To the extent that we hardly need to use the word “globalization,” our lives today are closely connected with other countries and are influenced by world affairs and developments abroad in everything from everyday shopping to environmental issues and security. The pandemic brought by COVID-19 made us realize that infectious diseases, irrespective of borders, inevitably affect the entire world, reminding us how interconnected the world is. However, can we really say that news about the world reaches us sufficiently? While opportunities to obtain news and information via social media have increased, when it comes to world news, access issues remain, and the role of mass media is still extremely significant.

As GNV already reported in 2019 based largely on data from the Asahi Shimbun, international reporting by the media has been declining (report). In 2019 we drew on Asahi Shimbun data, but this time, we would like to reconsider the long-term changes in the volume of international reporting, focusing on data from the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Front page of the Yomiuri Shimbun on January 1, 2011 (New Year’s Day) (Photo: Danny Choo / Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0])

Trends in international reporting as seen in the Yomiuri Shimbun

First, what are the trends in the number of international news articles in the Yomiuri Shimbun over the 25 years since 2000? For this analysis, we used the database “Yomidas,” which carries past Yomiuri articles. Checking the number of articles classified as “International” in that database, as shown in the graph below, we found that from 2000 to 2008 the number consistently exceeded 20,000 per year, but has been below 20,000 since then. From 2018 onward, Yomidas changed its classification method so that overseas sports articles are no longer included in the “International” category, making simple comparisons impossible, so our Yomidas-based analysis here runs through 2017 (※1).

As a long-term trend, if we divide the 18 years from 2000 to 2017 into two nine-year periods, the average annual number of articles was 23,813 from 2000 to 2008, compared to 17,204 from 2009 to 2017—a decrease of about 28%.

There are also significant year-to-year differences in the increase and decrease of international reporting. Since 2000, the year with the most international coverage was 2002, with about 27,000 articles. This was likely influenced by the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the subsequent U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which were extensively covered (※2). After that, the number of articles gradually declined from 2003 to 2011. When we asked the Yomiuri Shimbun Public Relations Department about this point, their response dated July 18, 2025 suggested that the relative increase in domestic coverage due to the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011 may have had an impact.

As for the uptick in 2017, it may be attributable to an increase in coverage of the United States after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election and his first administration began. GNV’s independent survey of international reporting in the Yomiuri Shimbun from 2015 to 2024 also confirms that 2017 had the highest volume of reporting about the United States.

Moreover, looking at both GNV’s findings from 2015 to 2024 and the Yomidas data from 2018 to 2024, we can say the volume of international reporting during this period is relatively stable. In other words, although international reporting in the Yomiuri Shimbun declined from 2003 to 2011, it is not the case that it continues to decline today.

What is the impact of reductions in foreign bureaus and correspondents?

Let us also look at the substantial decrease in the number of international news articles from 2002 to 2011 from another angle.

To conduct international reporting, mass media such as the Yomiuri Shimbun dispatch correspondents overseas to reside locally and report directly. However, regarding the Yomiuri Shimbun specifically, the number of correspondents decreased from 61 to 50 between 2000 and 2025 (※3). Examining the number of correspondents every five years since 2000, as shown in the graph below, the number fell to 50 between 2010 and 2015. This coincides with the period when the number of international news articles decreased.

There have also been major changes over the 25 years since 2000 in the countries and regions where correspondents are stationed. In particular, there has been a shift from Europe to China. While China had five correspondents in 2000, the number nearly doubled to nine by 2025. Conversely, in Europe, there were 17 correspondents in nine locations including London in 2000, but only 10 by 2025, and there are bureaus where correspondents are no longer stationed (※3). We asked the Yomiuri Shimbun Public Relations Department about this point as well, and received the following response (dated July 18, 2025):

“There has been no change in the content of our international reporting. Correspondents at overseas bureaus are responsible for nearby regions and cover all areas of the world. In addition, reporters in Japan, including those in the International News Department, gather information from around the world and visit locations as necessary to conduct reporting activities.”

Even as the system changes, we fully understand the efforts to avoid changes in content by having correspondents cover nearby regions and domestic reporters conduct reporting from Japan and make on-site trips. At the same time, if there are no correspondents stationed locally—or if their numbers are reduced so that each correspondent must cover more territory—the issues that can be pursued and the volume of information that can be gathered will physically decrease, potentially leading to fewer article drafts reaching the head office’s international desk.

Is domestic reporting also declining, not just international?

Here, reconsidering the downward trend in article counts, we should also ask whether this trend is limited to international reporting. Based on Yomidas, the following graph shows the total number of articles including domestic news, the number of international news articles, and the share of international reporting. The graph suggests that while the total number of articles exceeded 100,000 per year in the 2000s and early 2010s, it fell to just under 80,000 by 2024, indicating a decreasing trend in total articles themselves.

