The Magazine of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

February 2021 · Volume 53 · No. 2

Yoshihide Sugaand the media

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THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB OF JAPANMarunouchi Nijubashi Building 5F, Marunouchi 3-2-3 Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-0005, Japanwww.fccj.or.jp E-mail: front@fccj.or.jp Tel: +81-3-3211-3161 Fax: +81-3-3211-3168

INDEX03 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

In this issue

February 2021 · Volume 53 · No. 2
Contact the Editors
no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJ
Editor Justin McCurry
Designer Julio Shiiki
Editorial Assistant Naomichi Iwamura
Photo coordination Hiroko Moriwaki, Norio Muroi
Publications Committee
Justin McCurry (Chair), Peter O'Connor, Suvendrini
Kakuchi,Monzurul Huq, Robert Whiting, David McNeill
FC C J B OA R D O F D I R EC TO R S
President Isabel Reynolds, Bloomberg L.P.
Special Advisor to the President
Monzurul Huq, Prothom Alo, Dhaka
1st Vice President Andy Sharp, Nikkei Asian Review
2nd Vice President Walter Sim, Straits Times
Treasurer Mehdi Bassiri, O.B.M. Co., Ltd
Secretary Ilgin Yorulmaz,
Freelance/BBC World Service Turkish
Directors-at-LargePeter O’Connor, Freelance
Simon Farrell, Custom Media K.K.
Mary Corbett, Cresner Media
Daniel J. Sloan, Freelance/Nissan Motor
Kanji Gregory Clark, Freelance
Associate Kanji Vicki L. Beyer, Freelance
Ex-officio Khaldon Azhari, PanOrient News
Regular Reserve Director: Pio d'Emilia, SKY TG 24
FC C J C O M M I T T E E C H A I R SDiversity Co-Chair and Board, Liaison: Ilgin Yorulmaz
Co-Chair and Board Liaison: Walter Sim
Publications Chair: Justin McCurry,
Board Liaison: Peter O’Connor
Website Chair and Board Liaison: Simon Farrell
Associate Members’ Liaison Chair: TBA
Board Liaison: TBA
Entertainment Chair: Sandra Mori,
Board Liaison: Walter Sim
Exhibition Chair: Bruce Osborn,
Board Liaison: Peter O'Connor
Film Chair: Karen Severns, Board Liaison: Dan Sloan
Finance Chair and Board Liaison: Mehdi Bassiri
Food & Beverage Co-Chair: Robert Kirschenbaum,
Co-Chair: Pio d'Emilia, Board Liaison: Mary Corbett
Freedom of Press Co-Chair: Justin McCurry,
Co-Chair: Simon Denyer, Board Liaison: Ilgin Yorulmaz
House & Property Chair and Board Liaison: Andy Sharp
Human Resources Chair and Board Liaison: Walter Sim
Information Technology Chair: TBA
Board Liaison: TBA
LAW Co-Chair: Koichi Ishiyama,
Co-Chair: Suvendrini Kakuchi
Board Liaison: Peter O’Connor
Public Relations (incorporating Marketing
Membership)
Chair and Board Liaison: Simon Farrell
Membership Co-Chair: Andrew Horvat
Co-Chair: Monzurul Huq, Board Liaison: Peter O'Connor
Professional Activities Co-Chair: Tetsu Jimbo
Co-Chair: David McNeill, Board Liaison: Andy Sharp
Special Projects Chair: Haruko Watanabe,
Board Liaison: TBA
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship Co-Chair: Abby Leonard
Co-Chair: Kazu Takada, Board Liaison: Ilgin Yorulmaz
Compliance Chair: Kunio Hamada, Board Liaison: TBA
Election Chair: Reed Stevenson

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Marunouchi Nijubashi Building 5F
Marunouchi 3-2-3 Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-0005
Tel: (03) 3211-3161 Fax: (03) 3211-3168 fccj.or.jp
Published by the FCCJ All opinions contained within
Number 1 Shimbun are those of the authors.
As such, these opinions do not constitute an official
position of Number 1 Shimbun, the editor or theForeign Correspondent’ Club of Japan.
Please pitch and send articles and photographs, oraddress comments to no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Read the Number 1 Shimbun online:

www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun

Yoshihide Suga faced an unenviable task when he became prime minister last
autumn. After a summer reprieve, coronavirus cases began to surge towards
the end of the year, as did criticism of his signature Go To Travel scheme.
Ironically for a man who sparred with journalists for almost eight years as thegovernment’s top spokesman, Suga is struggling to communicate his message,
as David McNeill reports.
This issue, my first as editor, also looks at plans for a new series of speaking
events at the FCCJ and introduces the Club’s new head chef and his team.
Simon Denyer explains how the Freedom of the Press Committee is building
ties with correspondents’ clubs across the region in defence of journalists anda free media. Ilgin Yorulmaz examines male dominance of Japan’s newsrooms
through the eyes of female journalists who spoke at the Club in January.
I would like to thank my predecessor, Peter O’Connor, for mentoring me
through this first issue with typical good humour, and Julio Shiiki, our brilliantly
creative designer, for his help and patience.
I encourage you all to pitch stories – after all, this is your magazine. Pleasecontact me at no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp. I look forward to hearing from you.

