In recent months, firms ranging from the Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) and Fujisankei Communications to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Japan Times have launched efforts to expand their English-language broadcasts and newspapers in the United States and elsewhere. Most cite a growing need to tell the Japanese side of the story amid escalating U.S.-Japan trade and political frictions.

Internationally, [Keiji Shima] has promoted an array of projects. They include the Global News Network, which will be capitalized at an estimated $1 billion. Its "Asia Now" news program is aimed at rectifying what NHK says is inadequate and sometimes inaccurate coverage of the region. A recent show reported on Japanese victims of gas poisoning, Malaysia's Muslim opposition to the United States-led effort against Iraq and a profile of a Shanghai entrepreneur.

PHOTO: COLOR, (Orange County Edition) [Toshiaki Ogasawara], chairman and publisher of Japan Times, and Philip Laforge, general manager, with Japan Times' weekly international edition. / DAVID MURONAKA / Los Angeles Times; PHOTO: COLOR, (Orange County Edition) [Yoshiaki Hidaka] of NHK: "We need the flavor of news from Tokyo, London, Beijing, Moscow." / Los Angeles Times; TABLE: JAPANESE NEWS EXPANSION, Los Angeles Times