ジャパンタイムズの歴史
日本を代表する英字新聞の江戸時代・明治時代からの歴史年表と画像集。History of The Japan Times,
chronology
メディア研究者およびJT史に関心をお持ちの方用のページ。講演スクリーン用に活字が特大になっている部分あり。This
page is intended for researchers of media history, or anyone interested in The
Japan Times.
昔の主要紙面（著作権保護期間終了）はすべて歴史資料として、何回かクリックすると拡大して記事を読むことができます。新聞画像のためファイルが重いです。
関連ページRelated pages: ジャパンタイムズ内容紹介 エイプリルフール(パロディJT事件など)
ジャパンタイムズ創刊号 英字新聞の歴史
『The Japan
Timesものがたり』（ジャパンタイムズ、1966）表紙
1897-2007 創刊110周年
― 江戸時代からの英字紙が合流
ジャパンタイムズ2007/5
ジャパンタイムズは1897年(ルーツは幕末)に創刊されました。
列強との不平等条約や外国人居留民の治外法権といった現実の中、日本人と外国人の相互理解をすすめるために日本人が創刊した新聞です。
中心になったのは、伊藤博文総理秘書官だった 頭本元貞(ずもともとさだ)で、福沢諭吉・伊藤博文・財界の援助で創刊。
想定読者はまず外国人居留民です(当時、日本語が理解できる外国人は数名しかいなかった)。また、海外からの情報を得たい高学歴の日本人も読者対象でした。
■現在のジャパンタイムズ社発行紙等
関連ページ ジャパンタイムズ内容紹介
■日本の英字新聞史 family tree
毎日、JTでは、その歴史のダイジェスト年表を掲載しています(論説Opinionページ冒頭masthead)
創刊号 明治30年
JT 創刊号ページで昔の紙面が見れます
■日本の英字新聞略史
The Japan Times 1865（江戸時代末期） → 吸収合併----------------------→
Asahi
Evening News ---- IHI/Asahi-→
Daily Yomiuri--------------------→
Mainich Daily News-------------休刊（webのみ）
日本の英字新聞の歴史でもある 図解family tree 『The Japan
Timesものがたり』（ジャパンタイムズ）p.108
■■ジャパンタイムズ歴史年表
chronology by S. Ito
-- 江戸時代から現代まで --
■時代背景
15〜17世紀 大航海時代
1641 鎖国を江戸幕府が完成
18世紀後半〜 イギリスを先頭に欧米で産業革命(→他地域との国力格差)
1792 ロシア軍艦 根室に。鎖国以来初の事態 通商要求
1825 異国船打払令
1842 超大国・清が英に敗れる! →明治維新の原動力
1853 ペリー黒船4隻浦賀来航
1854 開国 日米和親条約=鎖国終わり
1858 日米修好通商条約 不平等条約 治外法権・完全自主権なし
1859 横浜開港 長崎も。兵庫・大阪開港は延期
19世紀後半〜 列強による帝国主義の時代(対外侵略・植民地拡大)
■創刊へ：近代化の時代
英はシンガポール、香港、上海など沿岸諸港と深い関係。日本より先に英系英字新聞が発達
1861 文久元年(江戸時代) 日本最初の近代的新聞は英字新聞The Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser (現JTの遠祖:関係者が作った新聞が合流) 英国人貿易商ハンサードが創刊 週2回刊 同年廃刊
→画像は「日本の英字新聞史」ページへ
The Japan Times is also linked to Japan's first modern newspaper in any language, The Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser of 1861. A key editor of a sister newspaper to the Nagasaki paper inaugurated the Hiogo News in 1868. Hiogo News was absorbed into The Kobe Chronicle, which was incorporated with The Japan Times in 1940. The Kobe Chronicle is remembered by many as the workplace of Novelist Lafcadio Hearn, who was an editorial writer in the 1890s.
1865慶応元年の(最初の)The Japan
Times(のちに現JTへ合流) 英国人リカビー創刊。アーネスト・サトウの意見掲載で知られる
1868明治維新 →中央集権化・富国強兵・義務教育・文明開化・欧化政策
1870 The Japan Mail創刊 英国系 横浜 親日 1894週刊版Japan Weekly Mailに合併 復刻出版されている
1871(明治3/12/8陰暦) 初の日刊新聞「横浜毎日新聞」創刊。1940年に廃刊。
1872（明治5）「東京日日新聞」(毎日新聞の前身)創刊 現在までとぎれずに発行されている最も古い(日本語の)新聞
1894不平等条約は最初の英と改正
1897/3/22(明治30) 現ジャパンタイムズ創刊
クリックで拡大
全ページが読めます →創刊号全紙面紹介
創刊の中心：頭本元貞(ずもともとさだ。The Japan Mail→伊藤総理秘書官)が主唱。
 顔写真は『The Japan
Timesものがたり』（ジャパンタイムズ、1966）より
日本人の手による未曾有の英字新聞創刊だった。。目的は治外法権撤廃を願う日本人と外国人の相互理解(社説) 一部5銭/1ヶ月壱円
以後、創刊の数え方は数え年
創刊援助：福沢諭吉、伊藤博文、財界の援助で山田季治(社長。やまだすえじ)などと創刊。
諭吉はさまざまな援助
福沢諭吉夫人の弟の子が山田季治。慶應義塾で学び、日本郵船の各支店長。49歳でJT創刊。頭本元貞は山田の英語教師時代の生徒。
福沢家に残る、諭吉自筆の金銭出納帳には、明治30〜31年に山田へ５回、融通している。現価換算するとおよそ三千万円か。
また、ジャパンタイムズの印刷器械３台は、福沢が創刊していた時事新報のものを譲渡した。
自著の『福翁自伝』（初版は1899/6）、『福翁百話』『福沢全集』などの印刷もジャパンタイムズに委託。 『ジャパンタイムズを知る本』p.241より
1897 ウィークリーも同時創刊「ジャパン ウィークリータイムズ」
1898「青年」The Rising Generation 月刊誌 STの原点 現在では研究社が発行する「英語青年」、最も長命な雑誌であると同時に英米文学界で最も権威のある学術誌 /小年号、学生号も創刊
1899治外法権の撤廃(の実施)
頭本はオリエンタル・レビューもSeoul Pressも創刊
JT出身の有名人： 勝俣銓吉郎（英和活用大事典）、武信由太郎→現在の研究社大和英の前身(「研究社の知名度を一気に高めたのが、大正７年９月に出版された『武信和英大辞典』であった。...当時は英和辞典でさえまだ幼稚なものしかなかっただけに、和英辞典でこれほど立派なものが出版されたことは一大驚異であった。...その後...大改訂を経て、現在の増田綱編『新和英大辞典』となっている｣ 研究社刊『研究社85年の歩み』p.79)、
西脇順三郎 慶大卒後、ジャパンタイムズ入社。病気で退社。療養後、慶大文学部教授、現代詩人の最長老に
馬場恒吾読売新聞社長、芦田均首相 J. B. ハリス
小泉八雲 神戸クロニクル（→The Japan Chronicle→JTに合流）の論説記者
新渡戸稲造
頭本と札幌農学校で将来を語る。JT主催で講演会
内村鑑三
日露戦争非戦論をジャパンタイムズで
1905 日露戦争後のJT
明治の英文記者は原稿を鉛筆で手書きした →大正３年ごろタイプライターへ
1905/5/15 夕刊に切り替え
1911やっと条約改正 関税自主権回復=交渉に40年! これで欧米と対等
■欧米と対等な時代・大正
