The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

August 2017 Volume 49 No. 8 ¥400

DIVINE
INTERVENTION
Could the secretpeace feelers
via the Vatican
have stopped thedropping of theatomic bombs?

Press Freedom:
A conference of
FCCJ veterans

A question of ethics:
When journalists relyon the police

In profile:French journalist
Johann FleuriVol. 49, Number 8

August 2017contact the editors

no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJLee Ga-hyuk
explains his story

In this issue

p12

The Front Page
From the President by Khaldon AzhariCollections: Freedom of Press status
From the archives:
The enduring politician and ambassador

44
5

If . . .
by Eiichiro Tokumoto

6

When the journalist becomes the story
by Asger Rojle Christensen

8

ProfileJohann Fleuri
by Gavin Blair
The state of the fourth estateby Julian Ryall
Meet Watson, your non-human resources manager
by Tim Hornyak
Club News
Exhibition: Temptation to express the sensation of riding waves
Photographs by NAKI
Autumn food celebration
Join the Film Committee. . .
In Memoriam: Jean Pearce
New Members/New in the library
FCCJ

AUGUST 201710

FCCJ BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President Khaldon Azhari, PanOrient News
1st Vice President Anthony Rowley,Singapore Business Times
2nd Vice President Gregory Clark,
Writer/Columnist
Secretary Mary Corbett,Professional Associate Member
Treasurer William Kortekaas, Associate Member
Directors-at-Large Milton Isa, Associate MemberPeter Langan, Asia Times
Robert Whiting, Author, Freelance
Yoichi Yabe, Freelance
Ex-officio VacantKanji Yoshisuke Iinuma, The Oriental Economist
Associate Kanji Makoto Honjo, Associate Member
FCCJ COMMITTEE CHAIRSAssociate Members Liaison Milton Isa,
Compliance Kunio Hamada
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship Abby Leonard,
David SatterwhiteEntertainment Sandra Mori
Exhibition Bruce Osborn
Film Karen Severns
Finance Willem Kortekaas
Food & Beverage Robert Kirschenbaum,
Mehdi Bassiri
Freedom of Press Khaldon AzhariHouse & Property Khaldon Azhari
Human Resources to be announced
Information Technology to be announced
Library, Archives & Workroom Koichi Ishiyama,
Suvendrini Kakuchi
Membership Andrew Horvat
Membership Marketing Anthony Rowley
Professional Activities Andrew Sharp,
Tetsuo Jimbo
Public Relations Dan Sloan
Publications Dan Sloan
Special Projects Haruko Watanabe
Web Committee to be announced
Foreign Press in Japan Robin Harding

12
14

16

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Yurakucho Denki Building, North Tower 20F,
1-7-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0006.
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 positionof Number 1 Shimbun, the editor or the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
Please pitch and send articles and photographs, oraddress comments to no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Read the Number 1 Shimbun online:
fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun
Cover illustration: Andrew Pothecary

3

ASGER ROJLE CHRISTENSEN

Editor Gregory Starr
Art Director Andrew Pothecarywww.forbiddencolour.com
Editorial Assistants Naomichi Iwamura,
Photo Coordinator Akiko Miyake
Publications committee members
Dan Sloan, Nissan (chair);Gregory Clark, writer/columnist;
Geoffrey Tudor, Orient Aviation;
Johann Fleuri, Ouest-FranceFRONT PAGE

