The Press: Old Japanese Customs

In Germany, U.S. officers have done their level best to purge German newspapers of all Nazi staff members even if the technical quality of the paper suffered. In Japan, where most newsmen had no philosophy but follow the leader, U.S. advisers have patiently tried to teach the press to reform itself. Last week in Japan the policy of patience was about played out. Said General Douglas MacArthur’s Civil Information Chief: “The period of nursing Japanese newspapers is at an end.”

The job of doing something about it fell to spare, moose-tall (6 ft. 5½ in.) Major Daniel Imboden, onetime San Luis Obispo (Calif.) newsman, who lectures Japanese editors and reporters three times weekly on how to run an honest newspaper. Last week Imboden put the finger on a long-cherished anachronism of Japanese newsdom: the all-powerful reporters’ clubs. He told them to reform or break up.

Organized by reporters on every governmental beat, they police the release of news. Often, at the request of a Government official, a club tells newspapers what not to print. Those who disobey are suspended, i.e., get no more news. The Finance Ministry, which controls the Government tobacco monopoly, keeps its club members well stocked with rationed cigarets. Members of the Transportation Ministry Reporters’ Club get free train passes. Other offices hand out tinned food, shoes, uniforms, etc. to club members.

Lawed from the Beat. Reporters or papers that won’t play ball are turned down for membership, are then denied admission to press conferences because they don’t “belong.” All but one or two of Japan’s 50-odd new postwar papers have been kept out. Jiji, Japan’s second-biggest news agency, with membership in only two clubs, has to feed its clients unofficial, secondhand yarns.

The U.S. so far has done nothing about the size of Japanese newspaper staffs, except to be astonished at them. Tokyo’s biggest paper, Asahi Shimbun (“Rising Sun Newspaper”), which has a 3,350,000 circulation, is only a two-page paper now—but has an editorial staff of 1,100, of whom 500 are reporters. Prewar Asahi had a fleet of 80 automobiles, 40 gliders, 20 airplanes. Now it is down to seven wheezy cars, and insists that one reason it needs a big staff is that its men take so long to get around. Reporters start at a meager 255 yen a month ($14), get frequent bonuses to help them break even.

Asahi has 26 photographers, keeps six reporters at Tokyo police headquarters, sends a task force of 40 to cover a session of the Japanese Diet. About one-fourth of Asahi’s reporters sometimes go a week at a time without breaking into print. Even so, Asahi thinks it needs more reporters for the day paper gets more plentiful, has scheduled September exams to pick them.