Slightly more than 90 per cent of people in Japan polled last year about their use of five major kinds of media, including newspapers, television and the Internet, said they read newspapers every day, according to the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association.
A survey conducted in October on some 4,100 people nationwide "confirmed that newspapers are a key medium indispensable in daily life," the major industry group said.
Respondents had some form of interaction with newspapers 5.2 days a week on average, with 91.3 per cent of them saying they read newspapers. The figures were not significantly different than in a poll conducted two years earlier.
Of the five kinds of media — newspapers, TV, radio, magazines and the Internet — newspapers came out on top in terms of respondents' impressions and evaluation, with 52.6 per cent saying newspapers help them understand the areas and communities in which they live.
Those who said newspapers are indispensable as a source of information came to 50.2 percent, while 62.5 per cent said the content provided by private broadcasters is entertaining and 52.2 pe rcent credited the Internet with being rich in information.