1913 JTが火付けシーメンス事件→山本内閣倒れる 海軍収賄をJTが報道、続報
大正前期はケネディー社長時代 対外通信社設立運動→大正3年国際通信社に売却(米人John R. Kennedy社長)
大正後期は芝時代 大正10年 ケネディーが持分を芝染太郎に売却。(長男芝均平は戦後JT編集局長→東京イブニングニュース創刊=現在のヘラルド朝日）
1914第一次世界大戦
1918/4/2 合併でThe Japan Times and Mailに
大正14年出版部独立
ライノタイプの保有はいつの時代でも業界No.1
1921前後 Message from Japan特集が定期的に。米国へのメッセージ
1923日本におけるプレス・キャンペーンの最初の例：タイムズが日露海戦の旗艦三笠の保存を首唱。２年後の大正14年成功
1923関東大震災 被害で休刊するも直後タイプ原稿で発行
■大正後期 外務省と密接に。
大正５年には外務省からの補助金１万円。大正13年、前外務次官田中都吉氏が社長に。昭和８年芦田均社長(自由主義者のため軍部から白眼視。戦後はこれが評価され首相に) 昭和15年 郷敏社長・昭和19年 松本忠雄会長と続く(この２人については外務省が株購入資金を出した)。
昭和天皇ご成婚
1930 後の東京新聞社長 福田恭助が入杜
『The Japan Timesものがたり』p.73より引用
「後の東京新聞社長故福田恭助が昭和5年、ジャパンタイムズに入杜して、英文記者修業をした。芝染太郎時代で、当時の彼は米国ダートマス、カレッジでの留学を卒えて帰朝したばかり、タイムズで1年足らず英文修業をして、翌昭和6年には父、福田英助が社長をしている都新聞に入社して、後にその業を継いだが、タイムズ時代は彼にとって斯界への思い出深い初旅であったわけだ。」
新渡戸稲造の養子新渡戸孝夫が昭和初期のジャパンタイムズ主筆
1933 芦田均社長 久しぶりの安定政権(のちの芦田首相)
昭和8年1月〜昭和14年12月
1935再び(株)に。払い込み株式については財界の有力会社が参加
昭和７年 印刷部分離→ 15年、本社に合併
■第二次世界大戦
 1939 12/12
1940 戦時中、、長い題号に 「The
Japan Times Advertiser Incorporating The Japan Chronicle and The Japan Mail」。Japan
Advertiser=米系 The Japan Chronicle=英系 The Japan Mail=英系
Japan Advertiserは イギリス政府とか、朝日新聞からも買収の話があった
欧州大戦へ 1939/9/3ドイツ侵攻
■紙面で見る 終戦をはさんだジャパンタイムズの変化
-- 特攻隊顕彰 から 懺悔・米軍美談へ転向 ---
太平洋戦争当時、ジャパンタイムズも戦争遂行に協力し、軍による「最終的に日本は勝つ」という発言をよく報道しました。やがて終戦となり、数日間は黙っていましたが、やがて日本の過ちを反省する社説を載せ、米兵の善行を第一面に載せたりするようになります。
戦前の新聞政府支配については特集記事をご覧ください。
●1941/12/8 日米開戦→検閲
雑誌「キング｣は「富士｣と改題。ほかのカタカナ週刊誌も改題。銀座の「ワシントン靴店｣は「東条靴店」に。野球の「アウト」は「ダメ」
昭和17年、軍部が題号変更要請 →「Nippon Times」に。
昭和18年元旦から 1943/1/1〜56/7/1
社名も日本タイムズ社 The Nippon Times, Ltd.に
編集局長城谷黙 Mock Joyaの筆名で海外にも知られる。戦後も活躍
J. B. ハリス
社内には外国人が1人もおらず、日本人と日系二世で発行を続ける
社員持株へ 戦時体制に応じた日本新聞会成立後、同会統制規定第4条「新聞社の株式は、役員及び従業員において全株を保有すべきこと」→昭17〜社外株主と交渉
1943初め〜 外務省弘報部の奈良靖彦氏がジャパンタイムズを監督 当時25才、戦後に駐カナダ大使
44/3/6夕刊を休止
1944-45 JAPONICUSコラム 講和を望む外務省が、日本の考えが戦争遂行一本やりでないことをアメリカに伝えるために東大の教授で、英米法の権威であった高柳賢三氏を外務省の参与として雇い、コラム連載。軍部検閲を通るが、行間を読むと真意が分かるように書かれた。海外向けのNHKのラジオの短波放送でも放送
●終戦１カ月前：悲壮に戦う
↓クリックすると拡大します
1945/7/8 毎月８日はImperial Rescript Day（帝国詔書の日）として、太平洋戦争開戦の詔書を第一面に載せました。
1945/7/20 神風特攻隊を軍が顕彰 236 Special
Kamikaze Attack Corps Fliers Win Recognition for Heroism in Okinawas
1945/7/31 社説 Fighting Student 学徒動員、多くは特攻隊"a
worthy death":
"Many of the members of the Special Attack Corps are students, intrepid lads in their prime to whom honor, love of country and
a worthy death mean more than knowledge, enjoyment of comfort and a meaningless life."
●終戦の詔書（「耐えがたきを耐え...」玉音放送と同一）
終戦の日のジャパンタイムズ：HIS MAJESTY ISSUES RESCRIPT TO RESTORE
PEACE（陛下、平和回復の証書を布告）
突然の報道、よいとも悪いともなくそのまま報道。
クリックすると拡大します。
『大東亜戦争終結ノ詔書』(昭和20年8月14日)
朕深ク世界ノ大勢ト帝国ノ現状トニ鑑ミ非常ノ措置ヲ以テ時局ヲ収拾セムト欲シ茲ニ忠良ナル爾臣民ニ告ク
朕ハ帝国政府ヲシテ米英支蘇四国ニ対シ其ノ共同宣言ヲ受諾スル旨通告セシメタリ
抑々帝国臣民ノ康寧ヲ図リ万邦共栄ノ楽ヲ偕ニスルハ皇祖皇宗ノ遣範ニシテ朕ノ拳々措カサル所 曩ニ米英二国ニ宣戦セル所以モ亦実ニ帝国ノ自存ト東亜ノ安定トヲ庶幾スルニ出テ他国ノ主権ヲ排シ領土ヲ侵スカ如キハ固ヨリ朕カ志ニアラス然ルニ交戦已ニ四歳ヲ閲シ朕カ陸海将兵ノ勇戦朕カ百僚有司ノ励精朕カ一億衆庶ノ奉公各々最善ヲ尽セルニ拘ラス戦局必スシモ好転セス世界ノ大勢亦我ニ利アラス 加之敵ハ新ニ残虐ナル爆弾ヲ使用シテ無辜ヲ殺傷シ惨害ノ及フ所真ニ測ルヘカラサルニ至ル而モ尚交戦ヲ継続セムカ終ニ我カ民族ノ滅亡ヲ招来スルノミナラス延テ人類ノ文明ヲモ破却スヘシ斯ノ如クムハ朕何ヲ以テカ億兆ノ赤子ヲ保シ皇祖皇宗ノ神霊ニ謝セムヤ是レ朕カ帝国政府ヲシテ共同宣言ニ応セシムルニ至レル所以ナリ
朕ハ帝国ト共ニ終始東亜ノ解放ニ協力セル諸盟邦ニ対シ遺憾ノ意ヲ表セサルヲ得ス帝国臣民ニシテ戦陣ニ死シ職域ニ殉シ非命ニ斃レタル者及其ノ遺族ニ想ヲ致セハ五内為ニ裂ク且戦傷ヲ負ヒ災禍ヲ蒙リ家業ヲ失ヒタル者ノ厚生ニ至リテハ朕ノ深ク軫念スル所ナリ 惟フニ今後帝国ノ受クヘキ困難ハ固ヨリ尋常ニアラス爾臣民ノ衷情モ朕善ク之ヲ知ル 然レトモ朕ハ時運ノ趨ク所耐ヘ難キヲ耐ヘ忍ヒ難キヲ忍ヒ以テ万世ノ為ニ太平ヲ開カムト欲ス
朕ハ茲ニ国体ヲ護持シ得テ忠良ナル爾臣民ノ赤誠ニ信倚シ常ニ爾臣民ト共ニ在リ若シ夫レ情ノ激スル所濫ニ事端ヲ滋クシ或ハ同胞排擠互ニ時局ヲ乱リ為ニ大道ヲ誤リ信義ヲ世界ニ失フカ如キハ朕最モ之ヲ戒ム 宜シク挙国一家子孫相伝ヘ確ク神州ノ不滅ヲ信シ任重クシテ道遠キヲ念ヒ総力ヲ将来ノ建設ニ傾ケ道義ヲ篤クシ志操ヲ鞏クシ誓テ国体ノ精華ヲ発揚シ世界ノ進運ニ後レサラムコトヲ期スヘシ爾臣民其レ克く朕カ意ヲ体セヨ
（御名御璽） 『終戦の詔勅』より引用 別の解説サイト
対外宣伝のメディアとして外務省に保護されたジャパンタイムズは、英語排撃の風潮のただ中、終戦時でも八千部台を維持していた。
●終戦直後
1945/9/3 Formal surrender documents signed aboard
U.S.S. Missouri off Yokohama まだ淡々と、言われるがまま受け入れている様が伺える。まだとまどっている感じ。
1945/9/9 社説 What shall we think of the Americans?
