Wall Street Journal  東京支局長 Peter Landers

令和21027() 2020/10/27

 

大村朋子: Mr. Landers, are you concerned with the recent decline of print media including newspaper subscriptions?

 

Peter Landers: I was concerned, ah, a while ago, I've been at the Wall Street Journal for more than 20 years. And initially I was concerned. Now I feel that we've almost moved beyond that. There was a time when, ah, we still depended heavily on newspaper subscriptions. We still have many loyal print readers, ah, including my mother and my father. So we… we're not forgetting them. But I think we've moved pretty solidly into the digital age. And our main product, I think, is… is our website, our, ah, mobile phone app, ah, and other digital products that…that we have as a company, ah, to convey the news.

 

大村朋子: Mr. Landers, do you have any tactics in mind to reach out to online readers or will your choice of topics and the way you write articles never change?

 

Peter Landers: I think certain principles of our journalism, ah, don't change certainly focusing on facts in our news department. But I think a lot has changed and is continuing to change in terms of presentation online. The Wall Street Journal when I joined in 1999, the first page, ah, page 1 of our print edition didn't have any photographs. Ah, it just had some charts occasionally and what we call a "head-cut." It's a… it's, ah, a line or dot-drawing  usually of a… of a person. So, if there was an article about the president, we might have a dot-drawing of the president. But no photographs…

 

大村朋子I see.

 

…at all. That was 1999. And times have changed. And if you look at our page 1 today, there's usually a very large, ah, photograph, ah, maybe even covering half the page…ah, on page 1. And online, every story has a picture attached to it. And sometimes the image conveys what we're trying to say without even having, ah, the need for too many words. But, ah, having that image especially for our feature story is… is really important for us now.

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大村朋子: Virtually, only with a phone, anyone can send out information from anywhere in the world now. That means some so-called fake news can prevail as well. How do you assess the recent circumstances that surround media?

 

Peter Landers: It's a very challenging time for media.

And I think there is, ah, high demand for trusted media.

Ah, we hope that we are earning that trust during the corona virus  pandemic especially the first few months. We saw subscriptions rise dramatically at the Wall Street Journal. And it wasn't just us. It was some of our competitor publications as well.  Ah, so, ah, subscriptions go way up. And I think it was because when there is a crisis like that, people gravitate towards the trusted news sources. The ones that, ah, have the latest information and vet it. They review it carefully before publishing. They don't publish rumors or guesses or, ah, fake news. Ah, I think the public does want real news, not fake news.

 

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大村朋子: Do you still look at The Wall Street Journal as economic paper.

 

Peter Landers: That's a great question.

And we have gone back and forth on that question.

I would say in the… more than 21 years, I've been there. 

Basically, the answer is "yes."

We do, ah, see ourselves primarily as a business, ah, economic, financial newspaper.

Ah, but we don't take those terms norrowly…  that doesn't mean we just write about the stock market, or just write about corporate profits. We, ah, take the word "business" in a very broad sense.

And it includes politics.

And every country, it includes dipromacy and relations between countries because obviously, for example, these days, the relations between the U.S. and China are crucial to any business.
Every business person around the world, no matter whether they're a CEO, or, just a, you know, a manager in a local branch, ah, working on the assembly line, working in a store. Ah, every business, just about, is affected by, ah, relations between the democracies of the world such as, the U.S. and Japan, and China. So, we obviously cover those, ah, diplomatic or political subject even if they don't directly connect to any individual business or market.

 

大村朋子: Thank you very much for joining us.

 

Peter Landers: Thank you.