Since 2015, GNV has been conducting quantitative and qualitative analysis of Japan’s international news coverage, focusing on major mass media such as newspapers and television. This time, using ten years of reporting data that GNV has accumulated since its establishment on the Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun, we look at the long-term, overall trends in Japan’s international coverage. Over the past decade there have been many events that drew global attention—armed conflicts, elections, outbreaks of infectious diseases—while others received comparatively little attention relative to their seriousness. More broadly, we also observed imbalances in the volume of coverage by country/region and by topic. Including these points, what trends can be seen in international news over the last ten years? We analyze long-term trends to examine patterns in Japan’s international reporting and the background behind them.

The scope of GNV’s study is articles printed in the morning editions of the Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun from 2015 through 2024. We collected articles that meet GNV’s criteria for international news, and compiled data on character counts, the countries and regions that appear in the articles, and their topics. All of this data is compiled on GNV’s dedicated page “Reporting data,” where we publish the full dataset by country/region and category for all three papers.

Stacked newspapers (Photo: Radu Razvan / Shutterstock.com)

Changes in the overall volume of international reporting

First, we look at the trajectory of the absolute volume of international news articles over the past decade. The figures below show monthly and annual trends. On the whole, the average annual character count has hovered around 3 to 4 million characters, and the number of articles has ranged between 300 and 600. Overall, coverage declined slightly from 2020 to 2021 and then increased again from 2022 onward. At the Yomiuri Shimbun, the total volume of reporting has increased since 2022 compared to earlier years. The Asahi and Mainichi also showed a slight increase in 2021–2022, but returned to previous levels from 2023. More detailed data is available on GNV’s “Reporting data” page.

The decline in 2020 likely reflects the impact of the spread of COVID-19. As coverage of domestic infections and government responses increased, the character count allocated to international news presumably decreased. As for the uptick from 2022, which we discuss later, one reason was the intense attention on the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

Biases and changes in the countries covered

Next, we examine coverage volume by country over the past ten years. The figure below maps the amount of international coverage each country received; the darker the color, the greater the coverage. There is a large disparity between countries that are covered and those that are not, with Japan’s newspaper coverage concentrated on a subset of countries. By contrast, most of the world’s countries and regions are covered very little, revealing how skewed Japan’s international reporting is. Company-specific datasets are posted on the dedicated page.

Now let’s look at the top ten countries by coverage volume. The results are shown in the figure below. For the total across all ten years, the most-covered countries, in descending order, were the United States, China, Japan (Note 1), Russia, South Korea, North Korea, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, France, and Israel. Looking at annual data, the United States ranked first and China second in every year. Below third place the order varies, but neighboring South Korea and states involved in globally prominent conflicts—Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine—followed, indicating similar patterns across the three papers in the countries they cover.

The tendency toward heavy coverage of the United States and China mirrors other media and single-year analyses. As GNV’s past article noted, Japan’s media have a very strong interest in the United States, which is clearly reflected in the ten-year dataset. Interest in China is likewise strong, and coverage often links China to Japan, the United States, and South Korea. Behind this pattern is the tendency of Japan’s media to view the world from a Japan-centric perspective. Another reason is reliance on Japanese government officials as sources, which makes it easier to highlight issues the government emphasizes.

Below the top two, the specific ranks and countries vary somewhat, but the list was broadly similar. South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong—countries and territories geographically close to Japan—frequently appeared in the top ten. Given constant attention to East Asian security and cultural proximity to Japan, these were heavily covered every year. Germany, France, and the United Kingdom were also often in the top ten each year. The UK received extensive coverage in 2016 when the referendum on leaving the European Union (EU) was held, while France and Germany were frequently covered due to strong political and business ties.

Other countries drew attention in particular years. From 2015 to 2016, France, Syria, and Greece ranked fifth, seventh, and tenth, respectively. Coverage of France focused on the 2015 terrorist attacks; Greece drew attention for its economic crisis; and the intensification of the conflict between President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and opposition forces likely drove Syria’s coverage. From 2019 to 2020, reporting on Hong Kong rose sharply due to the pro-democracy protests against China. In addition, Myanmar in 2021; Ukraine and Russia from 2022; and Israel and Palestine from 2023 saw drastic increases in coverage with the onset of conflicts in those regions.

This pattern was especially pronounced in the case of the Russia–Ukraine conflict: Ukraine received hardly any coverage before 2021, but in the first half of 2022 alone it accounted for 95% of all conflict reporting, even surpassing the United States and China in volume. Meanwhile, large-scale armed conflicts were also occurring in countries such as Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Yemen during the same period, but GNV’s past research has shown that these countries were covered at extremely low rates.

Company-specific datasets are posted on the dedicated page.

