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type: Concept title: "2026-10-03 — Media landscape research sweep" description: First research sweep: system structure, ownership, circulation, trust, the left-right axis, and where left-leaning voices sit. tags: [inbox, sweep, structure, circulation, trust] published: 2026-10-03 retrieved: 2026-10-03 as_of: 2026-10-03 stale_after: 2027-04-03T00:00:00Z generated: { by: agent/hermes-default, at: 2026-10-03T21:51:44Z } status: draft sources: - id: rsf-japan resource: https://rsf.org/en/country/japan title: RSF — Japan country profile (2026 index) - id: mgins resource: https://www.mgins.jp/archive/mgins_isaka/newsweb/mginsisaka20251228.html title: Isaka Kimiaki — 2025 circulation figures - id: chosakai resource: https://www.chosakai.gr.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/018b20020e2419d1d9522b90f008a439.pdf title: Japan Newspaper Foundation media survey (2025) - id: kaneko resource: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jaes/37/1/37_33/_pdf/-char/ja title: Kaneko — left-right editorial tone, 1970–2019

Summary

First sweep of the media landscape, 64 sources registered. Snapshot note: RSF's country page recorded Japan at 62/180 with a score of 62.90 at retrieval; the newspaper-foundation survey recorded trust scores of NHK 66.8 / newspapers 66.2 / internet 47.4; the circulation association figure was 24,868,122 (Oct 2025).

Findings

  • documented Five conglomerates (Yomiuri, Asahi, Nikkei, Mainichi, Fuji-Sankei) plus NHK; no cross-ownership regulation; RSF calls it "extreme media concentration."1
  • documented 2025 total circulation 24.87m, −6.6% YoY, more than half below the 1997 peak; Mainichi −15.2%; Asahi paid digital flat at ~308k vs Nikkei 1.02m.2
  • documented Daily news contact: internet 46.5% > commercial TV 46.1% > NHK 35.8% > newspapers 33.4%.3
  • documented Newspaper trust 66.2 vs internet 47.4; the top reason (50%) given by those whose newspaper trust fell was reporting "biased toward a particular force."3
  • documented The left–right editorial axis is measurable: 2,211 Constitution Day editorials across 50 papers, 1970–2019, and the direction of movement was conservative.4
  • inferred The left's most visible home (broadsheet editorials) is the part of the system losing audience fastest, while the arena that decides elections (short video) is where it is weakest.

Distillation Hooks

Footnotes

  1. RSF country profile (2026). ↩

  2. Isaka Kimiaki, Media Gekidō Institute (Dec 2025). ↩

  3. Japan Newspaper Foundation, 18th media survey (2025). ↩↩

  4. Kaneko Tomoki, Japanese Journal of Electoral Studies 37(1), 2021. ↩