THE FRONT PAGE
04

From the President
Isabel Reynolds

COVER STORY
05

Communication breakdown
David McNeill

PAC EVENT REPORT
08

Breaking down barriers
Ilgin Yorulmaz

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS COMMITTEES IN ASIA
11

Together we standSimon Denyer

CLUB NEWS
13

Broadening debate at the FCCJ

15

One to dine out on

18

New members, Join the Film Committee,
New in the library, Regular by eggs

Anthony Rowley

Suvendrini Kakuchi

EXHIBITION
20International Women in Photo Award 2020

Cover: Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s prime minister, speaks during a news conference at the prime
minister’s official residence in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/
Bloomberg Credit: POOL/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live NewsINDEX04 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

THE FRONT PAGE

From the President
Dear Members,

I©FCCJ / JULIO SHIIKI’m feeling somewhat encouraged as I write
this, hours after the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government announced a tally of 1,070
new coronavirus cases for the day, whichis less than half the peak we saw two weeks
ago. The lockdown-lite may be playing havocwith our social lives by closing most places
down at 8 p.m., but it is clearly taking us in theright direction. Meanwhile, vaccinations are set
to begin in Japan in roughly a month, which will
be another milestone in the battle against thedisease. Nonetheless, we still have a long way
to go to get cases in the capital back under 500
a day, one of the criteria for the government to
end the state of emergency.
Sadly, the restrictions imposed to containthe infection have affected business at our
much-loved Masukomi Sushi bar, which will
temporarily close its doors from February 1
until the emergency is lifted. It’s disappointing that our members will be deprived of thedelicious offerings from Masukomi for a while,and I know you will all join me in hoping that
infections in Tokyo subside quickly enough to
end the emergency sooner rather than later.
That means we all have to do our part, andnot forget to wear masks in the Club, including in the Work Room, except when eating or
drinking. Please also sign in and have your temperature taken when you enter the premises.
We need cooperation from all our members as
we try to offer the best service we can, while
minimizing the risk of infection.
There’s still plenty going on at the FCCJ totake your mind off the virus and the chilly
winter weather, though, and much of it can beexperienced either in person or online. In January, we had a fascinating press conferencewith dissident Chinese artist and filmmakerAi Weiwei, who discussed everything from his
early life as an exile in Xinjiang to Beijing censors’ influence over the global film industry
and the reasons why he doesn’t expect anyone
to poison his tea. Do catch up with that conversation on our YouTube channel if you missed
it. One of the prime minister’s foreign policy
advisers, Kunihiko Miyake, also spoke to members, while our Diversity Committee staged anilluminating online discussion panel on womenin the media with some of the country’s mostexperienced female journalists earlier in themonth. The audio from that event is available
to members on our website.
In other good news, the outsourcer in our
Main Bar, W&D, has got off to a good start,
with many members praising both the foodand wine. We look forward to a fuller service
from Chef Shimizu next month, althoughsome restrictions resulting from the virus
emergency are likely to remain at least until
February 7.
Finally, I wanted to mention that we will beworking with a team of young businesspeople
from the Japan Market Expansion Competition
over the coming months. Their brief is to help
the Club operate more efficiently and effectively, without of course losing its raison d’être.
The members of the team will be gathering
information at the Club in the near future, so if
you happen to meet them, please make themfeel welcome and let them know your opinions
on any aspect of the FCCJ.

● Isabel Reynolds has been reporting for
Bloomberg in Tokyo since 2012. She has lived inJapan for more than 20 years and been a Regular
Member of the FCCJ for most of that time.

INDEX05 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

COVER STORYCOMMUNICATIONBREAKDOWNYOSHIHIDE SUGA’S TESTY RELATIONSHIP
WITH THE MEDIA LAID BARE DURING
THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

PHOTOGRAPHER: KIYOSHI OTA/BLOOMBERG CREDIT: POOL/ZUMA WIRE/ALAMY LIVE NEWS

Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s prime minister, speaks during a news conference at the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021.

DAVID McNEILLJ

ust before Christmas, the muckraking weekly
magazine Shukan Bunshun speculated on thepossible removal this April of Yoshio Arima fromhis role as anchor of NHK’s flagship evening
news program News Watch 9.
During a live interview last October, Arima had asked
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to elaborate on why he had
blocked the appointment of six science council scholars
as advisors on government policy, reportedly as payback
for their criticism of his predecessor, Shinzo Abe.

“I think there are people who want an explanation
about what is going on,” prodded Arima.
Observers noted that the atmosphere in the studiocooled as Suga treated Arima to his trademark hooded
glare. “There are things that can be explained and things
that cannot,” he said, cutting him off. Afterwards, Suga’s
handlers allegedly bore down on NHK for asking an
unscripted question.
The interview, and its possible denouement (ironically,
the Bunshun piece makes sacking Arima more difficult)INDEX06 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN“It’s not a freepress if it is all
pre-arranged.
But that’s how
it works: thebureaucrats are incontrol of 99% ofwhat happens inJapanese politics”

may sound familiar. In 2014, Hiroko Kuniya,
who had anchored NHK’s investigative programme “Close-up Gendai” for two decades,
was also removed following an uncomfortableencounter with Suga.
The weekly press then, too, blamed Kuniya’s
downfall on an interview in which she asked
the then chief cabinet secretary an impromptu
question on the possibility that new security legislation might mean Japan becoming
embroiled in other countries’ wars.
Arima’s predecessor, Kensuke Okoshi wasalso allegedly ousted after a clash with a member of the Abe government.
The near simultaneous departure of Kuniya and two other liberal TV anchors from the
airwaves, Ichiro Furutachi of TV Asahi’s “Hodo
Station”, Shigetada Kishii of TBS (all comparatively robust critics of the government) sparked
a major political row and drew global attention
to the Abe government’s attempts to cajole andcoerce the media.

