Now here is a way to keep up newspaper circulations-enforced subscriptions

One area of the world where newspapers are not under attack is apparently Japan

The single biggest reason is Japan’s direct distribution system. Subscribers who attempt to cancel meet with repeated and agonised house visits from a familiar local employee of the newspaper company.reports the FT

But maybe the most important is the system of yomawari, or “evening round” where reporters wait until the small hours and then try to put questions to the grandee, who with luck will be slightly drunk, as they arrive home.

One thing this does is that many stories in Japan’s morning newspapers are fresh, and were not on the internet the previous day.

“Japan is still a very closed society. There are close relationships between information sources and news reporters and they are emotional not rational relationships,” says Yutaka Oishi, director of the Institute for Media and Communications Research at Keio University.