

"Horizontal literacy" raises the issue that in this era where you are a recipient and at the same time a sender yourself, you must be conscious of literacy on both sides.

The subjects who change the flow of discussion can be people in organized journalism like newspaper companies, and it's also a role played by so-called intellectuals like Mr. Ogiue. Or more broadly, it's important for it to take root in political culture as media literacy-like know-how.

That's right. Media can connect with movements and act as an intermediary. The "#MeToo" movement is a good example. It is certainly true that movements arise through Twitter and major media outlets, making it easier for people to raise their voices and say "No." For example, if one in four people at "Nikkei Digital" are women, then perspectives such as human rights awareness are added to the economic scale.

I believe major media outlets need to do more than just analyze what is happening on SNS; they need to actively and constantly verify where they stand within a movement while disseminating information. In that sense, I think horizontal literacy is necessary everywhere.

Sites that spread fake news or partisan attacks that take things out of context are inevitable byproducts of democracy, but I believe the media must always be conscious of overcoming them.

In media studies, the term "frame" is often used to describe certain patterns of giving meaning to or interpreting events. Certain patterns emerge in the process of news production and consumption. However, since some things fall through the cracks, if social media plays a role in picking those things up, it serves an important function in diversifying frames.

On the other hand, social media also creates its own frames. Frames linked to certain movements are formed, creating a kind of binary opposition on social media.

Considering this, we must take the influence of social media into account in this day and age. Mr. Tsuda, how do you view the impact of the rise of social media on journalism or democracy?

Regarding online debate, I think there is a situation where people preferentially consume information that matches their own worldview in the form of cyber-cascades or filter bubbles. As a result, political dialogue becomes very difficult to establish.

For example, even with the recent Morikake issue, looking at the reactions on Twitter, people have startlingly different interpretations. As a result, they hurl insults at each other, but it doesn't lead to a constructive dialogue at all. When such completely different worldviews coexist and only distrust increases, the underlying sense of trust in society is not easily cultivated. Since things are categorized from the start—like "Asahi is like this" or "Sankei is like that"—even if fact-checking reports are done, we may end up in a situation where the fact-check itself is not believed.

However, compared to other countries, the influence of major media in Japan is very strong and the level of trust in mass media is high, so in that sense, I think we are still better off. For now, the majority of people in Japan probably don't go out of their way to check political information on the internet and make political posts. The percentage of people becoming radicalized, on both the right and the left, is likely not that high.

However, how will this move in the future? Recently, situations that were previously hard to believe have arisen, such as an active-duty Self-Defense Force officer shouting abuse at a member of the Diet, so there are parts I am very worried about.

You mean there is a concern that an atmosphere of tolerating or letting such radical behavior slide might spread.

This is something I struggle with myself. While I have a sense that the current situation is quite dangerous, I also have doubts that perhaps these are just events happening to occur in succession right now. It might be a so-called normalcy bias. When looking at the internet, so much information comes in that my own senses are immediately relativized, making it very difficult to judge. So, as a personal feeling, I find myself keeping a bit of a distance.

I feel that being able to turn that into a meta-perspective is a kind of intellectual privilege. For example, for the majority of people on Twitter, a world where having dozens or hundreds of followers is considered a lot, the awareness is that they are basically living in a private space that results in a collective. As you pointed out, I think only a minority of people are intentionally and consciously engaging in political communication.

However, I am currently doing network analysis on racism and sexism, and indeed, when the posts of a few opinion leaders are retweeted, the overall atmosphere and opinion are formed. This means that even if only a few people are doing it enthusiastically, if their posts are retweeted and viewed, that awareness permeates.

You mentioned frames earlier, and as in Erving Goffman's discussion, I believe specific frames reside in the actions themselves. For example, without understanding that parliamentary democracy cannot function if the opposition party doesn't oppose things in the first place, the frame that "the opposition party does nothing but oppose" spreads. Furthermore, the idea that saying such things is the correct political reaction becomes shared.

Moreover, it is precisely those who are not interested in political communication who learn such behaviors from somewhere and dismiss things with a single word like "That's just how it is." These are the people who are highly susceptible and through whom it spreads.

That is why it is necessary to deconstruct those frames and actions and provide alternative frames. To that end, we need to put specialized knowledge in more accessible places on the web. At the same time, we should also release raw data as much as possible. I think this parallelism is necessary. By resetting the agenda toward the direction of doing something about hate speech and LGBT discrimination, I believe it is necessary to keep saying that "what is wrong is wrong," even if it's called a "political correctness club."

But the internet is, in a sense, a flat space, so things are constantly relativized, and things that shouldn't be compared are immediately placed side-by-side, which I find very difficult. For example, if someone raises an issue saying "This is a problem," the reaction immediately comes back as "Well, you say that, but the side you support has these problems too."