FROM THE ARCHIVES

COLLECTIONS

From thePresident
WITH JAPAN’S OBON HOLIDAY approaching, I want toassure FCCJ Members that your Board is moving forwardwith promised reforms.
This entails (among many other things) negotiating with
Mitsubishi Estate in an attempt to ensure that the planned
move (inherited from a previous administration) to newpremises does not impact the FCCJ’s revenue adversely
and thus worsen what is already the less than robust
financial position of the Club.
The design of some aspects of the new premises is still
not well suited to our needs and thus it continues to be amajor task for the Board to secure the best arrangementthat will safeguard the interests of both sides.
Likewise, the transition from IRS – the principal
provider of outsourced Food and Beverage (F&B)
operations at the Club – to our new outsourced services
provider, AIM, is occupying a great deal of BoD attention
at present as the new arrangement will take effect asfrom Sept. 1, 2017.
Transitional arrangements between the outgoing andincoming companies involved will require some small
limitation of operating hours and menus for several
days at the end of August. The General Manager will be
providing members with details very shortly and we will
do our utmost to ensure that any inconvenience is kept toa minimum.
I ask on behalf of the Board for your patience andunderstanding in these matters and take this opportunityof reminding members that this Board is dedicated topreserving and strengthening the “volunteer spirit” within
all of the Club’s organs and activities, and to ensuring that
all revenues connected with Club activities accrue to themembership as a whole.
On the FCCJ committees, the Publicity Committee(HR) led by Dan Sloan, will be assigned to the activities
related to Tokyo Olympics 2020. This world-class eventthat is watched by the globe, is one of the new venues ofwhich FCCJ can explore more activities to cover, supportand “participate” in the Olympics with the goal of winninggold medals as one of the most important hubs for media
globally. I have attended a meeting with the Organizing
Committee and they told me they pin high hopes on
FCCJ on the media front.
In this regard, the Club will regularly host IOC and2020 Organizing Committee officials, athletes andspeakers with relevance to the Games and Japan.
I invite FCCJ members to step forward and participate
in the activities of this Olympic and other committees.
Please contact the office and indicate which committee
you would be interested in. As before, please feel free tocontact me with any issue you might have.
Lastly, I would like thank to Gregory Starr and Andrew
Pothecary, who have served ably as editor and art director
for the No. 1 Shimbun for the past several years, as they
will end their involvement with the magazine this month.
Again, thank you.
Happy and cool summer.
– Khaldon Azhari
4

THE ENDURING POLITICIANAND AMBASSADORFREEDOM OF PRESSSTATUS
34

83
98

25

1.37 billion

98
43

199

87

34

27

Largest population ofcountry with Not Freestatus: China

1.31 billion
Largest population ofcountry with Partly Freestatus: India

countries andterritories wereassessed in 2016

(0=most free)

13
42

Percentage of world’s inhabitants
living in countries with Free Press

8

10 Norway in 2012

Norway’s status(highest among 199)

23 18

The FCCJ’s event program for 1982 led off on Jan. 6 with U.S. Ambassador
Mike Mansfield, here applauding a humorous comment offered by Club
president Edwin Reingold (Time magazine), apparently aimed at a bearded
Richard Pyle (AP), who smiles in response. Mansfield, a retired Democratic
senator who had been appointed ambassador to Tokyo in 1977 by President
Jimmy Carter, also a Democrat, was asked to continue in that role in 1981by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican. He did so, and became thelongest-serving U.S. ambassador in Japan by serving until 1988. Mansfield,
who had also spoken at the Club some two years earlier, was highly
respected for his even-handed handling of bilateral disputes.

U.S. in 2012

U.S.

25 21
27 22

Percentage of world’s
inhabitants living
in countries with
Partly Free Press

45

23

Percentage of world’s
inhabitants living in countries
with Not Free status[3.4 billion

31%
36%

UK in 2012

UK

People living incountries with
Not Free status

Japan in 2012

Japan

]

34 32
South Korea

34 -6
83 +8
96
98 97
PolandCountries rated Free

South Korea in 2012

BelarusBiggest annual decline
in status (Poland)
Biggest annual gainin status (Belarus)

North Korea
in 2012

Turkmenistan
in 2012

North Korea and Turkmenistan(lowest among 199)

Countries rated
Partly Free

(100=least free)

33%

Countries rated Not Free

[55%

Countries rated
Not Free in 1986]

AUGUST 2017

FCCJ

Source: Freedom House (ratings based on evaluationsin three broad categories: the legal environment, thepolitical environment and the economic environment.
A total score of 0 to 30 results in a press freedom
status of Free; 31 to 60 results in a status of Partly
Free; 61 to 100 indicates a status of Not Free.)https://freedomhouse.org/
FCCJ

AUGUST 2017

“Enduring” would seem an appropriate word to describe Mike
Mansfield, for he had also been the longest-serving majority leader
in the U.S. Senate, holding that position for 16 of his 24 years in thatbody. As such, he was a key man in passing legislation in the 1960s as
part of President Johnson’s “Great Society.”
Born in New York City in 1903, Mike Mansfield was sent to live withrelatives in Montana at the age of three, following the death of his
mother. He overcame difficult younger years and gained a hardearned education, with the help of his wife, Maureen, that led to his
many years in Congress representing the state of Montana.
Prior to becoming a senator, he served ten years in the U.S. House ofRepresentatives. He served in the U.S. Navy in WWI, followed by a year
in the U.S. Army and another two in the U.S. Marine Corps that took him
to Asia and sparked his interest in the area.
Although known for his centrist approach to divisive issues andself-effacing modesty, Mansfield was also noted for expressing
strongly held opinions. One of these was his early opposition tocontinuation of the Vietnam War. This led to his promotion oflegislation that became the War Powers Act of 1973, limiting thepresident’s authority to commit U.S. forces without the consent
of Congress. In addition to many other honors, in 1989 he received
the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian
honor, following his retirement as ambassador. He died in 2001,
at the age of 98.

