I was really pleased to see Lionel Barber, Editor of the Financial Times, announce closer editorial cooperation between the Nikkei and the Financial Times in the Japan supplement published today (well worth checking out particularly for the article by a Nikkei journalist on the controversy in Japan regarding the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations, which as the journalist rightly points out, has had almost no coverage outside Japan)
I’ve pointed out many times how rich the business coverage is in Japan – not just the myriad of Nikkei group magazines and newspapers, but also the Sankei group, Diamond Weekly etc etc. However it’s all in Japanese, and little of it is translated or covered in English. This puts suppliers to Japanese companies who are not Japanese at a severe disadvantage in terms of understanding their customers.
The Nikkei has been putting more and more of its content into English these past few years, online, but behind a paywall. I tweet links to articles I think are of interest, but I know it is frustrating for those who do not have a subscription – because they frequently contact me to complain!
The Nikkei group is clearly embarking on a new phase of globalization – they have ceased publication of their weekly English digest The Nikkei Weekly (and alas, this means my column for it has been axed too) and are repositioning their online English content as Nikkei Asian Review.
I assume this and the alliance with the FT means that they will leave the FT/Pearson Group to cover Europe. They already feature articles translated into Japanese from the Financial Times and the Economist in their main weekly business magazine Nikkei Business. And presumably their alliance with the Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones will give them access to more coverage of North America – similarly, articles from Dow Jones regularly appear in Nikkei.com.
I guess even global financial publications are struggling to deal with the online era, so collaboration amongst supposed rivals may be the only route to survival.
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