THE MAKING OF A JAPANESE NEWSPAPER 



329 



guage unfit. To make it still better suited, 

 he coined new words and phrases to ex- 

 press modern ideas. 



He translated western books and wrote 

 original treatises upon social and intel- 

 lectual reform. His works comprise one 

 hundred and rive volumes, of which more 

 than ten million copies have been issued. 

 It is no exaggeration to say that this one 

 man is the intellectual father of more 

 than half the men who are now directing 

 the affairs and shaping the destinies of 

 the island empire of the Orient. 



Eventually his work crystallized in two 

 things: the Jiji-Shimpo and the other the 

 Keio Gijuku, an institution where a stu- 

 dent body of more than two thousand 

 is devoting its time and energy to prac- 

 tical preparation for usefulness — an in- 

 stitution whose modernity is indicated by 

 the fact that it vanquished our own Uni- 

 versity of Wisconsin at baseball. 



EVERY MAN OX THE EDITORIAL STAEE IS 

 A UNIVERSITY GRADUATE 



From the time of its establishment, it 

 has been an unwritten rule that the men 

 who compose the editorial staff, indeed 

 that all the men concerned in the making 

 of the Jiji-Shimpo, shall be graduates of 

 the university. Every facility is afforded 

 young men whose choice of profession is 

 journalism to prepare themselves while 

 in college for their future work. 



The staff consists of an editor-in-chief, 

 who is the general and responsible man- 

 ager of the paper. Under him are five 

 assistants, who are at the head of as 

 many principal departments. Politics is 

 handled by ten men thoroughly competent 

 to discuss questions of state. 



The policy of the paper is independent. 

 It is partisan only in that it is liberal. 

 devoted to progress, and opposed to any 

 retrograde policy in Japanese civilization. 

 In the main, it supports the government 

 as at present organized, and when it takes 

 occasion to differ, it does so with digni- 

 fied and logical criticism, and not with 

 the hysterical effusions that appear in the 

 "yellow'' journals that have developed in 

 Japan as elsewhere. 



Because of this scholarly and dignified 

 character, Jiji-Shimpo wields a great in- 

 fluence and its voice is potent in shaping 

 and controlling public opinion. 



The paper emphasizes its commercial 



department and a staff of trained men 

 looks after this part of the news. 



A foreign department of three editors 

 cares for the cable and telegraph dis- 

 patches and keeps in close and intelligent 

 touch with international affairs. 



Domestic news is gathered by corre- 

 spondents in every city and important 

 town of the empire, sifted, and arranged 

 by two editors. 



Twenty men compose the city staff 

 and, in close harmony with the reportorial 

 methods of our Occidental papers, cover 

 the local news of Tokyo, a city of more 

 than two million people. 



A literary editor and two assistants 

 prepare even- Thursday a four-page sup- 

 plement, covering the literary life and 

 product not only of Japan, but of the 

 world. I saw in a single issue a column 

 and a half review of an economic work 

 that was at the time causing considerable 

 discussion in our American papers, and 

 a lengthy mention of three works of 

 American fiction numbered at the time 

 among our own best sellers. 



An art department has four special 

 writers : there are two staff photogra- 

 phers and a caricaturist whose work is 

 as original and as attractive as a shrewd 

 Japanese AlcCutcheon can make it. 



A WOMAN JOURNALIST IN OSAKA 



An Osaka department, made up of five 

 men and a woman journalist, look after 

 a special edition printed each day and 

 localized for that city of a million people. 



In addition the paper issues a juvenile 

 magazine called Shonew, with a circula- 

 tion of seventv-five thousand, desisrned 

 for the children of Japan. It is made up 

 of stories, travel articles, games, and 

 puzzles ; and an unusual feature is a polit- 

 ical section, given over to juvenile review 

 of current issues, with a view to training 

 boys and girls in a practical knowledge 

 of the problems of citizenship. The Jiji 

 has a daily circulation of about one hun- 

 dred and ten thousand. 



The Jiji is an eight-page paper, with 

 generally a two-page insert, slightly 

 smaller in format than American papers. 



In common with all Oriental languages, 

 Japanese is written and printed from 

 right to left, and the title, therefore, is 

 in the upper right-hand corner of what 

 would be for us the eighth page. The 