However, there may be articles printed in the newspaper that do not appear in Yomidas, or changes may have been made to how articles are counted in Yomidas. Therefore, Yomidas data alone may not definitively prove a decline in reporting volume. We therefore also checked the number of newspaper pages.

The result clearly shows a substantial reduction in the number of pages. Comparing 2000 and 2024, the newspaper had an average of 52.0 pages per day (morning and evening editions combined) in 2000, but 39.3 pages in 2024—a decrease of about 24.5% (※4). Broken down by morning and evening editions, the morning edition averaged about 36.9 pages and the evening edition about 15.1 pages in 2000, whereas in 2024 the morning edition averaged about 30.6 pages and the evening edition about 8.6 pages—down 17.2% for the morning edition, and a significant 42.1% for the evening edition, showing that the newspaper has become considerably thinner.

From the above, we see that both international and domestic reporting volumes are declining. Is international reporting decreasing especially sharply within that? We also checked the share of international reporting within the total number of articles. As indicated by the line in the graph, the share of international reporting decreased significantly up to 2011, but after that, it cannot be said that the share of international reporting has decreased particularly sharply. Similar to the long-term trend noted earlier, if we look at the share of international reporting for the two nine-year periods from 2000 to 2017, international reporting averaged 18.2% of all articles from 2000 to 2008, and 16.7% from 2009 to 2017. This can be regarded as falling within the range of only a slight decrease, suggesting there is no large difference in the degree of decline between international and domestic reporting.

Background to the decline in international and domestic reporting

As the fundamental background to the decline in the total number of articles and in international reporting seen so far, the waning of newspaper readership is undeniable. The Yomiuri Shimbun’s peak circulation is cited as 10,310,091 copies in 2001. However, the number of copies sold in 2024 was 6,182,228 (for 2024, sales rather than circulation).

This downward trend is not limited to the Yomiuri Shimbun. According to the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association, the circulation of general newspapers (counting morning and evening editions as one set) has about halved from 47,401,669 copies in 2000 to 24,938,756 in 2024—53% of the former. The Association’s survey also shows that newspaper advertising expenditures have declined to about 33% between 2005, when a consistent calculation method began, and 2024 (※5).

Scene from a Yomiuri Shimbun interview during the Lithuanian Foreign Minister’s visit to Japan in June 2022 (Photo: Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

While the print circulation of newspapers has fallen sharply, newspaper companies are advancing digital initiatives. However, the 2025 edition of the Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism points out that “Japanese newspaper companies have been slow to adapt to digital, with aggregators like Yahoo! News and LINE News—services that collect and provide news from multiple sources—taking the lead,” and that they are “still searching for a sustainable business model.”

To summarize a somewhat simplified discussion: as newspaper readership declines, the total number of articles has fallen, and in the case of international reporting, the number of correspondents has also decreased. Under these conditions, both international and domestic reporting have been decreasing in number, as this analysis has shown.

On the future of international reporting

If the trend away from newspapers continues and a new business model cannot be established, both international and domestic reporting may decline further. At present, as digitalization advances, much of the revenue flows to internet news aggregators and social media that do not conduct reporting and writing directly. If, under these circumstances, the revenues of newspapers that invest in reporting and writing do not sufficiently improve, the quality of reporting may not be maintained. As we have seen, it is not currently the case that international reporting alone is decreasing markedly, but it is possible that the burden will fall on international reporting, which has high reporting and maintenance costs. And the loss of diversity in information due to reduced volumes of both international and domestic reporting is not a positive for citizens as recipients of news. With journalism itself in a precarious position—not only international reporting—while there is no one-size-fits-all answer, it seems that citizens, as recipients of information, also need to discuss the costs involved in obtaining diverse reporting.

※1　In this article, we treat items classified as “International” in Yomidas as “international reporting.” GNV defines international reporting as “not limited to articles published on the international page; rather, among the articles carried by each company, those that GNV judges to provide information useful in understanding international relations, society, and the state of the world,” adopting a unified method as described in the manual. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun Public Relations Department, Yomidas classifications are reviewed as appropriate.

※2　Searching in Yomidas for articles classified as “International” that contain the term “simultaneous terror attacks” (same term used in Japanese coverage of 9/11) yields 1,681 articles in 2002 alone.

※3　From the Japan Newspaper Yearbook (2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2025), “List of Foreign Correspondents.” Dual postings counted only once; includes contractors.

※4　From the Yomiuri Shimbun bound volumes.

※5　A column titled “Trends and the State of the Newspaper Business” in the August 2024 issue of Finance, the Ministry of Finance’s monthly public relations magazine, analyzes that newspaper companies are in a difficult situation and are increasing the share of other income such as real estate, in place of sales and advertising revenue.

Writer: Maiko Takeuchi

Data: Virgil Hawkins, Honoka Nishiuke

Graphics: Virgil Hawkins

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