Changes in the regions covered

Next, we look at regional rankings. The results for each newspaper are shown in the figure below. In every year, the top three regions were Asia, North America, and Europe, and together they accounted for about 90% of all coverage. In 2015, Europe alone accounted for a quarter of the total, second only to Asia. That year, European political and economic topics—terrorist attacks in France, Greece’s economic crisis, and the UK’s debate over leaving the EU—featured prominently. From 2016 to 2021, the United States accounted for about a quarter of all coverage, ranking second overall. In 2022 alone, coverage of the Russia–Ukraine war pushed Europe to first, with Asia second and North America third, bucking the trend in other years. Coverage of North America was overwhelmingly about the United States, with very little on Canada or Mexico.

What stands out here is how little coverage Latin America, Africa, and Oceania received. In every year and for every paper, these regions accounted for only a few percent of the total. Africa has a large population, and large-scale conflicts have long persisted in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. The Sahel region has seen numerous conflicts, terrorist incidents, coups, and humanitarian crises, and in 2024 it was said that more than half of the world’s terrorism deaths occurred there. Yet coverage of these places was very limited, in stark contrast to reporting on the Russia–Ukraine and Israel–Palestine conflicts noted above. Company-specific datasets are posted on the dedicated page.

Changes in the topics covered

We next examine trends in the topics covered over the past ten years. GNV classifies international coverage into politics, economy, military, war/conflict, protests/riots, terrorism, incidents, accidents, environment/pollution, health/medical care, society/lifestyle, science/technology, arts/culture, sports, and education. The results are shown in the figures below. The first shows the shares for the ten-year total. Politics accounted for 45%, the largest share, followed by economy, war/conflict, military, and society/lifestyle as the primary topics, with all other categories making up very small shares.

The second figure plots character counts on the vertical axis and time from 2015 to 2024 on the horizontal axis, showing how the volume of coverage in each category shifted. For example, in the Mainichi Shimbun, reporting on military issues rose sharply in early 2016 due to North Korea’s nuclear test that January, which drew heavy attention from Japanese media. In 2018, coverage of economy increased due to news about U.S.–China trade friction.

From 2020 onward, we see two turning points. The first is the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Health/medical care, which had previously been covered very little, increased dramatically and became the second-largest category after politics. This underscores both the impact of the pandemic on the media and the high level of interest in the topic. The second is the sharp rise in articles on war/conflict from 2022. Because of the Russia–Ukraine war that began in 2022 and the Israel–Palestine war that began in 2023, war/conflict was the second-most covered topic after politics for the subsequent three years. While the dominance of political coverage was consistent, topics such as conflicts and disease outbreaks saw surges of intense, short-term coverage. Company-specific datasets are posted on the dedicated page.

Analyzing international reporting: Why do some conflicts get attention while others do not?

So far, we have reviewed quantitative data on international coverage over the past decade. Here we highlight several features that emerge and consider the factors behind them.

In conflict coverage, two features stand out: concentration on a few conflicts and the transience of coverage. While many conflicts occurred over the decade, reporting volume was extremely high for a few of them, particularly the Russia–Ukraine and Israel–Palestine wars. Multiple factors intertwine here, but connections to—and the strong interest of—high-income countries such as the United States and those in Europe likely drive the concentration of coverage.

By contrast, coverage of other conflicts tends to spike briefly but remains far smaller than for the wars mentioned above. For example, in the case of Sudan, the Yomiuri Shimbun carried 14,069 characters in April 2023 and 2,320 characters in May 2023 immediately after the conflict began. Even though the conflict has continued with severe humanitarian impacts, monthly coverage thereafter remained around 1,000 characters or less, and did not change in 2024. The conflict in Yemen, which began in 2014 and continues to this day, has involved great powers such as the United States and Russia, yet it is rarely featured in conflict reporting. Why is there such a skew in coverage of conflicts and instability?

A scene from an IAEA meeting on Ukraine (Photo: IAEA Imagebank / Flickr [CC BY
2.0])

One explanation is that the strength of interest in Japan and other high-income countries, including those in the West, influences the volume of coverage. As GNV has pointed out before, Japanese media are influenced by U.S. media agendas and tend to align their reporting with the interests of high-income Western countries. The Russia–Ukraine war directly concerns European security, and the United States has provided major military support, making interest especially high. The Israel–Palestine conflict is also often covered extensively due to political ties with the United States.

Because Japanese media also prioritize conflicts of high interest to high-income countries, coverage of these conflicts increases. The location of overseas bureaus also matters. Japanese media dispatch many correspondents to Europe, Asia, and the United States, but they have relatively few reporting bases in Latin America and Africa. Fewer bureaus correlate with lower baseline interest and fewer reporting resources, making conflicts in Africa less likely to receive attention.

