Beyond Criticism of Newspapers — What “Oshigami” Reveals About the Structure of Journalism and the Long-Running Focus on Journalists’ Attitudes
On an old bookshelf, I have a copy of the April 2005 issue of Tsukuru magazine. It contains a roundtable discussion titled “What Is Being Asked of Newspaper Journalism Today?” The three participants were Hisao Hara, then a senior editor at Kyodo News; Keiichi Katsura, a professor at Rissho University; and Yoshiyuki Hashiba, a professor at Sophia University.
The three strongly criticized newspapers at the time. For example, Katsura criticized the news industry for its weak response to the issue of designated public institutions. He argued that the media should stand together and say that freedom of speech and expression is something they must fight for, and that unfair attacks on freedom of expression must not be accepted.
Throughout the discussion, the three expressed strong dissatisfaction with the attitudes of newspaper companies and reporters, as well as with their professional awareness as journalists. They also discussed problems with newspaper sales, including aggressive sales methods involving violence and threats.
However, they did not discuss the problem of oshigami.
Oshigami is the practice of newspaper companies supplying sales agents with more copies than they can actually sell, while counting these extra copies as part of their circulation.
This absence is strange. In 2005, oshigami was not an unknown problem. Problems involving newspaper sales had already become public, especially in Fukuoka Prefecture. The participants discussed a crisis in newspaper journalism, but they did not examine oshigami, even though it was closely connected to the newspaper companies’ own business. This missing issue may show the limits of newspaper criticism at that time.
Criticism of newspapers is nothing new. Without going into detail, newspapers were already facing strong criticism in the 1950s. More than 70 years later, in 2026, criticism remains strong. Fewer people read newspapers, circulation has fallen, and the business environment for newspaper companies has changed greatly. Even so, it is difficult to say that the newspaper industry has actively examined its own practices concerning oshigami.
After World War II, Professor Naoyuki Arai of Soka University was one of the researchers who seriously studied the oshigami problem. However, it is difficult to say that this issue has ever become a major subject in newspaper or journalism studies.
Why is that? This points to one important feature of newspaper criticism in Japan.
When we look back at past criticism of newspapers, much of it finally comes down to the “spirit” or attitude of individual reporters. Reporters have lost their fighting spirit. They do not challenge those in power. They do not study enough. They lack reporting skills. They have lost their sense of mission.
Of course, the abilities and professional ethics of individual reporters are important. But can these factors alone explain the problems of newspaper journalism?
For example, even if a talented and honest reporter joins a newspaper company, that reporter cannot work completely freely. The company’s business structure, its relationships with advertisers, its sales system, the press club system, and its relationships with government offices can all affect reporting. These forces can shape the news regardless of what an individual reporter wants to do.
Even so, if we continue to blame the problem mainly on reporters’ sense of mission or professional ethics, criticism will never go beyond calls such as: “Be braver,” “Study harder,” and “Stand up to power.”
In philosophical terms, this way of thinking can be described as an idealist approach.
A materialist approach, by contrast, looks not only at people’s ideas and attitudes but also at the material and social conditions that produce those ideas and limit their actions. Marx and Engels applied this approach to the study of society and history. They examined politics and ideas in relation to the economic and social structures behind them.
Perhaps we need the same approach when we think about newspapers. Instead of looking only at the attitudes of individual reporters, we also need to examine the economic and institutional structures surrounding newspaper companies. To understand those structures, we cannot avoid the issue of oshigami.
About 100 Billion Yen a Year in Improper Revenue
I estimate that oshigami brings the newspaper industry at least about 100 billion yen a year in improper revenue. But the size of this amount is not the only problem.
If newspaper companies have built their businesses on income connected to oshigami, ending the practice would mean much more than simply making newspaper sales fairer. It could shake the basic structure of their business.
Suppose the Japan Fair Trade Commission strictly controlled oshigami under the Antimonopoly Act, making it almost impossible for newspaper companies to supply sales agents with more copies than they actually sell. Newspaper companies would then lose part of their sales income. If the gap between officially reported circulation and actual sales became smaller, this could also affect how advertisers value newspapers as an advertising medium.
As a result, some newspaper companies might have to make major changes to their businesses, including cutting staff and reorganizing their companies. This raises an important question about the relationship between newspaper companies and government power.
If a government agency has the power to enforce laws in a way that could seriously affect the business of newspaper companies, there is room for a power relationship to develop. This does not necessarily mean that a government agency is actually putting pressure on newspapers. But if newspaper companies believe that strict law enforcement could damage their business, that relationship itself cannot be ignored when we consider the media’s role in watching those in power.
In other words, the problem is not limited to simple censorship, such as the government directly ordering a newspaper, “Do not publish this article.” It is also important that government authorities control laws and systems that can affect the financial base of newspaper companies.
In fact, when we look back at history from the viewpoint of the relationship between newspaper companies’ financial base and government power, we can find a similar issue before World War II.
During the wartime period, government control of newsprint became an important way to influence the newspaper business. Newspapers need paper in order to publish. If the supply of paper is controlled, it becomes difficult for newspaper companies to run their businesses completely independently of government policy. Control of speech can therefore be achieved not only by directly interfering with articles, but also by controlling the material conditions needed to publish newspapers.
Of course, government control of newsprint before the war and the postwar oshigami problem are not the same. The former was a system directly controlled by the state as part of wartime regulation. The latter is a business practice that developed through the relationship between newspaper companies and newspaper sales agents. Their origins and legal nature are different.
Still, it is useful to compare them from the viewpoint of the relationship between the financial base of newspaper companies and government power. Before the war, paper, which was necessary to publish newspapers, was a weak point in the newspaper business. After the war, circulation numbers and the income connected to them became one of its weak points.
If oshigami has become deeply built into the financial structure of newspaper companies, and if government authorities have the legal power to take action that could determine whether the practice continues, then there is a structural condition that may prevent newspaper companies from being completely independent of government power.
From this point of view, we can see why it is not enough to explain the problems of newspaper journalism simply by saying that reporters have lost their “fighting spirit.” It is easy to tell reporters to be brave. But if the business structure of the newspaper companies they work for makes it more difficult to challenge those in power, simply telling individual reporters to have more courage will change nothing.
The question we should ask is not only, “Why don’t reporters fight those in power?” We should also ask, “What structures, both inside and outside newspaper companies, make it difficult for reporters to confront those in power?”
Unless we understand and change those structures, criticism of newspaper journalism will probably continue to repeat the same words ten or twenty years from now.