Thin-skinned
Expectations that Suga might improve relations
with the press corps were low, therefore, when
he succeeded Abe in September 2020. If anything, he has been worse than predicted, says
Kaori Hayashi, a media scholar at the Universityof Tokyo. “I think the situation has exacerbatedunder Suga,” she says. “Abe was talkative but
Suga just tries to avoid questions and manage
what to say. He has no opinions at all.”
These qualities are laid bare during Suga’spress conferences on the coronavirus pandemic, which often seem closer to stenography
than journalism. His non-answers and repeateduse of the phrase “I would like to refrain from
responding” has become a mocking internet
meme. Observers note his apparent nervousness at the lectern, and how be clams up orlashes out – his stock phrase is “Your point isirrelevant” – when pressed to explain government policy.
“The prime minister seems to believe that therole of press conferences is to unilaterally convey
the government’s oven-ready thoughts,” says
Toshiaki Hibino, a Kyoto Shimbun reporter andmember of the Kantei press club. “New facts are
rarely unearthed at these press conferences.”
Suga’s new role has exposed his lack ofpolitical skills, says one senior NHK journalist. “He was always thin-skinned, but it is now

clear that he is a poor public speaker too.” To
insulate himself from the growing flak about
his pandemic response, he says, Suga sticks to
prepared texts and carefully stage-manages
his meetings with journalists.
Trusted reporters from the elite media areassigned in advance by Kantei bureaucrats. In
most cases, says Teddy Jimbo, founder and CEO
of Internet broadcaster Video News Network,
Suga is literally reading his replies from a script.
Jimbo is one of the few reporters to ask a
non-scripted question, at a live televised press
conference in January. “I said, ‘All night you
have you been asking us what we are preparedto sacrifice. My question is, what has the government been doing while asking for sacrifices.
Japan has the largest number of hospital bedsin the world, so why is our medical situation inan emergency?’”
The query, and the suggestion that the government was not doing enough to push theJapan Medical Association to convert more
hospital beds to emergency use, seemed tothrow Suga, recalls Jimbo. “He was looking at
me very nervously and simply said, ‘I’ll look
into it.’ I don’t think he understood the issue.”
The kisha clubs are hardly a new topic in
Japan. But their role in stage-managing news
has become starker as the ranks of freelancers
and internet journalists grow. The only reason
Jimbo got to ask the question at all, he speculates, is because the new Kantei press manager may not have known who he was. Jimbo
reckons he got to ask just two questions in theseven-and-a-half years of Abe’s tenure.
“It’s not a free press if it is all pre-arranged.
But that’s how it works: the bureaucrats are incontrol of 99% of what happens in Japanesepolitics,” he says.

Shut down
Suga earned his political spurs as Prime
Minister Abe’s loyal enforcer during his record
stint as the government’s top spokesman. His
tenure was marked by terse encounters with
reporters, and a renewed government focus on
bastions of perceived liberal journalism, particularly in The Asahi Shimbun and NHK.
One of Abe’s first moves was to appoint four
conservative allies to NHK’s board. Momii Katsuto, the corporation’s new president, had nobroadcasting experience and quickly asserted
that NHK’s role was to reflect government pol-INDEX07 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN“In a democracy
you need someability to explainand demonstratepolicy. I don’tknow if Suga
can maintainhis power while
not explaining
anything at all.”icy in a now notorious formulation: “When thegovernment is saying right, we cannot say left”.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) wrote to
television bosses in 2014 demanding politicalimpartiality. In 2016, the communications minister, Takaichi Sanae, threatened to close television stations that flouted rules on impartiality.
There were skirmishes with reporters deemed“anti-government” and access granted tofavored scribes.
Those who stepped out of line, such as Isoko
Mochizuki, the spry Tokyo Shimbun reporter who became Suga’s nemesis during daily
government briefings, were slapped down. In
December 2018, for example, Mochizuki repeatedly questioned Suga on land-reclamation workin Henoko, Okinawa, where the government isbuilding an offshore US airbase, mostly in defiance (as Mochizuki pointed out) of local wishes.
Mochizuki was harried throughout by thepress club moderator to wind up her question.
Suga grew increasingly irritated before shutting his briefing book, snapping back: “This is
not the place for responding to your assumption,” and stalked out of the room. Suga thenlaunched a campaign against Mochizuki for“spreading disinformation”.
The encounters between a dogged journalist
determined to probe authority and a government accused of authoritarianism had a mythic
quality that has appealed to some. Mochizuki
was the subject of a 2019 documentary byacclaimed filmmaker Tatsuya Mori and is thefictional heroine of a drama called “The Journalist”, which won best picture at the Japan
Academy Awards in 2019.

Grudge match
The LDP’s distrust of the media has deep roots.
In 1993, amid economic stagnation and corruption scandals, the party was drummed out of
office for the first time since 1955. Party strategists concluded that they had underestimatedtelevision and the influence of a new breed of
unconventional anchors, particularly Hiroshi
Kume of TV Asahi’s News Station.
TV Asahi’s director of news Tsubaki Sadayoshi seemed to confirm this when he rashly
boasted (in a private meeting) of his network’s
power to swing public opinion against the
government. The consequences of the Tsubaki
Incident, rippled far into the future and demonstrated the ability of LDP elders to learn politi-

cal lessons – and hold a grudge.
The FCCJ is part of LDP lore, too. In 1974,
Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was grilled at
the club over a weekly magazine article that
accused him of corruption. It had been a tradition to invite sitting prime ministers to polite
luncheons at the club, but Tanaka’s public
humiliation – and his resignation a few weeks
later – ended that.
In 2014, Suga agreed to a press conferenceat the FCCJ (after over a year of badgering) but
then tried to turn it into a kisha club event by
requesting questions in advance. When it waspointed out that the FCCJ could not work thatway, he demanded the first question be agreed
beforehand, then attempted to fill a one-hour
event with a 45-minute monolog.
Suga has brought those hard-shoulderedtactics into the Prime Minister’s Office, says
Jimbo. “He is strengthening media control,using the same tactics, more thoroughly andcompletely.” Jimbo recalls that when a reporter recently asked a question that was slightly
rephrased, “someone rushed over to complain
and said the prime minister was very angry
because the question was not the same. That
didn’t happen that much under Abe.”
These attempts to throw a cloak over thegovernment’s actions may not be working.
Public approval for Suga’s government plummeted to 40% in January, according to an NHK
poll, the steepest fall since Naoto Kan’s tenurea decade earlier.
Unless his fortunes dramatically improve,
Suga may return Japan to the tradition ofrevolving-door leaders that prevailed before
Abe took office in 2012.
If that turns out to be the case, Suga’s poor
communication skills and testy relationshipwith the media will be partly to blame, says
Jimbo. “In a democracy you need some ability to explain and demonstrate policy. I don’tknow if Suga can maintain his power while notexplaining anything at all.”● David McNeill is co-chair of the FCCJ’s
Professional Activities Committee and aprofessor at the Department of English Language,
Communication and Cultures at Sacred Heart
University in Tokyo. He was previously acorrespondent for The Independent and The
Economist newspapers and for The Chronicle ofHigher Education.

