Secondary Research on Rafu Shimpo

When I researched scholarly articles for my outlet, Rafu Shimpo, it was a little difficult to find anything recent. When it comes to what has been reported on my news outlet, I found a lot of unfortunate articles referencing how Rafu Shimpo was losing readership and how at one point it faced closure. One article written by The North American Post wrote:
“The Los Angeles-based Rafu Shimpo may face closure by the end of this year due to its long-time financial struggle similar to that which other Japanese American newspapers have gone through.”
This specific article was written in 2016 and as we know today, Rafu Shimpo did not close its doors and remains functional up to this day. Another article I found regarding Rafu Shimpo was written by the Los Angeles Business Journal and it dates back to 2001. This article covered how back then Rafu Shimpo was facing declining readership as well as low ad revenue. According to this article, their readers compromised of mostly Japanese immigrants who only read in their native language. Back then a majority of their newspaper was printed in Japanese with only a third of the rest printed in English. They have definitely changed their mode of writing since then, now covering news in both English and Japanese equally. Considering the rise of the internet and online news sources, I believe this has greatly helped Rafu Shimpo stay afloat as most modern day people get their news online as well and it is easier to post ads and receive revenue from them.
Another article by Los Angeles Magazine followed the experience of a Rafu Shimpo employee who, with 20 other employees of the production staff, was laid off which enraged the Japanese American community. Overall, most coverage pertaining to my outlet was not positive. Many of them revolved around the various struggles Rafu Shimpo has faced over its 116 year run. It just goes to show that every news publication, whether big or small, faces some kind of problems or controversies at one point.