米軍が進駐してわずか数日。敗戦の受け入れ、米国人に対するアンビバレントな気持ちが現れている。すでに「ギブミーチョコレート」らしき行動がかなり見られたらしい："a Japanese
youngster munching blithely on a chocolate bar given him by one commander "
1945/9/16 Japanese atrocities shown in U.S. report
戦時中の日本軍による情報操作がだんだん明るみに
1945/9/28 米軍との"friendship"登場 Allied Soldiers' friendship for Japanese illustrated by recent episodes in Osaka:
日本人スタッフが市電で跳ねられると病院に駆けつけ、「治療費はわれわれが払う」と、彼がrelativeであるかのような扱い。
1945/9/28 米軍美談続々 横浜で日本人工事労働者がケガをすると、なんとGIが米軍の野戦病院へ運ぶよう指示。Two GI's play role of good
Samaritans in aiding injured Japanese at Tsurumi "Another incident of American kindness and quick action
...
"
■JTも戦後民主化へ
終戦→今度はGHQが検閲開始 45/9/15〜占領終結まで
占領初期のアメリカ軍の暴行の報道がGHQの目にとまる。
45/9/15 日本タイムズと同盟へGHQが事前検閲開始。他紙は10/8から。
45/9/19 24時間の発行停止処分 ゲラ刷りを１本GHQ事前検閲に出さなかったため
46/10/11夜 発禁 GHQ民間情報局長チャールズ・ウイロビー少将Maj.
Gen. Charles Willoughbyがニッポンタイムズ社へ夜7:10分に突然。検閲済みだったが、新聞刷り直しと発送済みの新聞の回収を命じる。→上野駅で発車を止め新聞全部を焼却。当時は朝日新聞社（有楽町）で印刷されていた。記事はHero
Worshipと題したPress Comment欄。時事新報の社説「権力者崇拝」の抄訳(マッカーサー崇拝が天皇崇拝に代わらないよう民主主義の擁護を)。
JT占領期特集(JT02/4/28p9-11) より： Although as early as Sept.10, 1945, GHQ had explicitly declared “freedom of speech and press” under the Occupation the reality was that until 1947, nearly 70 daily
newspapers and all book and magazines were subject to prepublication review by the Civil Censorship Detachment of the CIS. Stop the presses
1947/11/6 日本タイムズにGHQ検閲専門官、電話盗聴者募集広告が載る
1948/7/17 事前検閲から事後検閲へ移行
GHQ 新聞民主化指令→外務省支配終わる。45/9/24 「政府から新聞を分離する件」指令 9/29 「新聞,映画、通信に対する一切の制限法令を撤廃の件」指令 →全株主を社員が買い取る。 松本会長は公職追放(戦時中国会議員だったため。外務省出身)
マッカーサーがニッポンタイムズを毎日読むため、影響力が強力に。ビルの外まで「広告を載せたい」という人の列
東ケ崎潔社長=日系2世社長、SF生まれの新聞人
高校教科書も出版していた 戦後
 
■高度成長時代のJT
1951/4 The Student Times創刊 「日本最初の英和両文の週刊新聞」（最初の２年間は月２回発行）
90年に「週刊ST」と改題
 1977/3/25
→1972 Mainichi Weekly、1973 Asahi Weekly
1955(昭和30)年4/1 エープリルフールで「ソ連爆撃機 羽田着陸」 第一面に Russian
Multi-Jet Bomber Lands at Haneda Airport
同日朝日新聞夕刊によると「警視庁の係官などは『イタズラにもほどがある』とフンガイしており…｣
当時までのJT社屋はつねに内幸町一丁目(帝国ホテル近辺)。この場所は現在は山手線に面している。
『The Japan
Timesものがたり』（ジャパンタイムズ、1966）より
外務省出身役員は戦後も、福島慎太郎社長、平沢和重主幹と続くが戦前とは関係がないもよう
56/1福島慎太郎社長 (幣原首相秘書官、調達庁長官で砂川基地問題で小説「長官」モデル、パ・リーグ会長、共同通信社長)
1956 The Japan Timesに題号復帰 昭31/7/1 雑誌TIME論評"End of the War"
社是/スローガン All the News Without Fear or Favor
ポイントは不偏不党、おそれず、おもねらず、真実と正義、自由と民主主義、国際協調と世界平和。
ジャパンタイムズ 社是：
「我が国唯一の独立英字紙であるジャパンタイムズは、不偏不党の立場において日本の現状と世界の動きとを正確・迅速・豊富に内外の読者に報道することを使命とする。
ジャパンタイムズは、おそれず、おもねらず、真実と正義、自由と民主主義、国際協調と世界平和のために、正しい世論をつくることを念願とする。
The mission of The Japan Times, as Japan's one and only independent English-Language newspaper, shall be to report domestic and international news accurately, speedily, and amply to readers in Japan and overseas from an impartial standpoint. Without fear and without flattery, The Japan Times shall endeavour to build a well-informed public opinion for the sake of truth and justice, freedom and democracy, and international cooperation and world peace. (Established in 1956)
ジャパンタイムズ編集綱領
1.ジャパンタイムズは我が国最古の独立日刊英字紙である。伝統の上に立ち、日本の現状と世論とを本紙を通じて世界に伝達し、世界の情勢を国際通信網を利用して正確詳細に報道することを編集方針とする。
2.本紙は新聞の独立と言論の自由とを尊重し、新聞を通じて国際理解の増進と世界平和の実現に貢献することを目的とする全日本国民の新聞である。
3.本紙は、そのモットーを次のように題字下に掲載している。
"All the News Without Fear or Favor"」
 1960/5/20
この号にも題字の下に"All the News Without Fear or Favor"が見える
1961/9/8 ウィークリー創刊 The Japan Times Weekly
 2004/6/5
支局沢山/海外も
65/3〜00/6? Getting Things Done 長寿コラム ジーン.ピアス
1964/10/12東京オリンピック 毎日夕刊号外
 JT芝浦本社、看板、福島社長 『週刊新潮』1982より
1966/5芝浦新社屋へ移転(それまではずっと内幸町)
新聞社として理想的なレイアウトのビルとして、80m以上の横長で設計された。毎日新聞社のビルに似ている。流れ作業が素早くでき、壁は透明ガラスで見渡せ、社内の風通しがよかった。芝浦は将来、新聞社が集中する見込みだった。『The Japan
Timesものがたり』（ジャパンタイムズ、1966）より
1957 村田聖明、ボーン国際記者賞受賞 1983まで編集局長
ダキノ氏(「東京ローズ｣と結婚)はジャパンタイムズ編集者
late 1960s 記事は翻訳でなく最初から英語で書く方針に転換 ... it was decided that it would speed up the process and improve readability if the stories were
written in English from the very start. →翻訳部門はなくなり英文記者が最初から英語で記事を取材・執筆
大阪万博
■安定成長時代
1975 CTS (新聞制作のコンピューター化)
1976夏 輪転機の鉛版(hot type)の代わりに、写真植字により合成樹脂を使うcold
type systemへ移行 印刷における大きな革命 なお、輪転機以前は、新聞は鉛の活字を使っていた
当時の制作工程
77 Historical Supplements 12回発行
80年史が見開きでST77/3/25
1980前後 競馬記事で予想がすべてのレースで当たった
アラブ連盟にボイコットされる 中東問題で外電にイスラエル寄りの記事
1980ごろ 外国人に「準社員｣制度
1983小笠原敏晶社長 the 18th president (のちに会長)
●83 フィリピン革命に影響(マルコス亡命→アキノ)
83/8/23 暗殺された野党指導者ベニグノ・アキノ氏血まみれ遺体と「(マルコス)政府の兵士が射殺した」とする日本人の証言を第一面に大きく掲載。→フィリピンでは報道が規制されていたため、ジャパンタイムズのコピーがフィリピン(英語が共通語)で出回り、最終的に50万部配られたとされる。→反マルコス運動が高揚。86/2民衆蜂起、「人民の力革命」。86/11 アキノ新大統領が「日本の報道のcontribution in sparking the Philippine revolution」について謝辞。
●1985/3 ジャパンタイムズ報道で日米交渉停止 MOSS交渉の木材関税部分交渉が半年停止
関税下げは「難しい」をJTが「日本ではimpossibleの意で使われる｣と解説。来日中の米農務省高官がずっとミスリードされていた事に気づき激怒。外務省が認めたため、その日のうちに抗議の帰国。
●1985/7/5 NEC誘拐事件
NEC関連会社社員2名をイラク北部でクルドゲリラが誘拐。釈放条件のひとつとして、外務省からの要請で、ジャパンタイムズはクルド独立運動の紹介記事を伊藤(外務省記者クラブ)が書く。2ヶ月後に釈放
1985 増ページ
1986旅行事業に進出
1986/6
1987 JT90周年事業で新紙面デザイン導入 米ニューヨークのデザイナー ジォバニティ(Sara
Giovanitti)氏によるデザイン:
modular layout
Before and after:
 
 
 1987/5、中曽根総理訪米
1988 JTコンサルタンツ設立、1.5倍増資
1988/4/1 エープリルフールで「東京ドームを40m移動へ」
スポーツ面p.17でTokyo Dome to be moved 40 metersと報道。完成したばかりの東京ドームについて、「急遽、１週間以内に北方へ40メートル移動させることになった。神主が、この位置ではジャイアンツは今季はリーグ最下位になってしまうと予言したため。方法はドーム内にヘリウムを注入して宙に浮かばせることを検討…｣。→問い合わせが建築会社からたくさんあり、東京ドームを建設した建築会社の株が下落、その会社から苦情を頂きました。
昭和終わる
1989 新社屋ビル完成(芝浦のビルを建て替え)
89 オフセット輪転機導入
1988-90大阪現地印刷を３年
エイプリルフール98/4 'AF通信'
 1989/5
1990/4 The Student Times40周年で「週刊ST」に改題
1990 SII導入 95画像処理システム導入 99 パジネーション導入