INDEX08 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

PAC EVENT REPORTBREAKING DOWNBARRIERSTHE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY IN THE NEWSROOMIS A REFLECTION OF JAPAN’S WIDER GENDER PROBLEM

Panelists take part in a women in Japanese media event held at the FCCJ in January

ILGIN YORULMAZ

O

ne of Japan’s first notable female
journalists was Motoko Hani, theco-founder of the country’s oldest
women’s magazine, Fujin no Tomo
(Women’s Friend), 118 years ago. The publication was launched at a time when women’s lives
were dictated by customs and traditions, andvery few had connections outside their homes.
The monthly magazine is still going strong,
and is now edited by Hani’s grandniece, Yoko
Hani, who told a recent FCCJ event that,
despite the passage of time, gender roles inJapan remain largely unchanged – including in
the media.

Hani, one of five female journalists working on
the frontline of the media who appeared at theClub in January, warned that a lack of diversity
in media not only adversely affects the content,
distribution and perception of news, it also
makes it harder for women to break throughinto managerial ranks and effect much-neededchange in both the local and national media.
The statistics support their concerns. Japancame 121st out of 153 nations in in the World
Economic Forum’s 2020 gender gap index – its
lowest ranking ever.
Few sectors reflect that male dominance ofthe economy and society more than Japan’sINDEX09 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERSFCCJYOKO HANI

Top: Ilgin Yorulmaz emcees awomen in Japanese media eventat the FCCJ in January
Right: Yoko Hani, editor-in-chiefof Fujin no Tomo (Women’s
Friend) magazine

media. According to Japan Media Culture Information Group’s 2020 survey, women fill lessthan 10% of management roles in Japanese
print and broadcast companies. And of 10 markets recently analyzed by the Reuters Institute,Japan stood alone in having no female seniornews editors, despite a steady increase in thenumber of women working in journalism.
Hani, who has years of experience as areporter and editor, acknowledged that Japan
had made progress since the days when her
great-aunt ran stories on managing household
finances and heavy-drinking husbands, but
added that gender roles inside the home had
not fundamentally changed.
“Many [Japanese] women think political news
belongs to men,” said Hani, a former politicalreporter, adding that many women struggled tomake the link between their everyday lives andthe decisions made in the lower house of theDiet, where just 9.9% of lawmakers are women,
according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Hiroko Aihara, a former reporter for Fukushima
Minyu Shimbun and now a freelance journalist,
recalls learning an early lesson about society’s
expectations for girls and women when she was
growing up in Fukushima in the late 1960s.
“Girls from my junior high school and I were
trying to negotiate with our male teachers on
everything from wearing white socks to playing
in the school boys-only soccer team,” she said.
“This was my first battle with gender issues,”
she added, noting that one of those girls was
Asako Takakura, who went on to play for theJapan national team and is now its manager.
Without a clear program to help women gaina footing in journalism and rise through theranks, female journalists find it hard to obtain
the experience they need to compete for edito-

rial and managerial roles, she said.
Aihara recalled her male editors’ attitude
when she told them she was interested in
becoming a Fulbright fellow. None of themappeared to grasp how important it would be
for her career, she said.
“I had to plead with my editor to allow me todo the fellowship,” she said. “He kept asking‘What is Fulbright? What kind of change will
it make in your life anyway?’” After getting a
job at a local newspaper, she and other female
writers discovered they were paid less thanmale journalists doing equivalent jobs.
Magdalena Osumi, a Polish journalist who
has worked for the Japan Times for sevenyears, considers herself “a minority within aminority” as a foreign female journalist.
“Women are not taken seriously,” said Osumi,
who writes about social and legal issues. “Andthat includes female journalists.”
When writing articles, Osumi finds that
she invariably ends up having to talk to maleexperts due to the dearth of women commenters, a common problem that inevitably skews
reporting towards a male outlook.
Video journalist Grace Lee, who covers Asia
for a diverse, international audience, agrees
that the sense among women journalists thatthey are not as trusted as their male counterparts can affect their self-confidence.
“A lot of young women start off with aimposter syndrome, thinking that maybe
they’re not the right person to tell this story, or
they don’t have enough authority to do this,”
said Lee, a Korean-Canadian who reports on
Japan for outlets such as CBS in Canada and
NPR in the US. By contrast, she said, many of
their less qualified male counterparts did notseem to have any self-confidence issues. “JustINDEX10 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

Yoshiko Hayashi, freelance
journalist and co-founder of
Women in Media Network
Japan, during a visit to Kusatsu,
a hot spring resort whosemayor has been accused of
sexually assaulting a female
assembly member.

