Kyodo News

Kyodo News is Japan’s major wire service, likened in the book to the country’s counterpart to the Associated Press. Its institutional history makes it difficult to characterize simply: it became independent after the Second World War, but the connections inherited from its earlier role were not entirely severed. At the same time, the labor protections available to its reporters gave it an unusually favorable reputation among Japanese news organizations.

Origins and Institutional Ties

Kyodo News was originally known as Domei, the official propaganda branch of the Japanese government during the Second World War. Its postwar transition to independence did not eliminate every connection to that past. The book also identifies Dentsu, Japan’s largest and most powerful advertising agency, as holding a controlling interest in Kyodo News. That ownership could color the service’s coverage, complicating any straightforward assessment of its editorial independence.

Reporting and Reputation

As the narrator weighs where to apply, Kyodo News is described as harder to figure out than some of the country’s newspapers. Its institutional entanglements are presented alongside a practical advantage: a strong labor union that reporters elsewhere envied. The union ensured that Kyodo News journalists could take the vacation days they were owed, a benefit described as rare at many Japanese firms.

Comparison with Jiji Press

The book places Kyodo News beside Jiji Press, characterized as its smaller, less widely read and less heavily staffed counterpart. A cruel industry joke held that Jiji reporters wrote their stories after reading Kyodo News. The comparison conveys Kyodo News’s standing as a benchmark in the wire-service field, while the account of its union shows that its distinction was not limited to readership or reporting resources: it also lay in the conditions its reporters could claim at work.