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 Front page of theYomiuri Shimbun from July 17, 2006, following the adoption ofUN Security Council Resolution 1695 two days prior | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Blanket (54.6 by 40.65 centimeters (21.50 in × 16.00 in)) |
| Owner | The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings |
| Founded | November 2, 1874; 151 years ago (1874-11-02)[1] |
| Political alignment | Center-right[2] toright-wing[3] Conservatism (Japanese)[4] Moderate conservatism[5] |
| Language | Japanese |
| Headquarters | Otemachi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan |
| Country | Japan |
| Circulation |  5,773,114 (July–December 2024)[6] |
| Website | www |
TheYomiuri Shimbun (讀賣新聞)[7] is a Japanesenewspaper published inTokyo,Osaka,Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities.[8] It is one of the five majornewspapers in Japan; the other four areThe Asahi Shimbun, theChunichi Shimbun, theMainichi Shimbun, and theNihon Keizai Shimbun. It is headquartered inOtemachi,Chiyoda, Tokyo.[9]
It is a newspaper that represents Tokyo and generally has aconservative orientation. It is one of Japan's leading newspapers, along with the Osaka-basedliberal (Third Way)Asahi Shimbun and the Nagoya-basedsocial democraticChunichi Shimbun. This newspaper is well known for itspro-American stance among major Japanese media.[10]
It is published by regional bureaus, all of them subsidiaries ofThe Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, Japan's largest media conglomerate by revenue and the second largest media conglomerate by size behindSony,[11][12] which is privately held by law and wholly owned by present and former employees and members of theMatsutarō Shōriki family. The Holdings has been part-owned by the family since Matsutarō Shōriki's purchase of the newspaper in 1924 (currently owning a total of 45.26% stock); despite its control, the family is not involved in its executive operations.
Founded in 1874,[13] theYomiuri Shimbun is credited with having thelargest newspaper circulation in the world as of 2019,[14][15] having a morning circulation of 5.7 million as of December 2024.[6] The paper is printed twice a day and in several different local editions.
TheYomiuri Shimbun established theYomiuri Prize in 1949. Its winners have includedYukio Mishima andHaruki Murakami.
TheYomiuri was launched in 1874 by the Nisshusha newspaper company as a small daily newspaper. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s the paper came to be known as a literary arts publication with its regular inclusion of work by writers such asOzaki Kōyō.
In 1924,Matsutarō Shōriki took over management of the company. His innovations included improved news coverage, a full-page radio program guide, and the establishment of Japan's first professional baseball team, now known as theYomiuri Giants. The emphasis of the paper shifted to broad news coverage aimed at readers in the Tokyo area. By 1941 it had the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the Tokyo area. In 1942, under wartime conditions, it merged with theHochi Shimbun and became known as theYomiuri-Hochi.
TheYomiuri was the center of a labor scandal in 1945 and 1946. In October 1945, a post-war "democratization group" called for Shōriki's removal, as he supported Imperial Japan's policies during World War II. When Shōriki responded by firing five of the leading members of this group, the writers and editors launched the first "production control" strike on 27 October 1945. This method of striking became an important union tactic in the coal, railroad, and other industries during the postwar period. Matsutarō Shōriki was arrested in December 1945 as aClass-A war criminal and sent toSugamo Prison. TheYomiuri's employees continued to produce the paper without heeding executive orders until a police raid on June 21, 1946.[16] The charges against Shōriki were dropped and he was released in 1948. According to research by ProfessorTetsuo Arima ofWaseda University on declassified documents stored atNARA, he agreed to work with the CIA as an informant.[17][18]
Under the leadership ofTsuneo Watanabe, who served as editor-in-chief from 1991 until his death in 2024,Yomiuri would gain considerable international prominence.[19][20] By 1994, it would have a daily circulation which topped 10 million.[19][20] In addition, it would also hold considerable influence over Japanese politics, with Watanabe even boasting that was Japan's "last dictator."[19] In 2010, it would be recognized by Guinness World Records for having the highest daily newspaper circulation in the world, and also as the only newspaper with a morning circulation in excess of 10 million copies.[21]
In February 2009, theYomiuri entered into a tie-up withThe Wall Street Journal for editing, printing and distribution. Since March 2009 the major news headlines of theJournal's Asian edition have been summarized in Japanese in the evening edition of theYomiuri.
TheYomiuri features an advice column,Jinsei Annai.
