Participatory Journalism in Japan.

(From Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry (JJTI))

Byline: Yukawa Tsuruaki

Blogs are breaking new journalistic ground in the United States. In South Korea, a public participatory news site called "OhmyNews" has become established as a press organ. In Japan too, following the trends in these two closest countries, participatory news sites have started to appear, although they remaining quite fragile.

The blogging boom reached Japan over a year and a half ago, and the number of active bloggers has grown to almost one million. However, Japanese blogs tend to be rather miscellaneous and personal, in the style of a diary. In the United States, certain blogs have established a reputation for their journalistic expression in articles. Some have even received press passes to the White House or other government agencies. Japan, however, has yet to produce a blog which is widely recognized as real journalism.

There is, however, a participatory news site in Japan named "JANJAN" where anyone can register and become a journalist, publishing their writing on the site. Before setting it up, the founder of this site closely observed the South Korean OhmyNews site - in fact, the site features an operating system identical to its predecessor. While OhmyNews has over 30,000 contributors, JANJAN has less than 200. OhmyNews has hundreds of articles contributed per day and is recognized as a press organization, as it is a member of the press club and has been granted a exclusive interview with the president. JANJAN, on the other hand, only receives about 20 contributions a day and is largely unknown to the wider public. OhmyNews is regarded as the main architect of the election of President Roh Moo-hyun, whereas JANJAN has yet to show its influence in society.

Much better known in Japan is "livedoor PJ News " (PJ stands for "public journalist"), despite being a latecomer. This citizen journalist site is hosted by the major Internet portal company, livedoor. Although the set up is almost identical to that of its progenitor, the site has grabbed the spotlight for being hosted by livedoor, the company which gained attention in economic circles for its attempted takeover of a professional baseball team and a radio station.

Last summer, the site started to recruit in-house journalists, and advertised for citizen journalists in November. From early this year, articles written by the citizen journalists started to appear on the site. The original intention was to have around 40 in-house journalists and 300 citizen journalists, but so far the site only has a few in-house writers and more than 100 registered citizen journalists. There are only a handful of postings each day. The project manager, who spoke so enthusiastically about the ...