1990 Weekly International Edition ロス印刷
●1993/4/1 エープリルフールでニセJT現る。巧妙かつユーモラス
トップ記事は「関西空港が水没」。新聞協会の日本新聞博物館の永久展示物(伊藤が所持していたもの)に決定
→ジャパンタイムズとエイプリルフール特集ページ(パロディJT事件など)
■電子の時代・ビッグバン
93 METAブック発売
95 TIMES CAPSULEシリーズ掲載(過去記事を振り返る)
1995阪神大震災
1995サリンガス事件
 当時のロゴ
1996 1/1 Japan Times
Online(ホームページ)正式オープン
1996/4/1 InterFM opens
96 (株)ニフコ筆頭株主
97/1? 画像システム(写真)稼動
1997創立百周年 シンポジウム、各界から招いたレセプション
97/4/14 記念講演：「日本英字新聞史とジャパンタイムズ｣
97/4/23 アジア英字新聞編集者シンポジウム
当時の情勢：「拓銀は98才で死んだ。山一も101年でこの世を去った」(川崎信金理事長の新入職員への訓辞。朝日98/4/2p35)
02/1創立102年のKmart倒産(15ヵ月後に再建) 02/3創刊105年の経済誌「実業の日本」３月号で休刊
97-98 TIMES ARCHIVEシリーズ掲載
98/4 『諸君』がJT非難 慰安婦記事について「国を売るのかジャパンタイムズ」
98/7/1 細川元首相、JTの特別顧問(special advisor)就任
99/2/22 制作システムが新SIIに移行(汎用PCで使えるWindows NTソフトとなった)
99/8/1 投書欄に日本語要約
テレタイプ廃止
出版部もホームページ開設
198?? 〜1999
『ジャパンタイムズで読む 重大ニュース』 シリーズ 年２回
2000フル・パジネーション移行。コンピューター上で完全レイアウト
 2000/7
2001? ST編集部のコンピューターがウイルスに感染。eメールで応募した方のデータが一部失われた
2001 英字新聞ビッグバン・「英字紙戦争」勃発 英文朝日休刊、ヘラルド朝日に。英文毎日は休刊(webのみに)
01/4紙面改革+対抗値下げ（4,380→3900円(11%)、一部は160→150円）
01/4/1大阪印刷再開（３版）
減収でリストラへ
01/9/11 テロの時代へ
01 米でanthrax騒ぎ→JTにもいたずら郵便
02/5/13p20 ワールドカップ特集で売春問題について書いた記事をオーマイニューズが訳し掲載、韓国から多数の抗議メール。担当記者諭旨退職、05/3判決で契約末までの給与支払い。復職は認めず
2004/2/16
04/5/7 福田官房長官辞任 JT記者が追求していた。国民年金保険料は未納と認める
04 Proudfootコンサルティング
2005/1/16
2005/1/31
05/4/1電子メディア局設立 →07編集局統合
05/12/11-12 強羅で中期経営会議
05/03/17「ライブドア、新聞・放送参入狙う――ジャパンタイムズと接触｣と日経が報道
 05/4/3
法王にふさわしい、美しい号外
兵庫県・長野和子さん：「ローマ法王の号外きれいですね。思わず、キレイだー。欲しい。と思っちゃいました。言葉は変かもしれませんが、神聖な感じ。初めてヨーロッパの教会に入ったときに感じた、神様ってホントにいるかも。と思った時の感じ。ちょっと個人的なイメージですが…。新聞も、ちょっと遠くから全体を眺めるとキレイなんですね。今まで新聞読む時は、広げると同時にひとつひとつの見出しに目が行ってました(編集者泣かせな発言？) 読者が気が付かない所で、レイアウトがその記事にイメージを与えてると思ったら、デザイナーみたいで、おもしろいですね｣
05/9/13 新1版(6pはBでなく1版から。07に元へ)・左リードレイアウトに変更・バイリンガルコラムの分散
06 InterFM売却
06/3 創刊109周年anniversary issue
06/3/28小笠原有輝子社長就任 U.S.-educated 国際交流基金シンポジウム「日米関係の新しい展望｣
2006/4『ジャパンタイムズNews
Digest』創刊
06/8 ジュニア創刊 The
Japan Times Junior 〜07/12/18休刊
 06/9/6号外
07/1/20 １面下1/3が黒く塗りつぶしたような広告(Rahmens の TEXT live ad)に賛否
2007北朝鮮核問題
2007/3/22 創立110周年
2007/4/1エープリルフール記事 第一面で「渋谷ハチ公像盗まれる｣。ハチ公なき台座の写真付き。かなりの反響があり、やりすぎという電話もいただきました
2007/5/31 印刷委託
2007/6 『News Digestビギナーズ』創刊
 07/9/12安倍首相辞意表明号外
2007/10/1 価格改定 4480/月, 180/部
2008/2/16
東大共催国際シンポジウム：「東アジアにおける英字新聞の挑戦」
ジャパンタイムズ（創立110周年）と、創立130年の東京大学大学院情報学環が共催。東大本郷キャンパス・医学系研究科教育研究棟鉄門記念講堂
駆け出し記者の一期一会（観客感想)ブログより：「「非英語圏の英字新聞は、インサイダーでありアウトサイダーである」というジャパンタイムズ報道部長の発言が印象的だった。日本人読者にとっても、単に英語の勉強という意味合いだけでなく、国内紙とは違った角度からの報道により、複眼的な視点を提供するものと言えよう」
English-language papers offer unique take on Asia
2008/4/21 紙面デザイン変更 4/15p1社告： 1987以来 Australian
designer Leith Phillips ヘビーな字体をシンプルに reduces
visual clutter
Before and After:
見出しは非ボールドですらりとした字体に。ページタイトルが小文字になり印象が変わった。記事のインデントは冒頭のみ。キャプション冒頭には２語ぐらいのキーワード。（上は2006/3/9p3,
下2008/4/21p2）
■日本の英字新聞史リンク
新聞の歴史
横浜開港資料館
旧The Japan Timesなど多数所蔵
神戸市文書館 The
Japan Timesに最終的に吸収合併された３英字紙
神戸市立中央図書館 小泉八雲が論説を書いたThe
Kobe Chronicle (The Japan Timesが吸収合併)
電通広告博物館
当時の日本事情を書いた本
 リチャード・ゴードン・スミス 英国の博物学者(1898〜1915滞日、昔話、妖怪の絵、写真、日記など多数)
■ジャパンタイムズをさらに知るための資料
アーネスト・サトウ 本『遠い崖――アーネスト・サトウ日記抄』
サトウは英国外交官で、江戸時代に赴任し明治時代まで日本に滞在した。旧ジャパンタイムズに寄稿。
「遠い崖（がけ）」をまとめた歴史家の故・萩原延寿（はぎはら・のぶとし）氏は英国留学中にサトウの日記の実物に接したのがきっかけで、１９７６年から９０年まで朝日新聞に「遠い崖――アーネスト・サトウ日記抄」を計１９４７回連載。日常生活の細部や、勝海舟、西郷隆盛ら幕府重臣、薩長の志士たちとの交流も再現。
創刊号からの古い紙面をジャパンタイムズではマイクロフィルム(マイクロフィッシュ)で保存しています。昭和初期からの紙面の現物も資料室にあります。しかし一般公開はしておりません。
マイクロフィルムは日本新聞博物館
新聞ライブラリー で無料公開されています。 『日本初期新聞全集』
国会図書館全国新聞総合目録データベース
で所有図書館を検索できます。
近年の紙面は毎月の縮刷版でご覧ください。縮刷版はジャパンタイムズ販売局より購入するか、国会図書館など大型図書館にあります。
本『日本欧字新聞雑誌史』 蛯原八郎 昭和９年
 『占領期メディア分析』 山本武利著 法政大学出版会。第四節『軍需と「日本タイムズ｣』 にてジャパンタイムズの創刊、軍部圧力による『日本タイムズ』への改題、占領後の政府からの独立などを23ページにわたって詳説。
 『占領期メディア分析』p.97より引用
The Japan Times at War Time: Mouth piece or Moderator? 日本外国特派員協会の機関紙Number
1 Shimbun 07/4 戦時中のJTは政府の完全なmouthpieceとは限らず、1936頃は結構、日本軍の中国政策を批判するなどindependentな姿勢を示していた。
1941 『ジャパン・タイムズ小史』
1942
『大東亜戦争とジャパンタイムズ』 ジャパンタイムズ編刊
1945/4/13戦時中の米ローズヴェルト大統領死去に際した日本高官談話（日本タイムズも報道） 小堀桂一郎『宰相 鈴木貫太郎』 文春文庫 (鈴木首相は弔意表明)
昭和41年刊 ジャパンタイムズの本格的な社史、非売品。創刊70周年記念。本ページに掲載の関係写真のいくつかはこの本から引用しました。
 『ジャパンタイムズを知る本』(左、昭和57年)は、右の『ザ・ジャパンタイムズ』(昭和54年)の改訂版。一般読者向けに、かんたんな社史と、ジャパンタイムズ各ページの特色などを解説。
1997創立百周年記念別刷り特集(supplements) ２回発行 JT3/22, 3/27 歴史、歴代編集局長のエピソードなど収録。 本ページに掲載の関係写真のいくつかはこの本から引用しました。
特集はジャパンタイムズ縮刷版で読むことができます。 縮刷版はジャパンタイムズ販売局より購入するか、国会図書館など大型図書館にあります。ほかの年も創刊90周年などの節目に特集を組んでいます。
JT1997/4/18p.3 Paper today reflects lively
roots, forced attrition
記念講演：「日本英字新聞史とジャパンタイムズ｣ "The
Japan Times in the English-Language Press History of Japan"
An abridged transcript of a 100th anniversary lecture at The Japan Times by Peter
O'Connor (ピーター・オコーノ),
a scholar specializing in the international media history of East Asia. He talks
about the prewar rivalry between The Japan Times, the American-owned Japan
Advertiser and the British-owned Japan Chronicle.
JT2002/4/28p9-11 日本の占領期特集
Stop the presses GHQがJTを発禁に。以下はJTと直接の関係はない：They came, they saw, they democratized 占領の方針・当時の日本の様子 Where history was made マッカーサーの執務室
JT2007/3/22創立101周年別刷り特集 各界からのメッセージ、インタビュー、歴史など
The Japan Times 100年間の紙面本
ジャパンタイムズ読者構成など概要 広告資料(Classifiedサイトに「メディアデータ｣が数種)
The Japan Times OnlineにHistory
年表in English
日本近代史と共に歩んだジャパンタイムズ110年の歴史（2007/12会長講演録）
反日英字新聞 ジャパンタイムズ
■ジャパンタイムズ 社説集 110年間の代表的社説集(対訳付き)も刊行
ジャパンタイムズの本
■戦争協力 昭和初期のジャパンタイムズ史
昭和初期に戦争に協力し、少し抵抗したジャパンタイムズの歴史です。97/3/22 100周年特集に伊藤が書きました
単語をダブルクリックすると意味が表示されます(Answers.com)
Through war's darkest days
