The Asahi Shimbun received the award for outstanding journalism from the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association on Sept. 3 for a series of exclusive reports exposing misconduct by Japan Post Co.<\/p>\n
The reports, which won the\u00a0news category award for fiscal 2025, detailed how Japan Post had imposed excessively high penalties on subcontractors and had failed to properly ensure that delivery drivers were sober and fit to drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe investigative journalism exposed misconduct rampant within a massive public service enterprise that is deeply connected to the lives of citizens and contributed to its correction,\u201d the association said.<\/p>\n
This marks the second consecutive year that The Asahi Shimbun has received the annual award.<\/p>\n
The Asahi Shimbun ran a scoop on Japan Post\u2019s penalty fees on the front page of its morning edition on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n
It said that a post office in the Kanto region had collected unreasonably high penalty fees from parcel delivery subcontractors that had made mistaken deliveries or received customer complaints\u2014the fees that the Fair Trade Commission determined violated the Subcontract Law.<\/p>\n
The article said similar practices were discovered in other regions as well.<\/p>\n
Another front-page scoop published in the morning edition on March 11 said that post offices had not properly conducted mandatory \u201croll calls\u201d to confirm, among other things, whether delivery drivers had consumed alcohol, and that records had been falsified.<\/p>\n
In a statement explaining the reason for the award, the association noted that Japan Post revised its penalty fee standards after the newspaper\u2019s inquiry\u2014although the standards had remained unchanged for six months even after\u00a0Japan Post\u00a0received guidance from the FTC about the issue.<\/p>\n
The association also said the transport ministry revoked Japan Post\u2019s truck transportation business license because of the roll call scandal, prohibiting the use of trucks and other vehicles for five years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe series of reports has had a significant impact on society,\u201d the association said.<\/p>\n
The association\u2019s fiscal 2025 awards also went to The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun, The Hokkaido Shimbun, The Chugoku Shimbun, The Kobe Shimbun and Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK).<\/p>\n
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun received the newspaper technology award, which was announced alongside the reporting awards.<\/p>\n
An awards ceremony will be held at the association\u2019s annual National Newspaper Convention, scheduled on Oct. 15 in Tokyo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Asahi Shimbun received the award for outstanding journalism from the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8768,4,450,451,3471,8767,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-131983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-asahi-shimbun","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-national-report","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}