YOSHIKO HAYASHIBREAKING DOWN BARRIERS

keep your head up,” she said.
Although relatively new to Japan, Lee said
most of the people put forward for her tointerview are men, even when she is covering
gender-related issues, even for a report on
non-regular workers hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, most of whom are women.
“Having grown up in South Korea, I recognize
and sympathize with the kind of environmentthat girls here grow up with from a young age,”she said.
While female journalists are overlooked in
one sense, in another they receive more scrutiny than men, according to Osumi, “especiallywhen we cover issues that are more controversial and don’t please a large audience.”
Her encounter with Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi last September, when he appeared
to question her Japanese-language ability inresponse to a question about immigration
policy, invited accusations of sexism. “We areattacked more on social media because we are
women, and I think that happens quite often to
many women managers,” Osumi said.
The discussion inevitably turned to sexual
harassment in the workplace.
A 2018 survey by Prof. Mayumi Taniguchi, agender studies expert at Osaka International
University, found that women working for Japanese newspapers and TV networks had beensexually harassed – many repeatedly – withgovernment officials, police officers and MPs
cited as the perpetrators in about a third of
the cases.
The poll, which uncovered 150 cases ofalleged sexual harassment targeting 35 women,

was carried out soon after Junichi Fukuda, thenthe most senior bureaucrat in the finance ministry, resigned over claims that he had made sexually inappropriate comments towards a female
journalist. Fukuda’s then boss, the finance minister, Taro Aso, later blamed the victim, earning
him an award for the year’s most sexist remark.
“Aso made very hostile remarks about Japanese reporters, and we couldn’t let this incidentgo,” said Yoshiko Hayashi – co-founder in 2018
of Women in Media Network (WiMN Japan), a
diversity and safety advocacy group for female
journalists in the Japanese media that now has
100 members.
Hayashi, who spent 30 years at the Asahi
Shimbun before resigning in 2016, said she
was inspired to help launch the group by the
Fukuda case and the lack of remorse shown by
Aso and other men in positions of power.
After the Fukuda incident, WiMN Japan published a white paper, Mass Communication and
Sexual Harassment in Japanese Media, whichdocumented episodes of systemic harassment
against female reporters.
“I don’t think the current Japanese government is enthusiastic when talking about
gender equality,” Hayashi said. “They just want
women to contribute to the economy because
the population is declining.”
Despite the many challenges, women in the
media are beginning to make their presence
felt. Miwa Higashimuki of Reporters Without
Borders said the organisation had recently
joined hands with a group of concerned journalists to create the first Charter for Gender
Equality in Japan’s Media Industry.
And in April last year, the Asahi Shimbun
became the first Japanese media organisation
to announce a Gender Equality Declaration.
The Asahi said it would “seek to at least
double the number of women in managerial
positions, who currently hold about 12 percent
of such posts. We will also seek to improve theratio of male employees who take paternity
leave. We will also review the work style of all
employees and make efforts to foster personnel so that everyone, regardless of gender, canbe active workers while also caring for theirchildren and aged relatives”.
● Ilgin Yorulmaz is a reporter for BBC World
Turkish. She is secretary of the current FCCJ Boardand co-chairs the Diversity Committee.

INDEX11 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS COMMITTEES IN ASIA

TOGETHERWE STAND
WITH PRESS FREEDOM UNDER ATTACKACROSS ASIA, CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUBS
THROUGHOUT THE REGION JOIN FORCES

PHOTO BY IZHAR KHAN FROM PEXELSSIMON DENYER

W

ith press freedom in Asia underintensifying attack, the region’s
foreign correspondents’ clubs
are forging a united front.
In a very rare move, seven clubs and associations for the foreign press came together toissue a joint statement in December expressing concern about the detention of Bloomberg
journalist Haze Fan by the Chinese authorities.
Fan’s detention strikes at an issue of central
concern to all foreign correspondents – thesafety of the national staff who work alongside us and may not enjoy the same protections as we do.
But it also reflects a significant deteriorationin press freedom across Asia, led by an increas-

ingly authoritarian Chinese government, andfueled by the uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic, according to the industry
watchdogs Reporters Without Borders.
The FCCs of Japan, Hong Kong, Jakarta, thePhilippines, South Asia, Taiwan and Thailand
joined hands to back a statement by the FCC in
China seeking an explanation from the authorities for Fan’s detention.
The statement was coordinated by the FCCJ’s
Freedom of the Press committee, which has set
out to forge closer links between foreign correspondents’ clubs across Asia as part of its mandate to “defend the freedom of the press and thefree exchange of information,” a key objective
laid out in the club’s Articles of Association.

INDEX12 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

TOGETHER WE STAND
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says Asia
is home to the world’s biggest prisons forjournalists and bloggers – especially China andVietnam – the deadliest countries, including
Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines andBangladesh, and two of the most repressive,
North Korea and Laos.

Six FCCs came together again in January to
issue a strong protest against the convictions
and harsh prison sentences of between 11 and15 years handed down by a Vietnamese court
to three Vietnamese journalists, Pham Chi
Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy and Le Huu Minh
Tuan, for “spreading anti-state propaganda”.
Vietnam imprisoned 28 journalists in 2020,highlighting the growing contradiction between
its efforts to portray itself as a modern state andfriend of the West, and the reality of censorshipand repression under one-party rule, as the jointstatement noted.
There has never been a more importanttime for foreign correspondents’ clubs to stand
together, and to stand alongside national journalists across the region.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says Asia
is home to the world’s biggest prisons forjournalists and bloggers – especially China andVietnam – the deadliest countries, including
Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines and Bangladesh, and two of the most repressive, North
Korea and Laos.
Cédric Alviani, the East Asia bureau head for
RSF, said press freedom in Asia was continuing
to deteriorate, due in part to “the very bad
example set by the Chinese regime in the past
six to seven years,” and its repression of bothprofessional and citizen journalists.
In late December, citizen journalist Zhang
Zhan was jailed for four years for her video
and blog reports from the coronavirus lockdown in Wuhan.
Alviani said seven journalists remain behindbars in China due to their reporting of the pan-demic, and pointed out that the Communist
Party’s censorship had a key role in allowing
the virus to spread unchecked in the initial
weeks of the outbreak.
In addition, democracies across the world
have used the pandemic as an excuse to
reduce the space for the transparent flow of
information, he added.
The Trump administration has been “theworst possible exemplar” in its attitude towards
the press over the past four years, according toAlviani, who said he was also “very disappointed” by the failure of Japanese Prime Minister
Yoshihide Suga to make any attempt at improving the situation for press freedom here.
“Because democracies are not able to be
exemplars of press freedom, authoritarians
feel entitled to extend their repressive apparatus,” he said. “Japan should be a better example. Considering its power, we cannot accept
Japan would just be an average country (forpress freedom).”
To further its mandate, the Freedom of thePress Committee is planning to revive the FCCJ
Freedom of the Press Awards this year.
As well as an award for a Japanese individual
or media organization whose coverage exemplifies the value of press freedom, we also plan
to create another award that recognizes efforts
to support press freedom and confront thepowerful elsewhere in Asia.
● Simon Denyer is the Tokyo bureau chief of the
Washington Post, covering Japan, North Korea andSouth Korea, and co-chair of the FCCJ Freedom of
the Press Committee.

