After an elementary school girl was killed in Hiroshima on her way home from school last year, the Chugoku Shimbun, a major regional daily, based in Hiroshima, western Japan, has been encouraging its readers to post messages about child safety on its weblog.
A mother of two elementary school-aged children wrote, "We are really feeling unrest," while a member of the Parent-Teacher Association at a high school said, "We hope for cooperation among elementary, and junior and senior high schools."
Heated discussions have been taking place on the weblog, called "Waiwai Toron (buzz-buzz discussions), among readers and members of the editorial department.
The blog's purpose is to get more reader feedback and introduce their views into the newspaper.
Kazuo Yabui, a senior writer with the blogging nickname "yaboo," said, "Communication used to be only one way. On blogs, you can see everything, including exchanges of opinions. Therefore, you are required to have a considerable degree of preparedness."
The Yaeyama Mainichi Shimbun on Ishigaki Island, Okinawa Prefecture, launched a weblog last March.
The "southernmost Japan" newspaper, based in the city of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, has a circulation of about 15,000 on the island as well as on Yonaguni Island, and 47 employees.
"While trying to seek what we can do as a small local newspaper, the blog has become popular," said Kiyohisa Tatematsu in the Media Control Department.
The Kanagawa Shimbun, based in Yokohoma, west of Tokyo, was the fist newspaper in Japan to host a blog, which is called "Kanaloco."
Yuichi Matsuzawa, head of the Digital Media Department, said, "We thought of a format in which a newspaper company provides users with a place for discussions."
The newspaper does not delete anything except slanderous comments that violate its own guidelines and makes no opposing arguments about what bloggers are saying.
Five months after the blog was launched, it carried an article reporting that a private railway company linking Kanagawa Prefecture with Tokyo had introduced women-only cars that day.
The report attracted various responses, some of which contained sexist comments, but the newspaper did not change its policy.
Blogs are attracting attention as a way for newspapers and their readers to communicate, but newspapers are still figuring out how to use them.
"We are at the stage of accumulating know-how," said Yabui at the Chugoku Shimbun.