But if you think about it, are that problem and the problem being discussed here things that should be compared? It gets swallowed up by pointing out double standards, and the discussion immediately goes in circles. Because communication on the internet is flat, sloppy historical revisionism and the work researchers have done for decades are immediately placed on the same level.

That's true. In that case, I think one mission is to prevent the "second lap" of the argument. Regarding the comfort women issue, there are websites like "Fight for Justice" established by historical researchers. For example, when a theme comes up, instead of engaging every time, you can just post a link and say "Read this first." Creating that kind of setup is one way.

Furthermore, there are themes that originally should not be debated. For example, things like STAP cells are matters to be carefully built up academically, not something to be debated. The same goes for historical revisionism.

It is precisely there that by leaving a kind of log stating "This point has already been verified in this way," we can deter such repetitions. By showing that log, we can share a "positive sense of weariness" that suggests we don't need to repeat this anymore, stop the discussion for a moment, and say "Let's change to a different frame."

While I think presenting academic findings that have been built up is effective, a trend of undermining the academic world itself has recently emerged.

In short, the movement claims that even researchers are ultimately partisan and can only have a narrow view. Therefore, what those people have built up is basically invalid—a movement to reject the accumulation of scholarship. Regarding KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research), some Diet members are now seeing it as a problem, and I think there is a trend of gradually undermining the foundation or trust of academic pursuits.

The fact that there is a movement like "Don't give KAKENHI to anti-Japanese scholars" is one thing we must be careful about from now on.

But, for example, regarding the incident where a Self-Defense Force officer shouted abuse at Diet member Konishi, "BuzzFeed" reported that there was a "Shut Up Incident" 80 years ago before the war. I thought that was wonderful.

I wrote that article. I believe one significance of internet media lies in reacting quickly to incidents like this.

Should I say it's like being a "firefighter"? I usually write articles with the awareness of wanting many people who are not at either the right or left extremes to know about the "somewhat strange atmosphere" drifting through the current era. I think it's very important to prevent the spread of wrong information and ideas by performing "initial firefighting" immediately after such problems occur.

On the other hand, fake news still exists and is a major problem in Japan. What do you think are the reasons why various countermeasures are not functioning well?

I once interviewed a producer of fake news in Japan. It was a site called "Republic of Korea Civil News" that posted anti-Korean hoax news. However, the person doing it had no sense of hate at all. It was a very simple structure: they tried to earn advertising revenue by scattering articles targeting people who like such information, but it wasn't profitable. So they stopped.

There are many similar curation sites on the internet now, and I believe the reason these sites use extreme headlines to scatter news that is close to fake is largely the same aspect of money-making as "Republic of Korea Civil News."

If that's the case, cutting off the monetization (earning revenue from free online services) of such sites becomes an important task. In other words, it's a problem of advertising. "Manga Village," which provided manga for free illegally, has been attracting attention, and it's the same thing. There is a problem on the side that was placing advertisements on "Manga Village."

If you cut off the source of income, those sites will disappear. That's why it's important to let advertisers know that they are placing ads on sites that are illegal or post hate and fakes.

Speaking of money, what concerns me is the problem of the people who go out and get primary information, as Mr. Hatta mentioned earlier. I think it's difficult for people to pay for digital subscriptions to general newspapers. When that happens, the strength of existing media will continue to weaken. I fear that the number of reporters who do the legwork, stationed at police stations or government offices to get information, will continue to decrease.

As the form of mass media becomes centered on the internet, how to maintain people who do the legwork to pick up information is a very important point when considering a healthy democracy.

That's absolutely right. The current movement toward digitalization is irreversible. As the environment changes significantly, I think each newspaper company will consider its response through individual judgments and decision-making. Some might say they can hold out without changing. But as pointed out, unless they change, there is a risk they won't be able to employ the field reporters who gather the information that is their treasure.

To be honest, change is painful. Even in our company, there are people who say, "My job is just to listen to people and send the manuscript. Someone else thinks of the headline." We are calling on them to try using a little wisdom to think of a clever headline or attach a clever photo, saying that if they take a proactive approach, more people will read it. The work of a journalist is constantly changing. This is irreversible, so it can't be helped. Unless we change ourselves, we will only destroy our own foundation. That is a matter of awareness for each individual journalist, not just the management of each company.

Mr. Hatachi, since you jumped out, aren't you doing various tasks by yourself compared to when you were at the "Asahi Shimbun"?

Yes. The effort put into an article has increased. Headlines and thumbnails are set by the individual reporter while checking the growth of the numbers in real-time.

