Among the roles of the news media are to present the truth as it is and to act as a watchdog over power. Another, less obvious role is to assert each outlet’s own views. In other words, media organizations publish their perspectives and interpretations and thereby influence readers. In newspapers, the clearest example is the editorial. The topics featured in editorials are those the paper deems noteworthy, and the emphasis given to them influences us. How newspapers choose and write the topics they address in editorials can have a major influence on the shaping of society.

Here, we examine the topics taken up in editorials and look at their tendencies. Across the editorials of Japan’s three major national dailies in 2015, the number of editorials that qualify as international reporting was 306. First, how were these distributed by region? The countries most frequently covered are shown in the figure below.

China ranks at the top. Its share by character count is 23.8%, far ahead of the rest. Given that China-related articles account for 12.1% of all international coverage, including editorials, this shows a distinctive emphasis in editorials. By contrast, the shares for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania in editorials are very small—2.6%, 0.4%, and 0.0%, respectively. This too underscores the abundance of China-related editorials. Looking at other countries, for each of the top five, the share of characters in editorials is larger than in overall coverage. Articles about countries considered important from the newspapers’ standpoint appear to be even more prioritized in editorials. However, for the United States and France, the opposite was true: their shares were smaller in editorials. If, as noted above, editorials play an important role in shaping society, this raises questions about their substance.

France and Syria also appear in the rankings, driven by the 2015 terrorist attacks in France and the Syrian conflict. Such conflict- and terror-related editorials numbered 42 across the three papers, a sizable share. There were many other conflicts around the world in 2015; which of them were featured in editorials?

Below, we take up editorials related to three keywords—“China,” “the United States,” and “conflict/terrorism”—and look more closely at their content.

First, editorials about China. Of the 306, 81 concerned China. Their topics included domestic human rights issues, politics and the economy, the South China Sea, Japan–China–South Korea relations, the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), Japan–China relations, and East Asian diplomacy. When the number of articles in each category is represented by the size of circles, the distribution looks like the figure below.

Yellow: economy-related, light blue: politics-related, gray: society

In 2015, two stand-alone topics drew particular attention: the South China Sea issue and China’s economy, including the AIIB. In addition to matters directly tied to East Asia and Japan, many pieces also addressed what the chart labels “politics/society,” such as political systems, human rights, and social issues. As the actual headlines below show, many of the politics/society articles focused on concrete social problems and political institutions within China and offered criticism.

“China’s civic movement: Empathize with the issues it raises”

“China’s defense white paper: Must not heighten tensions”

(both from the Asahi Shimbun)

“Tianjin explosions: China should be proactive about information disclosure”

“Two Japanese detained in China: Excessive control under the name of ‘rule of law’”

(both from the Yomiuri Shimbun)

“China’s National People’s Congress: Civilian welfare is more important than the military”

(from the Mainichi Shimbun)

As noted at the outset, editorials about China accounted for 23.8% of the three major dailies’ editorials. In a world of 196 countries, that is remarkable. While the content showed some bias toward the economy and relations among East Asian countries, a broad range of themes was covered.

Next, we look at editorials about the United States. Their content differed greatly from those on China. Surprisingly, there were few that focused solely on domestic events, political institutions, or American society.

Yellow: economy-related, light blue: politics-related, gray: society

Among the editorials on the United States, those shown in light blue in the figure concern U.S. politics, but most are about external relations. U.S.–Cuba relations, which were normalized in 2015, U.S.–Japan relations, and U.S.–China relations account for roughly equal numbers; adding other external relations such as the NSA wiretapping allegations, 19 of the 28 items in the figure dealt with foreign relations. The titles of the remaining six domestic U.S. pieces are as follows.

“U.S. counterterrorism: Do not allow incitement by ‘Islamic State’”

“Ending U.S. zero interest rates: An extraordinary crisis response reaches the ‘exit’”

(both from the Yomiuri Shimbun)

“Obama’s speech: Strong leadership against terrorism”

“Obama’s diplomacy: Achievements beyond Cuba as well”

“U.S. mass shooting: Gun regulation is also counterterrorism”

“End of U.S. zero rates: Steadily normalize policy”

(all from the Mainichi Shimbun)

Although we often hear news about the United States, it can be said that in 2015 editorials were mostly about diplomacy, with little discussion of domestic society, politics, or the military.

Next, we examine conflict- and terror-related coverage. As the figure shows, the conflicts and terrorist incidents featured in editorials were very limited.

Three pieces discussed counterterrorism or stances toward terrorism without specifying a region; the rest dealt with conflicts and terrorism in Europe and the Middle East. The fact that only these two regions were featured is striking even compared with the bias seen in conflict reporting in general articles. Major conflicts in Africa—such as in Nigeria and South Sudan—were never the subject of editorials. Notably, regarding refugees, even though 86% of the world’s refugees live in developing countries, seven of the eight articles were about refugees in Europe—an odd imbalance.

While news aims to convey facts, editorials serve to communicate each newspaper’s thinking. Compared with other articles, they express stronger opinions. Readers are influenced by those opinions to varying degrees; we think about the topics and talk about them. As we have seen, when the range of editorial topics is limited and biased, we are deprived of forums to discuss, and opportunities to think deeply about, topics that are not taken up. Precisely because globalization today has tightly connected the world, how might Japanese society change if, beyond issues of direct interest to Japan, larger events occurring more broadly around the world came to the fore?

Writer: Mana Koie
Graphics: Mai Ishikawa