Ex-bureaucrat led paper as it fell under state control
 In the 100-year history of The Japan Times, the early 1940s was an exceptional period in which the paper kept roaring ahead with big and forceful headlines to glorify its stories.
The time could also be considered the darkest days for the paper because it had to serve the military-ruled empire of Japan under state censorship.
During World War II, the media fanned public hatred toward Americans, British and other enemies, and justified Japan's conquest of much of Asia. The Japan Times, then under control of the government, was no exception.
"My instruction to The Japan Times was to stress that Japan shall have a perfect victory, and that the nation shall fight it out to the very last person," Yasuhiko Nara, 79, a former Foreign Ministry bureaucrat who supervised the paper at the time, said in an interview.
"And of course, the announcements (of battle victories) by the (wartime) Imperial Headquarters were an absolute must for the paper," he said.
In the 1930s, almost all the shares in the newspaper were purchased by individuals at the request of the ministry, which funded the purchase, according to Nara.
The ministry's control of the paper lasted until September 1945, a month after Japan's surrender, when the U.S.-led Occupation forces ordered the government to relinquish all media share holdings.
Five decades later, Nara is a well-to-do businessman, serving as adviser to three giant corporations: Kodansha Publishing Co., Tokyo Electric Power Co., and Merrill Lynch Japan Inc. Before his retirement from the ministry in 1978, he was ambassador to Canada.
In early 1943, at age 25, Nara was placed at the ministry's Information Bureau. A fast-track bureaucrat, he was tasked with overseeing the day-to-day affairs at the paper, he said.
"I would describe myself as a controller of the paper, rather than a supervisor. After all, the ministry owned The Japan Times," he said. His post did not have a specific title.
The paper at that time had a long official name, The Japan Times Advertiser Incorporating The Japan Chronicle and The Japan Mail, having taken over its competitors in accordance with government policy. The competitors largely represented foreign interests.
Under military pressure, the company was obliged in 1943 to adopt a name with a nationalistic tone, Nippon Times.
Wartime needs
The language used in the paper was the factor that made it so coveted by the government in the war years. Japan needed a medium to reach foreign minds as the nation strove to win international tolerance of its holding of vast colonies.
Japan had been at war with China since 1931, and had been demanded by the League of Nations ― the predecessor to the United Nations ― to revert Manchukuo, a puppet state, back to Chinese rule.
The need for overseas propaganda increased as Japan declared war in late 1941 against the U.S., Britain and other Allied states, opening the Asian-Pacific phase of World War II.
"I made sure the paper carried full reports of the visits of Japanese leaders to the member states of the Greater East Asian Coprosperity Sphere, and the visits to Japan of leaders from the region," Nara said.
Driving the Western colonial rulers from the sphere, mostly made up of Japanese-occupied countries, was one of the publicized objectives of the war. The paper was widely distributed in countries not conversant in Japanese.
Under Nara's policy, the paper covered the activities of such pro-Japanese figures as Burma's Ne Win and India's Chandra Bose, and detailed Japan's exchanges with its puppet government in the Philippines and the Chinese government in Nanjing, also a puppet regime formed in 1940 after the Japanese occupation of central China.
A puppet himself
Despite the belligerent hype he encouraged, Nara said that all along, he was abhorrent of his own instructions and under the constraints of the totalitarian state that Japan was.
Despite all the allegations of American racism and savagery in the paper, neither he nor other ministry officials believed Americans were cruel and bent on carrying out genocide in Asia. Secretly in his mind, he said, he wished Japan would surrender early.
"I was doing things I actually didn't want to do. The situation was the same for everyone at The Japan Times. None of them wanted to do the things (propaganda) they were doing.
"But the people at the paper had common sense, and they would never write honestly, 'Let's stop this war.' If they did, the military would have immediately crushed the firm out of existence, and I, who was overseeing it, would have been put in jail by the military police.
"Japan was a totalitarian state, very similar to today's North Korea. There was no freedom of speech, the military was the absolute dictator, and people who opposed the war were simply arrested immediately . . . , tortured and killed,' he said.
The public bad been fed the doctored information supplied by the military via the censored press, and had been made to believe the war was just and winnable. This manipulation was successful in the early phase of the war against the Allies, when the Japanese military scored a series of blitzkrieg victories.