Analyzing international reporting: The post-COVID concentration of coverage

As noted earlier, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 had major political and economic effects worldwide and attracted intense attention in international reporting. In normal times, health/medical coverage in international news amounts to less than 1% of the total, but in 2020 alone it accounted for 17.6%—second after politics—rising more than fifty-fold from 0.3% the previous year. While a pandemic on this scale was indeed extraordinary, other infectious diseases that have major global impacts have also occurred over the past decade. Tuberculosis, for example, is a global infectious disease that is said to claim 1.6 million lives annually, mainly in low-income countries, but it is hardly covered in typical international news. HIV and malaria continue to kill many people worldwide as well, yet they receive very little coverage.

Looking at COVID-19 case numbers, Latin American countries such as Brazil and Argentina and Asian countries such as India accounted for a large share, but coverage by country that year was dominated by the United States, China, and Europe, with relatively little attention to the Global South, where medical infrastructure and treatment environments can be expected to be less developed. Why such disparity in coverage of the same infectious disease?

UNICEF staff show the press containers used to transport COVID-19 vaccines (Photo: UNICEF Ukraine / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 2.0])

One reason is that the virus had a very direct impact on Japan and other high-income countries. Since tuberculosis and malaria spread primarily in Africa, and Japanese media have a relatively weak interest in low-income countries, coverage of these diseases tends to be limited. Another reason is that COVID-19 was new and its threat unknown. Newly identified in December 2019, it was more novel and attention-grabbing than longstanding diseases such as tuberculosis or HIV, helping it draw major attention in international coverage. Indeed, GNV’s past research has also noted that news organizations tend to be more interested in new infectious diseases.

Analyzing international reporting: Why so much on “politics,” “economy,” and “conflict”?

Finally, regarding the imbalance in news topics, why are politics, economy, and war/conflict so dominant? Except for cases after 2020 when COVID-19 pushed “health/medical care” up the ranks, “politics,” “economy,” and “conflict” consistently remained at the top every year, accounting for roughly 70% of the total. Meanwhile, themes such as “environment” and “society” consistently accounted for only a few percent. Why does coverage concentrate so heavily on a few topics?

One reason is that reporting in Japan tends to be elite-centric. As GNV’s past research has pointed out, much of Japan’s international coverage centers on state institutions and their affiliates. As in domestic reporting, international desks often interview political actors such as politicians and bureaucrats. This skews coverage toward places and people where power and wealth are concentrated, namely politics and the economy. Conflicts also lend themselves to coverage because they are fast-moving and sensational, which can further boost volume. Conversely, events and issues occurring among the general public or away from government—such as society/lifestyle and the environment—are less likely to be covered and thus receive less attention.

Journalists attending a press conference (Photo: Tsuguliev / Shutterstock.com)

Conclusion

Using ten years of international reporting data, we examined long-term, macro-level trends in Japan’s international news. Some tendencies were consistent throughout the decade, while others fluctuated by year. The two great powers—the United States and China—were the most covered countries every year, with an unwaveringly high degree of attention to the United States in particular. Conversely, the extremely low volume of coverage for low-income countries and the Global South was a persistent pattern. At the same time, some topics—such as conflicts and health/medical care—varied greatly depending on events in a given year.

News organizations operate as for-profit companies, and because many factors—audience and reader interests, sponsor preferences, etc.—are involved, it is difficult to report everything that happens in the world objectively, comprehensively, and exactly as it is. However, prioritizing where an event occurs and which countries or people are affected—rather than the nature and scale of its impact—raises questions about the role of the news media.

As readers, we should approach information with a certain skepticism, recognizing that the world we see through the media is always distorted in some way. Rather than accepting information uncritically, we should act with high media literacy: consult other outlets to view the same event from different angles, and research the background from our own perspective, for example. Especially for international news, because the events take place abroad, we can only access information through multiple layers of media. We must keep in mind that what reaches us is influenced by various factors and engage with information accordingly.

GNV aims to provide information that allows for a more objective and comprehensive view of the world through our proprietary database of quantitative international reporting data and content such as world affairs (Global View) and media analysis (News View). We have also released an aggregated dataset covering the ten years from 2015 to 2024. It includes detailed, company-level data that we could not cover in this article, and we plan to continue updating our international reporting data in new formats from 2025 onward. GNV will continue to “report the unreported world.”

Note 1: Counted when Japan is included among the countries in an article that GNV judged to be international news. For example, in an article about Japan–U.S. relations, the article itself is counted as international news, and the related countries are treated as Japan and the United States.

Writer: Takumi Kuriyama

Data: Successive GNV members involved in data entry

Graphics: Seita Morimoto, Data team

Follow @GNV_tweets