INDEX13 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

CLUB NEWSBROADENING DEBATE
AT THE FCCJTASK FORCE PLAN WILL ADD VALUE TO CLUB EVENTS©FCCJ / JULIO SHIIKIANTHONY ROWLEY

The FCCJ likes to bill itself as a place“where the news is made”. True to its
word, the club has a long history of
hosting key speakers whose appearances have often made waves. Now is the time
to broaden the club’s remit and strengthen its
role as a place not only where the news is made,but also where discussion and debate flourish.
That is the main recommendation of an events
task force that has been approved by FCCJ President Isabel Reynolds and the FCCJ board.
The task force’s remit was to examine how
we can expand our menu of professional
events to include activities that are informativeand educational.

Launching this kind of forum is of more thanjust academic interest and importance. The
FCCJ needs to make better and more intensive
use of its spacious, modern premises to provide
existing and potential members with a wider
range of professional events that will in turnmake membership of the club more attractive
and give members better value for money.
Critically, the club needs to generate newrevenue and is ideally situated to tap into newincome sources by virtue of its location in theheart of Tokyo's Marunouchi business andfinancial district. By staging more frequent professional events, particularly those of a financial and economic nature, the club will be ableINDEX14 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

BROADENING DEBATE AT THE FCCJPHOTOS: ©FCCJ / JULIO SHIIKI

capitalize on its location and reputation.
These events should reflect the diverse
nature and needs of FCCJ members who aredrawn from a wide variety of backgrounds andprofessions that extend beyond journalism
and writing in general.
The task force, which includes associate aswell as regular members, is keenly aware of adesire among non-regular members to become
more involved in suggesting events and speakers, and in helping organize professional events.
They would like to see the predominantly
news-related press conferences and briefings
organized by the Professional Activities Committee (PAC) supplemented by regular andin-depth events centered on a particular theme.
Those could include climate change and sustainable investment – with an emphasis on theirramifications for the business world – Japan's
prospects as a technological superpower, ordevelopments in medicine and pharmaceuticals. The potential list of subjects is long andeclectic, from the latest in crypto and digitalcurrencies, to fintech and Tokyo’s mission to
become a global financial center.
All members of the club are invited to submit
ideas for events that encompass a wide rangeof themes. Anthony Rowley (arowley@orion.
ocn.ne.jp) will then present them for discussion
by members of the task force.
We envisage the events taking the form of
breakfast meetings, morning coffee briefings,
lunch meetings and possibly afternoon orevening gatherings, depending on the level ofinterest in each topic.
Working journalists will be able to attend for

free, and details of fees for other attendees will
follow soon. To begin with, the events will beheld on a trial basis to give us the opportunity
to evaluate them.
To avoid increasing the workload on FCCJ
bodies such as the PAC and Special Events
Committee, the task force, with help from club
staff, will organize a number of trial events
after consultating the relevant committees.
The plan is to hold one event a week to begin
with, starting early this year. They will initiallybe held in English, but if there is demand forinterpreting services – and if revenues allow –then English-Japanese interpretation could be
provided later.
By putting on informal and specialised events,
the task force hopes to foster greater interaction
and dialog among all FCCJ members, to engender a community spirit by encouraging people
to play an active part in the project’s success.
Task force membership is as follows: FCCJ
President Isabel Reynolds, Associate Member
Kanji Vicki Beyer, Task Force Chair and FCCJ
past President Anthony Rowley, FCCJ Honorary
Member and Senior Advisor to Wisdom Tree
Investments (Japan) Jesper Koll, Associate
Member and head of Partners Group (Japan)
Shunsuke Tanahashi and former FCCJ President Suvendri Kakuchi. Members interviewed
for their views include current FCCJ Board
member Mary Corbett and former co-chairs of
the FCCJ Associate Members Liaison Committee Yusuke Wada and Keiko Packard.
● Anthony Rowley is the Tokyo correspondent forSingapore Business TimesINDEX15 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

CLUB NEWS

ONE
TO
DINE
OUT
ON
©FCCJ / JULIO SHIIKINEW CHEFTADAAKISHIMIZU
BRINGS
DECADES OF
EXPERIENCE
TO THE FCCJTABLESUVENDRINI KAKUCHI

W

e walked into the FCCJ kitchen
to find Tadaaki Shimizu making bread: rows of unbakedbuns – kneaded and neatly
rounded – laid out on trays ready to be popped
into the oven. Then he turned his attention to
the soup of the day, simmering away in a pot
and sending the sweet aroma of pumpkin andsage wafting through the kitchen. It was only
when he was satisfied that his assistant could
take over that he turned to me and the photographer and, with a broad smile, apologized forkeeping us waiting.