But the Foreign Ministry, with its extensive knowledge of America's strengths, knew from the beginning that Japan would eventually be overwhelmed by U.S. forces, according to Nara.
The situation was the same with the newspaper staff, who had access to international news. Those in agony over the propaganda they had to print, according to Nara, included then Editor-in-Chief Kazuo Kawai. Educated at Stanford and Harvard universities, Kawai was the author of anti-U.S. editorials at the time.
The paper was under censorship by three government entities, all of which examined it after publication, Nara said. They were the Interior Ministry, the Cabinet Board of Information and the military police.
The paper, controlled and protected by the Foreign Ministry, dared not write anything offensive to the censors and no printing bans were ever issued by them, Nara said.
In early 1945, as U.S. long-range bombers hit Tokyo and other cities with daily airraids, the public began to realize Japan was being defeated, despite the upbeat military reports in the media, he said.
Military leaders then began to mention "gyokusai," the courageous fight to the last person, leading to the honorable deaths of all. Civilian men, women and children were ordered to master the use of sharpened bamboo spears so they could kill American soldiers should they invade.
Hidden message
As Japan's annihilation approached in 1945, the paper made one contribution to peace, Nara said.
The paper continued to trumpet propaganda on its front pages. But inside, it began a weekly essay column, signed simply as Japonicus, that carried a hidden message: What is claimed in this paper is not true and the majority of Japanese do not want gyokusai.
Already, gyokusai had taken place on a smaller scale, including the deaths of all Japanese soldiers on Saipan and the kamikaze suicide attacks by Japanese pilots against U S. warships.
The message, aimed at readers in the Allied camp, was sent out of fear that the U.S. and other enemies might be taking Japan's repeated official vows not to surrender at face value, and thus feel compelled to accelerate their bombardment of the mainland.
Many at the ministry were increasingly worried that Japan could be destroyed, especially after the nuclear attacks. "At the time, we did not know that the U.S. had run out of its atomic bombs after Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Nara said.
The Japonicus column was anonymously written by Professor Kenzo Takayanagi of the Imperial University of Tokyo, at the request of the ministry. The column was read in English on a weekly overseas shortwave radio broadcast by NHK.
The essays were carefully crafted so Western readers could tell, only by reading between the lines, that Japan as a whole wanted a negotiated ceasefire, not a final battle at home, Nara said. The subtlety was essential to avoid detection by the military police, he said.
Of Japan's August 1945 unconditional surrender to the Allied forces, Nara said: "I felt truly relieved, I was happy. Unless we surrendered fast, Japan faced total destruction."
On Sept. 24 of that year, the head office of the U.S.-led Occupation forces, widely known as General Headquarters, issued a press democratization order to the government, forcing it to release all press holdings and relinquish all other forms of control.
The following year, The Japan Times Chairman Tadao Matsumoto, a Diet member who had been installed in the chairman's position by the ministry, resigned. He was among hundreds of government officials and corporate executives ordered by GHQ to quit for aiding the war effort. Matsumoto spoke no English, according to Nara.
U.S. wiretaps
Government control and censorship of the paper thus ended, only to be replaced by a strict prepublication censorship by GHQ until the Occupation ended in 1952.
It was only last year that Nara learned that the Civil Intelligence Section of GHQ had wiretapped his phone conversations with the press to determine whether the government had ignored the GHQ order and continued to exert influence on the press.
"I knew nothing about this until a researcher approached me last year and gave me a copy of the declassified GHQ transcript of tapped conversations between me and The Japan Times," Nara said, referring to Hitotsubashi University Professor Taketoshi Yamamoto.
A copy of the GHQ interoffice memorandum, dated Aug. 23, 1948, concludes: "Information made available through watch-listing of Office of Public Relations, Foreign Office, indicates that this agency of the Japanese Government has frequent contact with Nippon Times and some other publishing firms, but does not establish that these contacts would constitute violations of SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) prohibitions on freedom of press in Japan."
"Watch-listing" meant wire-tapping.
■ジャパンタイムズの歴史全体(英文) 2007/3/22(JT創立110周年)別刷り特集号に書いた文です。
Paper's history dates back 140-plus years to Edo Period
Through peace and war, times of tumultuous change The Japan Times has been a constant source of news and information
By Sam Ito
Staff writer
During its long history, The Japan Times has undergone business difficulties and prosperity, wartime government control, mergers and acquisitions, and journalistic fame.
The history of The Japan Times, to be exact, extends for more than 140 years, considering mergers or special ties with newspapers that were established as long ago as the feudal Edo Period.
The paper is proud of its heritage and displays its significant chronology every day in the masthead just above the editorial:
Established 1897
Incorporating The Japan Advertiser 1890-1940
The Japan Chronicle 1868-1940
The Japan Mail 1870-1918
The Japan Times 1865-1870
There have been two other papers named The Japan Times in the past. Both have been merged into the present Japan Times.
Dawn of journalism
The Japan Times, in the course of its 110-year existence, has absorbed a number of reputable English-1anguage journals, enriching and strengthening the fine traditions bequeathed by its founders. Viewed in historical perspective, The Japan Times presents a picture of a big river, with a number of tributaries flowing into its stream.
Two of the key newspapers that joined The Japan Times' family had been owned and operated by Englishmen, and one first published by an American.
The first of these three papers absorbed by The Japan Times was The Japan Mail. It was inaugurated in 1870 by Captain F. Brinkley, an Englishman who later distinguished himself by covering the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 for The Times of London.
The Japan Mail continued its publication until it was absorbed by The Japan Times in 1918. During its half-century run, The Japan Mail annexed the first Japan Times, the "grandfather" of the present Japan Times, founded by another Englishman in 1865 -- three years before the Meiji Restoration. When the history of the old Japan Times is taken into account, The Japan Times lineage is actually 142 years.
The Japan Times is also linked to Japan's first modern newspaper in any language, The Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser of 1861. A key editor of a sister newspaper to the Nagasaki paper inaugurated the Hiogo News in 1868. Hiogo News was absorbed into The Kobe Chronicle, which was incorporated with The Japan Times in 1940. The Kobe Chronicle is remembered by many as the workplace of novelist Lafcadio Hearn, who was an editorial writer in the 1890s.
Incidentally, the first modern newspaper in the Japanese language is the 1870 Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun, predecessor of Mainichi Shimbun. With Japan far behind the West in printing technology in the 19th century, expatriates were the first to publish modern newspapers in this country.
Another paper that joined The Japan Times was The Japan Advertiser. This paper was established in Yokohama in 1890. Its great progress was made, however, after it came under the proprietorship and management of B. W. Fleisher. Members of the paper's staff were all trained journalists from abroad, and their high qualifications were reflected in the excellent news service and the general vigor of the journal.
The Japan Advertiser was awarded a Special Prize by the Missouri University School of Journalism as one of the superior papers in the world. It continued its publication for 50 years, until in 1940 it was purchased by The Japan Times.
Seeking respect
Patriotism and the need to communicate with the outside world was the major reason why The Japan Times was inaugurated in 1897 as the first indigenous English-language newspaper, run by Japanese and edited under Japanese leadership.
Japan was a fledgling Asian power and had been humiliated by unequal treaties with Western colonial powers signed by the legally naive Tokugawa Shogunate, which bowed to pressure under the threat of military conquest. Treating Japan as an uncivilized nation, the terms forbade Japan from setting its own trade tariff rates and gave extraterritoriality rights -- immunity from Japanese law -- to foreign residents.
The Meiji government had initiated Westernization, including a military buildup and political, economic and legal reforms, to try to convince the West that Japan should be treated as an equal partner. The Japan Times supplemented the Westernization drive and built a bridge of communication between expatriates and the elite Japanese who understood English.
The paper's first editorial laments the language barrier at the time and the need to speak up in English: "It is a remarkable and deplorable fact that after forty years of mutual association, His Majesty's subjects and the foreign residents remain to this day virtually strangers to each other . . . .
"In the eyes of the general public abroad, Japan is like a dumb actress leaving the audience to attach her motions whatever meaning it may please them to choose . . . we persist in our assertion that Japan has not yet been adequately represented through the press, and further, that under the circumstances it is only by the Japanese themselves that their views, sentiments and aspirations can be correctly presented to the outside world. Such are the principal causes that have led to the inauguration of The Japan Times."
