Asahi Shimbun

The Asahi Shimbun is a major Japanese national daily newspaper published in Japanese from Tokyo and one of the country's highest-circulation papers. It provides comprehensive national and international coverage and is widely regarded as liberal-leaning in its editorial orientation. It is one of Japan's most influential and long-established newspapers.

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Asahi Shimbun at a glance

Country: Japan
Region: East Asia · Asia
Kind of outlet: Daily newspaper
Editorial leaning: Left-leaning
Founded: 1879
Owner: The Asahi Shimbun Company
Published from: Tokyo
Website: asahi.com ↗
Preview: Renders inside Crosswire's comparison panes (last checked 2026-10-12).

Founding, ownership and location are directory records without individual source citations here. Ownership can change; verify these details with the publisher before quoting them. The preview status comes from the weekly audit that requests every outlet through Crosswire's own edge — see how the fetcher identifies itself.

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How Crosswire groups Asahi Shimbun

Crosswire groups Asahi Shimbun as Left-leaning for comparisons within Japan's directory. This is an approximate Crosswire label, not a verified rating of its individual articles or a claim that every journalist shares one position. In Japan, Nikkei and Mainichi are listed as Centrist, while Yomiuri Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun are listed as Right-leaning — so you can open Asahi Shimbun beside a title of a different orientation and compare the same day's front pages directly.

Compare Asahi Shimbun with another outlet from Japan covering the same event and edition. Record the headline, publication time, named sources and links to original evidence. Similar leaning labels can still produce different coverage; a different label does not guarantee an independent source. Check the articles before interpreting a front-page difference as bias.

This is an approximate orientation, not a definitive judgement — and not a rating of quality or accuracy. Read how Crosswire classifies editorial leanings. This profile does not include an individual assessment citation. Page updated 2026-09-28; this is a content-change date, not a fresh fact-check of the outlet. Think this label is wrong? Suggest a correction.

Where Asahi Shimbun sits in Japan's press

Asahi Shimbun was founded in 1879, is published from Tokyo and is owned by The Asahi Shimbun Company. It is one of 6 outlets tracked in Japan, and one of 4 daily newspapers among them — the others being Yomiuri Shimbun, Mainichi and Sankei Shimbun. By outlets tracked, Japan ranks second of the 33 countries on Crosswire's Asia hub, which lists 169 outlets in all.

Across Asia, Crosswire tracks 67 of the 396 daily newspapers in the directory. The nearest counterparts to Asahi Shimbun outside Japan, starting with East Asia, are The Korea Times (South Korea), Taipei Times (Taiwan), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and The UB Post (Mongolia). Opening one of them beside Asahi Shimbun is the quickest way to see what is a house style and what is a national one.