TheYomiuri has a history of promotingnuclear power in Japan.[22] In May 2011, whenNaoto Kan, then Prime Minister of Japan, asked theChubu Electric Power Company to shut down several of itsHamaoka Nuclear Power Plants due to safety concerns, theYomiuri called the request "abrupt" and a difficult situation for Chubu Electric's shareholders. It wrote that Kan "should seriously reflect on the way he made his request."[23] It then followed up with an article wondering how dangerous Hamaoka really was and called Kan's request "a political judgment that went beyond technological worthiness."[24] The next day damage to the pipes inside the condenser was discovered at one of the plants following a leak of seawater into the reactor.[25]
In 2012, the paper reported thatNobutaka Tsutsui, the Minister for Agriculture, had divulged secret information to a Chinese enterprise. Tsutsui sued theYomiuri Shimbun forlibel and was awarded 3.3 million yen in damages in 2015, on the basis that the truth of the allegations could not be confirmed.[26]
In November 2014, the newspaper apologized after using the phrase "sex slave" to refer tocomfort women, following its criticism of theAsahi Shimbun's coverage of Japan's World War II comfort women system.[27][28][29][clarification needed]
TheYomiuri newspaper said in an editorial in 2011 "No written material supporting the claim that government and military authorities were involved in the forcible and systematic recruitment of comfort women has been discovered", and that it regarded theAsian Women's Fund, set up to compensate for wartime abuses, as a failure based on a misunderstanding of history.[30]The New York Times reported on similar statements previously, writing that "The nation's (Japan's) largest newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, applauded the revisions" regarding removing the word "forcibly" from referring to laborers brought to Japan in the pre-war period and revising thecomfort women controversy.[31]Yomiuri editorials have also opposed theDPJ government and denounced denuclearization as "not a viable option".[32]
On 7 August 2025,Yomiuri filed a lawsuit in Tokyo against the U.S.-based AI firmPerplexity, alleging "free-riding" on 120,000 articles for the publication from February to June 2025.[33] In September,Yomiuri apologized for a false report on anextra on 23 July that Prime MinisterShigeru Ishiba decided to resign on 22 July.[34]
Yomiuri also publishes the dailyEnglish-language newspaperThe Japan News[35] (formerly calledThe Daily Yomiuri), established in 1955.[35] Besides its news website,[35]The Japan News also publishes a weekly e-paper.[36]
It publishes the dailyHochi Shimbun, asport-specific daily newspaper, as well as weekly and monthlymagazines andbooks.
Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings owns theChuokoron-Shinsha publishing company, which it acquired in 1999, and theNippon Television network. It is a member of theAsia News Network. The paper is known as the financial patron of thebaseball teamYomiuri Giants. They also sponsor theJapan Fantasy Novel Award annually. It has been a sponsor of theFIFA Club World Cup every time it has been held in Japan since2006.
From 1949 through 1963, the newspaper sponsored theYomiuri Indépendant Exhibition, an unjuried annual art exhibition which gave rise to avant-garde and contemporary rising artists.
In November 1999, theYomiuri Shimbun released aCD-ROM titled "The Yomiuri Shimbun in theMeiji Era," which provided searchable archives of news articles and images from the period that have been digitalized from microfilm. This was the first time a newspaper made it possible to search digitalized images of newspaper pictures and articles as they appeared in print.
Subsequent CD-ROMs, "TheTaishō Era", "Thepre-war Showa Era I", and "The pre-war Showa era II" were completed eight years after the project was first conceived. "Postwar Recovery", the first part of a postwarShōwa Era series that includes newspaper stories and images until 1960, is on the way.
The system of indexing each newspaper article and image makes the archives easier to search, and the CD-ROMs have been well received by users as a result. This digital resource is available in most major academic libraries in the United States.
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Native name | 株式会社読売新聞グループ本社 |
|---|---|
Romanized name | Kabushiki gaisha Yomiuri Shimbun Gurūpu Honsha |
| Company type | Private (Kabushiki gaisha) |
| Industry | Mass media |
| Predecessor | The Yomiuri Shimbun Company |
| Founded | 1 July 2002; 23 years ago (2002-07-01) |
| Founder | Matsutarō Shōriki (for the modernYomiuri Shimbun) |
| Headquarters | Ōtemachi,, |
Area served | Japan |
| Owner |
|
Number of employees | 4,223 (2024) |
| Subsidiaries |
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| Website | info.yomiuri.co.jp |
The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings (株式会社読売新聞グループ本社,KK Yomiuri Shimbun Gurūpu Honsha; "Yomiuri Shimbun Group Headquarters") conglomerate comprises many entities, including:
ConservativeYomiuri Shimbun also organized a special task force to ...
... observers in Japan identified other obstacles to China's continued economic growth.Yomiuri Shimbun, a moderately conservative newspaper and ...
It is particularly interesting to note that the more left-leaning Asahi Shimbun (333 articles) carried a higher number of articles and headlines than the conservative (but moderate and pro-American) Yomiuri Shimbun, and actually comes ...
How can I access The Japan News weekly ePaper (or weekly edition)? The Japan News weekly ePaper section can be accessed via a link at the bottom of the website's top page.
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