Shimizu is the new head chef of FCCJ restaurant and bar service. He is the proud owner of
a Michelin star, gained during the 12 years hespent at the opulent and historic French restaurant La Tour d’Argent. Shimizu served as thesecond chef at the restaurant in Paris before
becoming Japanese chef at its branch at the
Hotel New Otani in Tokyo, where his long listof notable diners includes the Showa emperor.
The FCCJ restaurant staff include Shimizu’s
brother, Tadahisa, who has a long career as awine sommelier and manager, and Champika
Bandara, a professional chef who has worked

INDEX16 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

ONE TO DINE OUT ON

PHOTOS: ©FCCJ / JULIO SHIIKI

at the Club before and won fans for his tasty,
wholesome dishes and warm hospitality.
The response among diners since the trio took
over in January has been overwhelmingly positive. The new Correspondent`s Lunch is proving
particularly popular. Available between noon and
2pm, it comprises a main dish of either fish, meator pasta, accompanied by soup, bread and coffee.
The dishes come with an elegant and colorful
flourish, garnished with fresh herbs and accentuated by the lightest of sauces. The attractive

prices, to go into effect in February, are abonus: ¥900 excluding tax, with the option ofa dessert for an additional ¥400.
Club members are delighted with the qualityof the food and the value for money they are
getting. “With the coronavirus scare, the Clubis the best place to dine given its exclusivity,”
said Kazuko Drake whose favourite seat is at
the long Open Table in the bar. “And now wehave such great and affordable food. My plan
is to eat here five days a week.”INDEX17 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

ONE TO DINE OUT ON©FCCJ / JULIO SHIIKI

The FCCJ’s new head chef,
Tadaaki Shimizu (second fromleft), with, from left, Tadahisa
Shimizu, Champika Bandara andMohammed Hanif

Dan Slater, a regular at the restaurant, told
friends he had just eaten “the best meal I’ve
had for a while” at the Club. Bradley Martin, alongtime member, could barely believe thenew price of his favourite tiple – a gin martini– which has dropped by almost half to ¥450.
“That means I can order a double,” he said.
Shimizu’s approach to cooking, honed over 45
years in the catering industry, suggests there will
be strong demand for a table in the restaurant.
He insists on using the freshest ingredientsand cooking every dish from scratch. “By following these rules my cuisine stands out for its
perfect flavors,” he said. “That is more important
than even visual presentation, which some otherchefs put before everything else. The greatest
reward is when diners not only tell me they’veenjoyed their meal but keep coming back.”
Shimizu’s time in France taught him that for
many people dining out is something akin to a
spiritual experience. He recalls French diners
spending hours talking to friends over lunch

and dinner. “That tradition has become an
important part of my career,” he said.
His day begins at 4 a.m. with a trip to Toyosu
wholesale market to source ingredients, with
an emphasis on seasonal produce. His team is
now putting the finishing touches to their FCCJ
fine-dining menu, which should be available assoon as Covid-19 restrictions have eased.
Shimizu, though, is aware that the uniqueatmosphere of the FCCJ will keep him and his
staff on their toes. “We are catering to a global
membership with diverse palates and expectations,” he said. “In addition, the Club isn’t a public space, so our business must put the needs ofour customers above everything else.”
Devising a bold new menu for a discerningclientele and instilling a new approach to dining
at the FCCJ will be a challenge. But it is one that
Shimizu and his talented team are relishing.
● Suvendrini Kakuchi is Tokyo Correspondent for
University World News in the UK.

INDEX18 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

CLUB NEWSNew members
ASSOCIATE MEMBERSDAISUKE TAJIMA
Yoshimoto Kogyo Co., Ltd.

MASAKAZU HORITA
Jellyfish

ROLAND HONEKAMP
Delegation of the European Union

TARO FUJIKAWA
SMBC Nikko Securities, Inc.

YUTA NAGAKURA
Crecer Management Partners, Inc.

YUTO IZAWA
Izawa Special Research Institute

REGULAR MEMBERNOAH SNEIDER is The Economist’s Tokyo Bureau Chief, covering Japanese politics, business,
society and culture. Prior to this he covered Russia and the former Soviet Union as Moscow
Correspondent. Before joining The Economist, he reported for a range of publications,
including The New York Times and The New Republic. His writing has also appeared in Harper’s,
The Atlantic, and Slate, among others. He is a member of the third generation in his family tolive and work in Japan.

The beste of Trieste
Thanks to the generous donation of a
IPERESPRESSO coffee machine from illy Coffee
Japan, we can now enjoy the beste of Trieste.
Choose from Classic, Intense or Deca blends,
all at a very reasonable price.

INDEX19 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

CLUB NEWSNew in the library
1
The Wars for Asia 1911-1949
S.C.M. Paine
Cambridge University Press

3
Japan Through the Lens of
the Tokyo Olympics
Barbara Holthus (ed.); Isaac Gagné (ed.); Wolfram
Manzenreiter (ed.); Franz Waldenberger (ed.)
Routledge
Gift from German Institute for Japanese Studies(DIJ Tokyo)

2
The Only Gaijin in the Village:
A Year Living in Rural Japan
Iain Maloney
Polygon
Gift from Iain Maloney4
The Memoirs of Takashi Oka
Takashi Oka
Frederking & Thaler
Gift from Megumi Oka

Join the Film Committee…

O● Karen Severns©KADOKAWA1943

n Wednesday February 17 at 6:30 pm for a special screening of the 4K digitally remastered version of director
Hiroshi Inagaki’s The Rickshaw Man (1943), and a short
documentary by Ema Ryan Yamazaki that imaginatively
illuminates the process of restoration as well as the film’s fraught
history, The Wheels of Fate: The Story of the Rickshaw Man. Inagaki’s film had been subjected to strict censorship not only by Japan’sHome Ministry before its release, but also by the GHQ after WWII had
ended. Made at a time when works of art were expected to celebrate
the glory of the Japanese Empire, Inagaki and his renowned cameraman Kazuo Miyagawa nevertheless created a deeply humanist
work about a rickshaw driver (Tsumasaburo Bando) who devotes hislife to caring for a widow and her young son, with an innovative final sequence that is one long cut with 46 embedded shots. Joining
us for the Q&A session will be director Yamazaki, restoration producer Eric Nyari and veteran cinematographer Masahiro Miyajima,
who served as Miyagawa’s chief assistant and spearheaded the restoration project. (The Rickshaw Man, Japan, 1943, 82 minutes; The
Wheels of Fate: The Story of the Rickshaw Man, USA/Japan, 2020, 20 minutes. Both in Japanese with English subtitles).

