A Page Monitor (third term) survey page.

The “Page Monitor” system is one that incorporates readers’ voices in its newspaper pages. Monitors invited from among members of the Aspara Club, The Asahi Shimbun’s free-of-charge Internet-based membership service, are asked to respond to surveys in which they provide their evaluation of newspaper articles. The survey is carried out on a weekly basis via the Internet. The Page Monitor system started in the spring of 2006. Some 300 monitors were invited to serve a 6-month term, with the number of monitors growing to about 500 for the 3rd term from April 2007 through September 2007. Reader opinions widely covering Japan from Hokkaido to Okinawa are thus delivered to The Asahi Shimbun.

The “Press Ombudsperson,” which is an in-house position, is responsible for collating incoming opinions and referring them to the Editorial Division. Reader opinion may inspire a new newspaper series or improve the way an article is handled. The voices of our monitors are reflected in a variety of ways on the newspaper pages on a daily basis. Monitor opinions themselves are also publicly introduced once a month in the newspaper’s Opinion section column, “Page Monitors ⇔ Editorial Division.”