The Japan Times

The Japan Times was launched on March 22, 1897, with the aim of clearing up misunderstandings between Japanese and foreigners. It was initially led by Sueji Yamada, a distant relative of Yukichi Fukuzawa, and Motosada Zumoto, a former secretary to the Meiji statesman Hirobumi Ito, served as editor-in-chief.⁠[1]

A 2021 study by the scholar Alexander Rotard says the paper was founded with the backing of Hirobumi Ito and Yukichi Fukuzawa: Nippon Yūsen Kaisha was a key funder, Fukuzawa raised capital from five companies including Mitsui, Mitsubishi and the Bank of Japan, and Ito funded Zumoto’s 1896 trip to study the newspaper industry in Europe and America. Its founding editorial, “Our Raison D’etre,” presented the paper as a means of explaining Japan to foreigners.⁠[2]

On July 2, 1914, the paper became a joint-stock company with Kennedy as president; after absorbing the English-language paper The Japan Mail in 1918, it changed its masthead to The Japan Times & Mail.⁠[3]

From 1918 to 1940, The Japan Times absorbed other English-language newspapers in Japan.⁠[1]

Among them, The Japan Advertiser, launched in 1890 by Robert Meiklejohn, was absorbed by The Japan Times in 1940.⁠[4]

In 1943, under military pressure, the paper adopted the nationalistic-sounding name Nippon Times. In January 1956 Shintaro Fukushima was invited to become president, and on July 1, 1956, the paper reverted to the name The Japan Times.⁠[3]

In 1996 the paper was bought by Nifco, a maker of auto parts and fasteners, whose founder Toshiaki Ogasawara had been educated in the United States.⁠[5]

The same year, The Japan Times launched its website.⁠[6]

In 2013 the paper teamed up with the International New York Times and added more wire copy to its print edition, but its circulation continued to fall.⁠[7]

To mark its 120th anniversary, the paper relaunched on April 1, 2017, in its first major revamp in three decades, changing its logo, font and layout, moving from eight columns to six per page and shifting the masthead to the left to make it easier to find at newsstands; it also adopted a “web first” policy.⁠[8]

In June 2017 Nifco announced that it would sell its entire stake in The Japan Times to News2u Holdings for an undisclosed amount. The paper then had a circulation of about 44,000, with sales of 2.7 billion yen and a profit of 8 million yen in the financial year ended March 2017; its roughly 120 staff stayed on.⁠[5]

On November 30, 2018, the paper published an editor’s note saying it would refer to laborers recruited before and during World War II as wartime laborers and would describe comfort women as “Women who worked in wartime brothels, including those who did so against their will,” saying the change was meant to clarify terms that could be misleading.⁠[9]

The note triggered an outcry inside the company, and some readers said they would cancel their subscriptions. Executive editor Hiroyasu Mizuno then apologized to readers and staff, acknowledging that “the brief note was insufficient” and stating, “I categorically deny any accusations that The Japan Times has bowed to external pressure.”⁠[10]

Mizuno’s statement ran as a full page on December 6–7; he also said the note did not ban terms such as comfort women or forced labor, and that wording would be decided case by case.⁠[11]

On December 3, staff met Mizuno for about three hours, and the next day they met publisher Minako Suematsu; in early 2019 staff writer Cory Baird announced his resignation. Writing in April 2019, journalists David McNeill and Justin McCurry argued that the paper had shifted to the right after its 2017 sale, which management denied.⁠[12]

As of the end of April 2019 the company had about 140 employees and capital of 100 million yen; it published the daily The Japan Times / The New York Times, the weekly The Japan Times On Sunday and the English-learning paper The Japan Times Alpha, and also sold books and offered translation, printing and event services.⁠[13]

On July 1, 2019, the book publishing division, active since 1967, became an independent company, The Japan Times Publishing.⁠[14]

In March 2020 the paper’s Executive Editorial Committee published a note to readers changing its baseline description of comfort women to “women who suffered under Japan’s military brothel system before and during World War II,” while keeping its existing description of wartime labor.⁠[15]

In December 2024 the company said that up to three quarters of visits to its news site came from overseas.⁠[6]

The Japan Times is headquartered in Ichiban-cho, Chiyoda, Tokyo, with capital of 100 million yen; Minako Suematsu serves as chairperson and president (Chairperson & Publisher in English). Its publications include The Japan Times, its weekend edition, The Japan Times Alpha and English- and Japanese-language books.⁠[16]

The Japan Times: Official website: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/ (opens in a new window)⁠[16]

News2u Holdings: Official website: https://www.news2u-group.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[17]