Zumoto, the founder
The idea of starting an English-language newspaper owned and operated by Japanese was first conceived in 1883 by Motosada Zumoto, one-time translator on the staff of The Japan Mail and later secretary to Japan's first prime minister, Hirobumi Ito. But it was not until the autumn of 1896, when the Ito Cabinet resigned, that Zumoto was really able to set about putting his long-cherished plan into practice.
Sueji Yamada, a senior friend of Zumoto hailing from the same prefecture, Tottori, was then in a position to help Zumoto, having resigned as head of a branch office of Nippon Yusen Corp.
On hearing Zumoto's plans to start an English-language paper, Yamada was so impressed that he immediately started to raise funds to finance the project. The first man whose assistance he recruited was Yukichi Fukuzawa, founder of Keio University and the Jiji Shimpo newspaper, to whom he was related by marriage.
Fukuzawa succeeded in persuading Baron Yataro Iwasaki, then governor of the Bank of Japan, to raise funds for Zumoto's paper from the Mitsui and Mitsubishi interests, the Bank of Japan, the Yokohama Specie Bank, and Nippon Yusen Corp.
Ito himself helped Zumoto in both official and private capacities. He financed, for instance, Zumoto's trip abroad to visit and study newspaper facilities in Europe and the United States. Zumoto returned from this four-month tour in January 1897 with his convictions that an English-language newspaper was badly needed in this country further strengthened by his discovery that people abroad were totally ignorant of Japanese affairs.
Thus, March 22, 1897, saw the appearance of the first issue of The Japan Times. The paper's chief executives were Yamada, president; Zumoto, managing editor; Yoshitaro Takenobu, assistant managing editor, and Miezo Nakanishi, business manager.
For the logo, the Old English type used in The Times of London was adopted with a woodblock print of Mount Fuji in the center. Also, as with the London Times and many other newspapers of the time, the front page was entirely given over to advertisements. A copy cost 5 sen (1/20 th of 1 yen), and a month's subscription cost 1 yen.
Despite the fact that its editorial staff was very short-handed -- just 10 editors, the 6-page daily carried a weather chart, lists of arrivals and departures of foreign mail, and translations of Japanese newspaper comments in addition to the usual news stories and commentaries. The headlines followed the reserved tradition of British journalism.
A year after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, The Japan Times switched over from a morning paper to an evening paper to supply its readers with the latest war news. Financially speaking, however, the war did considerable damage to the paper.
Kennedy takes over
In January 1891, Zumoto became president of The Japan Times. Despite his long association with the paper, Zumoto was to hold this position for just three years, for in 1914 the management of The Japan Times was transferred to the Kokusai Tsushin Sha (International News Agency).
The foundation of this news agency had come about in this way: A Japanese business mission headed by Viscount Eiichi Shibusawa -- known today as the father of capitalism in Japan -- had been sent to the U.S. in 1910 at the invitation of chambers of commerce on the Pacific coast. During his three-month stay in the U.S., Shibusawa had come to the conclusion that it was important for Japan to have an international news agency that would do something to remedy the general ignorance of Japanese affairs prevailing in America and elsewhere. On his return to Japan, he devoted all his efforts toward the establishment of such an agency.
The result was that the Kokusai News Agency was founded in March 1914 with Count Aisuke Kabayama as its president and John Russell Kennedy as its general manager.
Although Zumoto played an important part in the founding of the news agency and probably was the originator of the idea regarding its amalgamation with The Japan Times, he was merely given a position in the Kokusai, the actual management being entrusted to Kennedy, an Irish-born journalist who had moved to the U.S., becoming the city editor at The Washington Post. In 1907, he came to Tokyo as an Associated Press correspondent. To insure smooth liaison between the news agency and the English-language papers, Kennedy also assumed the management of The Japan Times.
On July 2, 1914, the paper was reorganized into a joint-stock company capitalized at 1O,OOO yen and called The Japan Times Kabushiki Kaisha, Kennedy succeeding Zumoto as president.
The Japan Mail moved into the Times building from its Kanda offices in February 1915, merely retaining its name without issuing any paper for seven years. In 1918, The Japan Times absorbed The Japan Mail, changing its masthead to The Japan Times & Mail.
In December 1921, Kennedy resigned the presidency and the Times was then reorganized as an anonymous association under a new management. Bunshiro Hattori, chief secretary of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, was made president, Sometaro Sheba became managing director.
Sheba, a newspaper publisher in Hawaii, hired R. O. Matheson, a former Honolulu Advertiser managing editor, to run the newsroom. Sheba, who had bought Japan Times shares from Kennedy, later became president.
In 1923, The Japan Times introduced press campaigns to this country. In the paper, Sheba proposed the preservation of the retired but famed battleship Mikasa. Two years later, the government agreed. It was the first known successful case of the press running prolonged campaigns to gain public support to realize projects of social importance.
Political influence
Over the years, the paper received help from one prime minister -- Ito, the former boss of Zumoto -- brought down another prime minister, and helped to produce a third.
The Japan Times was instrumental in the resignation of Prime Minister Gonbei Yamamoto following the Siemens Incident of 1914, a bribery scandal involving the Japanese Imperial Navy's purchase of radio facilities from a German firm. The paper broke the news, a Reuters dispatch from London, which was used by a House of Representatives member to attack the government.
A key employee from the German firm had fled to Shanghai after stealing documents from its Tokyo office. The Japan Times sent a reporter to the Chinese city to get an exclusive interview with the employee. The story was a major scoop and after two months of widening scandal, Yamamoto resigned.
In 1948, Hitoshi Ashida, a former Japan Times president, became prime minister. Before and during World War II, Ashida, also a Diet member, was scorned by the military because he was a liberal, friendly to the U.S. This reputation and his fluency in English worked to his advantage during the postwar years when Japan was under the U.S.-led Occupation and English was a must for the prime minister. Besides English, Ashida spoke Russian, the language of the Soviet Union, which was also a victor in the war.
Famous people
Besides prime ministers, many of the best and brightest people of the country have had relations with The Japan Times.
Two of them are familiar from their portraits on bank notes. Fukuda, who helped Zumoto raise the funds to launch the paper, is pictured on the 10,000 yen note.
Inazo Nitobe, the face on the 5,000 yen bills until 2004, was a college friend of Zumoto and encouraged him to start the paper. The best-known Japanese writer in the West during his lifetime, Nitobe also helped with Japan Times lecture events for readers and later went on to become an undersecretary general at the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations. Nitobe's son, Takao Nitobe, served as editor-in-chief during the early Showa period.
Kanzo Uchimura, an author and Christian evangelist, wrote editorials for the paper. As Japan emerged as victor in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, people rioted in central Tokyo seeking to restart the war and demand reparations from Russia. The Japan Times was one of the few newspapers that printed pacifist editorials. The riots expanded and later forced the government to impose martial law.
Many Japan Times editors had liberal thoughts, having daily contacts with Western news and thinking. During Japan's imperialist expansion era, the military checked the activities of such editors, including Ashida and Keigo Baba, a managing editor. In postwar years, their liberal ideas were appreciated. Baba was chosen president of Yomiuri Shimbun and the first president of the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association.
Kiyoaki Murata, editor-in-chief until 1983, won the Vaughn-Ueda Prize, the Japanese equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize, for international reporting.
Journalists are not the only people that The Japan Times has fostered. Many who worked here later achieved fame as scholars. Such names include Yoshitaro Takenobu, a former assistant managing editor now known as the original author of Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary.
Government control
The early 1940s was an exceptional period in which The Japan Times kept roaring ahead with big, forceful headlines to glorify its stories.
The time could also be considered the darkest days for the paper because it had to serve the military-ruled empire under state censorship.
During World War II, the media fanned public hatred toward Americans, British and other enemies, and justified Japan's conquest of much of Asia. The Japan Times, then under control of the government, was no exception.
"My instruction to The Japan Times was to stress that Japan shall have a perfect victory, and that the nation shall fight it out to the very last person," Yasuhiko Nara, a former Foreign Ministry bureaucrat who supervised the paper at the time, said in a 1987 interview with the paper.
In the 1930s, almost all the shares in the newspaper were purchased by individuals at the request of the ministry, which funded the purchase, according to Nara.
The Japan Times has lost ownership documents from the era, but the appointment of Tokichi Tanaka, a former vice foreign minister, as The Japan Times president in 1924 suggests the ministry's control of the paper began around the 1920s. It lasted until September 1945, a month after Japan's surrender, when the Occupation forces ordered the government to relinquish all media share holdings.