That is becoming the standard way of working for journalists today. If you ask if it's okay for reporters at national newspapers like us to stay as we have been, the answer is no.

I also think there is an issue of whether reporters for internet media like us can access information sources. The barrier that you can't cover stories unless you are part of the existing media, starting with the press club system, is still large. Depending on the press conference, "internet media is prohibited from asking questions," and there are places where we can't enter in the first place. I feel that how to open those doors will also be a challenge for the future.

Skilled freelancers or people moving to web media are mostly reporters from major outlets who quit; there are almost no people who were raised in web media from scratch. In other words, in Japan, it's difficult to grow independently.

In such a situation, if the capacity of organizations to train reporters is going to decline, I don't know if it will be another academic institution or something like a journalism vocational school that takes on the role, but a training system with a different path than before will be necessary. Honestly, the current reality is that we have to rely on major organizations.

It is currently impossible for internet media to hire 40 or 100 new graduates like major media and provide solid training to raise them. Therefore, major outlets have become like training grounds for internet media reporters.

As was the case with myself, this is not a very good thing. With the strength of newspaper companies declining and the number of aspiring students decreasing, don't we need some kind of breakthrough? For example, creating a free Juku at Keio's Media Com.

Newspaper companies don't need to aim only for mega-sites. For example, like "Apital" for Asahi or "YomiDoctor" for Yomiuri, I think there is a way to raise human resources within sites specialized in specific fields like medical information. It's close to a kind of magazine model. Because major outlets have real estate management and other businesses in the background, they still have the strength to hold multiple sites as a whole even if there is a slight deficit.

In a micro-business style, team reporting of about 10 people for individual themes will be more in demand, regarding which department of the company handles which field. For example, a Japanese version of "Nature" would be fine, and they should be able to play a kind of hub role.

That's exactly right (laughs).

Actually, I also feel this deeply while teaching, but I think there is a part of society where the understanding of how much cost goes into making news and how important it is has not deepened. Therefore, I think sharing the basics of how news is made within society is necessary not only in universities but also more broadly in society. Listening to everyone's stories, I felt that journalism is something that needs to be nurtured within society rather than being carried by individual organizations.

One concern is that the problems of hate and fakes, which I thought were limited to the internet world, invaded the mass media last year. The "News Joshi" issue and the "Sankei Shimbun" false report about the rescue of a US soldier were particularly impressive. Because many people believed such information, there were parties involved who were hurt. Similar cases will likely emerge in the future. At that time, I feel we should create not just small "firefighting" efforts, but organizations or frameworks beyond organizations that show more solidarity and confront such things systematically.

Is it impossible for existing media outlets to form a scrum or cooperate with each other in that regard?

The Fact-Check Initiative Japan (FIJ) was established last year, and BuzzFeed is cooperating with it. However, major media outlets are not participating together, and not all internet media are participating either. While movements are emerging, they have not yet reached the point of solidarity.

I haven't particularly been conscious of it. I've heard about the Fact-Check Initiative, but since fact-checking has been the basis of our work for a long time, I honestly couldn't find a reason to commit to it.

Until now, I think there was basically a pattern where some media would set the agenda and others would follow, but when I spoke with someone from the "Mainichi Shimbun" recently, they said that even if they put effort into investigative reporting, others have stopped following it. While mass media has played a major role until now, I have a sense that its power is relatively declining.

I feel that the entities setting the agenda are also increasingly diffusing. For example, a blog post written on Hatena's "Anonymous Diary" can suddenly spread like wildfire. Seeing a situation where you don't know what will become the spark, I think the role of the media will naturally have to change.

Isn't it more necessary for the media side to clearly show that they confront fakes and hate? Otherwise, I fear that the invasion of fake news into the mass media, like last year, will continue. My image is like everyone building a breakwater together.

Journalism is a bearer of democracy. Including the awareness of news media regarding that point and specific methods of practice, I think the issue of journalism within democracy is an important theme.

Both "BuzzFeed" and "HuffPost" are Japanese versions within a global network, so they can translate and post international information as is, and those are known as very excellent articles. Things that previously only NHK or news agencies could do can now be done as an organization. Or, like the Panama Papers, there are attempts where journalist organizations from various countries participate as representatives.

On the other hand, even if Mainichi sets an agenda and it doesn't spread to other companies, researchers are looking at that investigative reporting. They will cite it in papers, saying "According to research by the Mainichi Shimbun, this data exists." NPOs engaged in social movements will also use it. Diet members will cite it to ask questions.

Today, I was able to hear truly valuable stories from various angles. When thinking about the current state and future image of digital media and journalism, we researchers tend to look only at negative things, but hearing today's talk, I also well understood the future possibilities on the positive side. Thank you very much for your time despite your busy schedule.