– Charles Pomeroy,
editor of Foreign Correspondents in Japan,
a history of the Club that is available at the front desk
5

FEATURE
HISTORY

by EIICHIRO TOKUMOTOOn May 27 last year, following the G7 Summit at Ise-Shima, Barack Obama became thefirst sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. Accompanied by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,
Obama laid a floral wreath at the cenotaph for the atomic bomb victims and, in the speechthat followed, expressed his wish to pursue a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama’s historic visit received worldwide coverage by the media, including many
FCCJ members. In his address, he noted: “Seventy-one years ago, on a bright, cloudlessmorning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire
destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.”M

any people feel that raising the hypothetical question“what if?” is a useless exercise. And while it’s true thatsuch hypotheses cannot be proved, it’s hard to resist
asking questions such as this one: “If Japan had somehow
agreed to end the war sooner – even by just a month – could
the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been avoided?”
For Martin Quigley, a U.S. agent for the forerunner of the
CIA during WWII, the question was not simply an academic
exercise, but one with an answer that he might have affected
if things had gone differently. The following story is one hekept secret, even from his own family, for many years.
Martin S. Quigley was born in Chicago in November 1917.
Following graduation from Georgetown University, he went
to work as a reporter for Motion Picture Daily. But when war
broke out, he volunteered for and was accepted by the newly
established Office of Strategic Services.
Quigley underwent training as a field operative, receiving
instruction in communications through cyphers and training
in firearms, demolition and other accouterments of the spy
trade. He was then posted to Ireland in 1943 where, undercover as a representative of the Motion Picture Producers
and Distributors of America, he collected political and military intelligence.
After a brief return to the U.S., Quigley was assigned to6

SO ONE AFTERNOON IN May
1945, soon after Germany’ssurrender, Quigley invited Italian priest and Vatican diplomat
Monsignor Egidio Vagnozzi to his Rome apartment. Afterraising a celebratory toast of beer to the German surrender,
Quigley disclosed his true role as an undercover agent of OSS
and solicited Vagnozzi’s assistance.
He asked Vagnozzi to be the contact in an attempt to open
up communications with Tokyo regarding a possible surrender scenario. Should there be interest on the part of theJapanese government, he told the priest, top level negotiators could be available on short notice for secret meetingsin or near Rome.
Quigley’s approach was not an easy one. “I had to not only
disclose my actual role of OSS agent but also had to seek cooperation,” he said. “I knew it would be difficult because it was
generally known that Pope [Pius XII] had given orders to all
his people not to get involved with exactly what I was assigned.
This was outside his personal charge. But I was able to convince Vagnozzi that as a priest he had higher responsibility.”
Vagnozzi moved quickly. He contacted a Japanese priest who
was an adviser to the Japanese mission and Quigley’s message
was conveyed to Ken Harada, the diplomatic envoy. This ignited a furious debate at the mission over whether or not Tokyo
should be notified, since there were concerns, of course, thatthe approach might be viewed as a plot by enemy spies.
In any event, Harada sent a cable at the beginning of
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AUGUST 2017

7

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ARCHIVE

In 1945, the U.S. tried using the Vatican as a routefor peace feelers to Japan. But the destination of
the cables outlining the offer remains a mystery.

