by Tatiana Repkova

Alarmed by a growing trend among police and administrative organizations to withhold the names of crime and accident victims, the Editorial Affairs Committee of the Japanese Newspaper Association (NSK) has issued a booklet titled “Real Names and News Reporting.”

Behind the issue is the government's approach to enforcing the Personal Information Protection Law and its basic plan for assisting crime victims. The NSK booklet aims to explain the need for real-name news reporting and provide guidelines for reporters to convince authorities to release the names of people involved in criminal cases and accidents. NSK has distributed the booklet to officials, crime victims' groups, attorneys organizations and other people in an effort to build public support for full news reporting. Newsletter for Directors of WAN Member Associations - N ° 42, February 2, 2007