The paper in 1940 assumed a long official name, The Japan Times Advertiser Incorporating The Japan Chronicle and The Japan Mail, having taken over its competitors in accordance with government policy. The competitors largely represented foreign interests.
Under military pressure, The Japan Times was obliged in 1943 to adopt a name with a nationalistic tone, Nippon Times.
Wartime needs
The language used in the paper was the factor that made it so coveted by the government in the war years. Japan needed a medium to reach foreign minds as the nation strove to win international tolerance of its holding of vast colonies.
Japan had been at war with China since 1931, and had been demanded by the League of Nations to revert Manchukuo, a puppet state, back to Chinese rule.
The need for overseas propaganda increased as Japan declared war in late 1941 against the U.S., Britain and other Allied states, opening the Asian-Pacific phase of World War II.
"I made sure the paper carried full reports of the visits of Japanese leaders to the member states of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the visits to Japan of leaders from the region," Nara said.
Driving the Western colonial rulers from the sphere, mostly made up of Japanese-occupied countries, was one of the publicized objectives of the war. The paper was widely distributed in countries not conversant in Japanese.
Under Nara's policy, the paper covered the activities of such pro-Japanese figures as Burma's Ne Win and India's Chandra Bose, and detailed Japan's exchanges with its puppet government in the Philippines and the Chinese government in Nanjing, also a puppet regime formed in 1940 after the Japanese occupation of central China.
Propaganda
Despite the belligerent hype he encouraged, Nara said that all along, he was abhorrent of his own instructions and under the constraints of the totalitarian state that Japan was.
Despite all the allegations of American racism and savagery in the paper, neither he nor other ministry officials believed Americans were cruel and bent on carrying out genocide in Asia.
"I was doing things I actually didn't want to do. The situation was the same for everyone at The Japan Times. None of them wanted to do the things (propaganda) they were doing.
"But the people at the paper had common sense, and they would never write honestly, 'Let's stop this war.' If they did, the military would have immediately crushed the firm out of existence, and I, who was overseeing it, would have been put in jail by the military police.
"Japan was a totalitarian state, very similar to today's North Korea. There was no freedom of speech, the military was the absolute dictator, and people who opposed the war were simply arrested immediately . . . , tortured and killed," he said.
The public bad been fed the doctored information supplied by the military via the censored press, and had been made to believe the war was just and winnable. This manipulation was successful in the early phase of the war against the Allies, when the Japanese military scored a series of blitzkrieg victories.
The newspaper staff, who had access to international news, were in agony over the propaganda they had to print. According to Nara, they included then Editor-in-Chief Kazuo Kawai. Educated at Stanford and Harvard universities, Kawai was the author of anti-U.S. editorials at the time.
The paper was under censorship by three government entities. They were the Interior Ministry, the Cabinet Board of Information and the military police.
In early 1945, as U.S. long-range bombers hit Tokyo and other cities with daily air raids, the public began to realize Japan was being defeated, despite the upbeat military reports in the media.
Military leaders then began to mention "gyokusai," the courageous fight to the last person, leading to the honorable deaths of all. Civilian men, women and children were ordered to master the use of sharpened bamboo spears so they could kill American soldiers should they invade.
Hidden peace message
As Japan's defeat approached in 1945, the paper made one contribution to peace.
The Japan Times continued to trumpet propaganda on its front pages. But inside, it began a weekly essay column, signed simply as Japonicus, which carried a hidden message: What is claimed in this paper is not true and the majority of Japanese do not want gyokusai.
Already, gyokusai had taken place on a smaller scale, including the deaths of all Japanese soldiers on Saipan and the kamikaze suicide attacks by Japanese pilots against U S. warships.
The message, aimed at readers in the Allied camp, was sent out of fear that the U.S. and other enemies might be taking Japan's repeated official vows not to surrender at face value, and thus feel compelled to accelerate their bombardment of the mainland.
The Japonicus column was anonymously written by Prof. Kenzo Takayanagi of the Imperial University of Tokyo at the request of the Foreign Ministry. The column was read in English on a weekly overseas shortwave radio broadcast by NHK.
The essays were carefully crafted so Western readers could tell, only by reading between the lines, that Japan as a whole wanted a negotiated ceasefire, not a final battle at home. The subtlety was essential to avoid detection by the military police.
On Sept. 24, 1945, the head office of the Occupation forces, widely known as the General Headquarters, or GHQ, issued a press democratization order to the government, forcing it to release all press holdings and relinquish all other forms of control.
The following year, Japan Times Chairman Tadao Matsumoto, a Diet member who had been installed by the Foreign Ministry, resigned. He was among hundreds of government officials and corporate executives ordered by GHQ to quit for aiding the war effort.
Government control and censorship of the paper thus ended, only to be replaced by strict censorship by GHQ until the Occupation ended in 1952. The GHQ ordered the burning of all printed copies on Oct. 12, 1945, for its translated reprint of a Jiji Shimpo editorial saying the Japanese must not treat Gen. Douglas MacArthur as a living god as they once did Emperor Showa.
Financial ups and downs
For much of The Japan Times history, publishing the paper in a foreign language has not been a profitable venture, sometimes likened to charity rather than business. It would not have lasted for over a century unless the staff placed ideals of journalism and international understanding above financial gains.
The war ended in August 1945, and the Allied Occupation forces moved in. During the Occupation and thereafter, popularization of English became phenomenal and, coupled with the increasing number of readers among the Occupation personnel, circulation swelled rapidly.
Moreover, with Japanese political circles and business interests having to make contacts with GHQ and local military governments, the use of an English-language newspaper came to be widely recognized.
Circulation continued to increase, and advertisements of foreign firms and Japanese firms dealing with foreign clients filled more and more space. It thus became possible for the paper to operate on a purely commercial basis and to become an independent paper.
Fukushima's reforms
In January 1956, the Nippon Times invited Shintaro Fukushima, a career diplomat and former director-general of the Procurement Agency, to take over its presidency. Under his leadership, the paper reverted to its original name, The Japan Times, on July 1, 1956.
The paper coined its editorial motto, "All the News Without Fear or Favor," and set out its mission in writing.
“The mission of The Japan Times, as Japan's one and only independent English-Language newspaper, shall be to report domestic and international news accurately, speedily, and amply to readers in Japan and overseas from an impartial standpoint. Without fear and without flattery, The Japan Times shall endeavour to build a well-informed public opinion for the sake of truth and justice, freedom and democracy, and international cooperation and world peace."
(本紙掲載はスペースのためここまで)
Fukushima later served concurrently as Kyodo News president.
In 1951, The Student Times, a bilingual tabloid weekly, issued its first edition. It was renamed Shukan ST in 1990.
In 1957, The Japan Times Daily International Airmail Edition was launched for the benefit of readers overseas. The ultralight newspaper that was distributed outside the country with the ease of airmail was a great idea to report news in the pre-Internet years. It won a Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association Award the following year.
In 1961, The Japan Times Weekly made its debut. The Japan Times Weekly International Edition, an overseas edition of the Weekly, started printing in Los Angeles for distribution overseas.
The paper introduced a cold-typesetting system in 1976 and a computerized type-setting system in 1985, one of the first Japanese papers to use computers for production.
New publisher
Toshiaki Ogasawara, the incumbent publisher and chairman, was handpicked by Fukushima to succeed him. A Princeton-educated businessman and founder of the Nifco group of firms, Ogasawara became the paper's 18th president in 1983.
Ogasawara has supported the basic principles that have become widely-accepted in today's Japan, including the promotion of the country's internationalization, boosting of relations with the U.S. and other nations, pacifism and deregulation.
In 1996, the company officially launched The Japan Times Online, part of a diversification drive. Later that year, The Japan Times opened InterFM, a foreign-language radio station that the company ran as a major shareholder until last year.
In March 2006, Yukiko Ogasawara, the elder Ogasawara's U.S.-educated daughter, assumed the presidency. Growing up biculturally, she has stressed multiple perspectives and editorial integrity.
In August last year, she inaugurated a new addition to the newspaper family, The Japan Times Junior, a bilingual weekly mainly intended for teenagers learning English.
(bio) Sam Ito was managing editor between April 2005 and September 2006. He is currently Education Department manager at The Japan Times, Ltd.
Reprinted with permission. March 22, 2007, The Japan Times
■JT天気欄の変遷
明治30年3月22日（創刊号）
1996
1997新天気欄に変更 20080219p20の例
Weathernews社
20080401p20 Kyodo News使用に
Bring back old weather map
JT08/4/24p14
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