the door to foreign media organizations. In April 1996, the city of Kamakura, Kanagawa stopped using the , which had six companies as members, including national newspapers and the local Kanagawa Shimbun, and opened a "Publicity media center" which could be used by any media organization registered with the city. The then mayor, Ken Takeuchi, formerly of the editing committee of the Asahi Shimbun, and currently head of the internet newspaper "janjan", stated that this was done as it was felt that "it was not reasonable for a city institution funded by tax money to be monopolized by a kisha club which represented only one section of the media". In March 1999, the was closed, at the request of Keidanren, the organization controlling it. This kisha club was focused on reporting related to industrial work such as electrical machinery, shipbuilding, semiconductors and automobiles. There was debate between the media and the companies making announcements about continuing with the kisha club, but as no breakthrough solution was found, the club was dissolved. It is thought that the root cause of this event was that electrical makers had been conducting open press conferences, and using press releases and e-mail, so there were no longer advantages to using a kisha club. The automobile industry, wanting to keep a kisha club active, opened an automobile industry kisha club as part of the , but the Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi and Nikkei newspapers refused to join, in effect depriving the club of its function. In July 1999, NTT's kisha club, was closed as a result of structural changes at NTT. This club had in the past been subject to criticism for the fact that it was a club dedicated to a single private company, but after the restructuring by NTT, a group of economic editors assembled from the different media companies agreed not to accept the Aoi Club as a kisha club. NTT accepted this and closed the club, with the aim of opening the press room to organizations other than club members, including magazines and the overseas media. On August 6, 2001, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government requested that the Kajibashi/Yūraku kisha club pay charges for using the Tokyo government offices, but later retracted this, instead requiring only lighting, heating, water and telephone charges to be paid. The Governor of Tokyo, Shintarō Ishihara, also questioned the policy of not allowing magazines or foreign media organizations to