INDEX20 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITION

INTERNATIONALWOMEN IN PHOTO
AWARD 2020
FEBRUARY 6 - MARCH 5, 2021
International Women in Photo, IWPA, is a French nonprofit association with two global
missions: to promote women photographers of all origins and nationalities, and to workfor parity and equality through photography around the world.

T

he roots of IWPA’s goals lie in the underrepresentation of women photographers, who
do not receive sufficient recognition or assignments, and whose work comprises a tiny
percentage of all the photographs we see daily in the press, social media, museums
and art exhibitions. IWPA also draws attention to social issues that are often ignored orsimply not covered by a male-dominated perspective of the world.
To give more visibility to women photographers, IWPA acts as a platform and organizes theannual IWPA Award, a photography competition followed by exhibitions in major cities andcapitals across the Middle East, Asia and Europe showing the work of the laureate and finalists toa large international audience.
All of the exhibitions were cancelled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, so IWPA is
pleased to present for the first time in public a selection of photographs from the 2020 finalists, aswell as special awards, in collaboration with the FCCJ. The winners were chosen by an international
jury from 650 submissions from 70 countries and six continents.
The current exhibition features only a limited number of the submitted images. The complete
series of the best photographers in 2020, as well as their statements, interviews, and a virtual tour
can be viewed online at https://iwpa.fr
IWPA would like to express its gratitude to the main sponsors Leica Camera Japan Co., Ltd.,
East Japan Railway Company and their partners for their invaluable support in making thisexhibition possible.

INDEX21 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITION

International Women in Photo Award 2020: Feb. 6 - Mar. 5, 2021

© MARA SANCHEZ RENERO

Laureate:
Mara Sanchez Renero, Mexico« ILUIKAK » series
In her series « ILUIKAK », Mara Sanchez Renero denounces thesocio-political instability, the precarious economic conditions
and injustice in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, causing the original
inhabitants, the Nahua people, to lose contact with their roots,
heritage and territory. Once farmers, they have become migrantcommunities. Iluikak, meaning « close to the sky » in Nahuatl,
this project moreover explores the thin borderline between
documentary and fiction in photographic creation and thependular relationship between the visible and invisible.

22 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITIONINDEXInternational Women in Photo Award 2020: Feb. 6 - Mar. 5, 2021

© ANA MARIA AREVALO GOSEN

Finalist:
Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen, Venezuela« DÍAS ETERNOS » series“Días Eternos” (Eternal Days), by Ana Maria Arevalo, shows
without filter Venezuelan female prisoners living in extreme
conditions. The artist living in Bilbao, Spain, questions thedaily life and future of these anonymous women throughphotography.

23 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITIONINDEXInternational Women in Photo Award 2020: Feb. 6 - Mar. 5, 2021

© MARTA ZGIERSKA

Finalist:
Marta Zgierska, Poland« VOTIVE FIGURE » series“Votive Figure” is a series by the Polish photographer
Marta Zgierska living in Jadwisin. By staging her own
body, the artist denounces both the cult and oppressionof the female body by contemporary society.

24 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITIONINDEXInternational Women in Photo Award 2020: Feb. 6 - Mar. 5, 2021

© ROSA RODRIGUEZ

Sustainable Award:
Rosa Rodriguez, Spain« WHITE LINE » series
The images of the “White Line” series, taken in an extremely
natural environment rarely inhabited by man, take us on ajourney and make us aware of the fragile nature of the Arctic
region. The Spanish artist living in Madrid, reflects on life, ouridentity and freedom.

INDEX25 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITION

International Women in Photo Award 2020: Feb. 6 - Mar. 5, 2021

© LIVIA SAAVEDRA

Discovery Award:
Livia Saavedra, Argentine/France« EBOLA IN TIMES OF WAR » seriesWith a strong reminder of the current health crisis, Saavedra’s
series “Ebola in Time of War” gives insight into the life of healthworkers and residents involved in the fight against ebola in Congo.
The French - Argentine photographer lives in Paris.

INDEX26 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITION

International Women in Photo Award 2020: Feb. 6 - Mar. 5, 2021

© NATALIA KOVACHEVSKIIWPA Special Mention:
Natalia Kovachevski, France« GIRLS EDUCATION » Series
The images of Kovachevski’s series “Girls Education” are intended to highlightthe fundamental role of educating girls and young women so that they cantake control of their lives and overcome social prejudice. Particularly in Africa,
girls are still considered a burden to their family and their school enrollment
rate far below boys in all levels. The French artist lives in the south of France.

INDEX27 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITION

International Women in Photo Award 2020: Feb. 6 - Mar. 5, 2021

© DINA OGANOVA

Finalist:
Dina Oganova, Georgia« ME TOO » Series
The series “Me too” by Dina Oganova is a testimony about sexual
harassment. The landscapes and portraits taken in Sakartvelo, Georgia,
show exterior and interior spaces of tense silence, somber places where
violence happened. Dina Oganova is Georgian and lives in Tbilisi.

INDEX28 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITION

International Women in Photo Award 2020: Feb. 6 - Mar. 5, 2021

© SNEZHANA VON BÜDINGEN

Finalist:
Snezhana von Büdingen, Russia« MEETING SOFIE » SeriesWith the series “Meeting Sofie” the Russian artist living in Berlin shares herview of Sofie, a young teenager with Down’s syndrome. This set of photographs
highlights her daily life and shares the ups and downs of her first steps in love.

INDEX29 | FCCJ | FEBRUARY 2021

EXHIBITION

International Women in Photo Award 2020: Feb. 6 - Mar. 5, 2021

© TAMARA ECKHARDT

Finalist:
Tamara Eckhardt, Germany« THE CHILDREN OF CARROWBROWNE » SeriesWith her series “Children of Carrowbrowne” the German artist from Berlin draws
attention to the hostile conditions for Irish children growing up in a nomadic
caravan community.

www.fccj.or.jp