IT TURNS OUT THAT Quigley had also attempted to find out
what happened. In February, 1972 he sent a letter to Harada,
in which he revealed his role in Rome as an OSS operative,
writing: “I think that you and I have an obligation to history
but an even greater obligation to the future. . . . the ends ofhistorical research and future needs would be well served ifsome light could be shed on what happened to your message
or messages in Tokyo. Why was there no response? Was the
explanation that word never reached the persons who could
act on the possibility of secret peace-making talks in Rome?
Or did the word reach high authority that made the decision
not to respond favorably?”
Harada replied to Quigley that, at the time, Tokyo had
already decided to seek peace via the Soviet Union and that
it was quite impossible to alter that policy. Then he added, “What is more significant for me in looking back fromnow is that before the outbreak of war, His Majesty theEmperor had ordered the Government
to open diplomatic relations with
the Vatican and to dispatch an envoy
there in order to be ready for peace
I ASKED HIM THEN what he thought would
negotiations in case of war which hehappen if the feelers via the Vatican had
was most anxious to prevent. . . . So
made their way through channels. “Themuch so I personally feel very sorry
bombs would not have been dropped inthat I remained quite unserviceable toHiroshima and Nagasaki,” he replied.
attain the original desire of His Majes“More importantly, had we not dropped
ty although I was there at the Vatican
the bombs, other major powers would
as His Special Envoy.”
have no incentive to try to develop them.
Surprising as it sounds, it’s true that
I think the idea of an atomic bomb-freeeven before the war had commenced,
world could have been a real possibility.”
Emperor Hirohito had apparently conHe expressed similar thoughts in a memsidered going through the Holy See tooir of his time at the Vatican titled Peace
negotiate its end. This was borne out
Without Hiroshima, published in 1991.
in the posthumously published Showa
So I went in search of the cables’ destiTenno Dokuhaku Roku (The Showanation, and found copies in the DiplomatAgencies at work
Emperor’s Monologue), which highic Archives of the Foreign Ministry. The
Above, Martin S. Quigley of the OSS,
lighted his awareness of the Holy See’s
first, received on June 5, 1945 was recordpictured at the end of WWII – he wasspiritual influence around the world.
ed as “Top Secret cable No. 53.” The secasked to contact the Vatican (opposite
He believed that the Vatican could be
ond, received June 14, marked cable No.
in 1946) with an aim of negotiating
useful, both as a source of information
59, totaled 10 pages of text and contained
Japan’s surrenderand for helping to bring the war to a
proposals from “an American in Rome.”
conclusion, and in 1942, not long after
There were the seals of Foreign Minister
Pearl Harbor, Japan established diplomatic relations with
Shigenori Togo, a vice minister and a director on the two
the Vatican.
cables, indicating they had been read by top-level Foreign
Knowing this, it’s entirely possible that Harada was moved
Ministry officials. What happened after that is a mystery.
to alter the text of the book out of feelings of guilt over his
The web site of Japan’s Diplomatic Archives describes thefailure to comply with the Emperor’s wishes.
Vatican operation of the OSS as having been conducted by “aOf course, in the end the Soviet Union declared war on
person of unknown identity and purpose,” and indicates thatJapan, nullifying the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Treaty. It canJapan replied negatively to the proposal to open negotiations,never be known whether the peace feelers via the Vaticanand that the OSS approach did not lead to any concrete negocould have ended the war sooner and prevented the use of
tiations. This is clearly at odds with Quigley’s account that no
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
reply was received.
In his letter to Harada, Quigley wrote, “I think we should
Nor is this account the only dubious matter. A book pubrest easy in the confidence that each of us did the best welished by a private publisher in the 1970s titled The Diplomacy
could in the light of prevailing circumstances. I think it is aof Japan, produced under the editorial direction of former
mistake to look at the past through ‘what-might-have-been’
senior Foreign Ministry officials, includes what is claimed
concerns. However, I believe that it is most important thatto be the full text of the two cables from Harada. However,everyone, especially policy-makers in governments, learn
it appears that portions of the documents had been deliberfrom the past.”
ately altered. For example, references to the surrender terms
On Feb. 5, 2011 Martin Quigley passed away in Hartford,
that Quigley had relayed had been deleted from the text that
Connecticut at the age of 93. According to a family member
appeared in the book.
at his bedside, his final words were, “Thank God for all the
Surprisingly, the person who had requested the revisions
wonders.” ❶was Harada, the former Japanese envoy to the Vatican. The
book’s editing had been supervised, in fact, by the former
Eiichiro Tokumoto, a former Reuters correspondent, is an author andvice foreign minister and the director who had both seen
investigative journalist.
Harada’s cables from Rome.
June outlining Quigley’s proposal to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. After several days with no response from Tokyo, theenvoy, through Vagnozzi, asked the American to provide
detailed terms of surrender. A somewhat bewildered Quigley,
on his own initiative, replied that the terms would include
preserving the emperor system and other points.
But the lines from Tokyo remained silent. The next month,
on July 26, the Potsdam Declaration was issued, and within
the next two weeks, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading Japan to declare unconditionalsurrender on Aug. 15. In the end, the OSS Vatican initiative
had come to naught.
When I showed curiosity about the results of his offer,
Quigley told me, “If I were in your position, I would concentrate on finding out why the Japanese Foreign Office didn’t
respond to Harada’s cables. I was later told that it was very
unusual that the two cables were not acknowledged. They
didn’t even let Harada know the cables
were received. Why?”

AP PHOTO

If . . .

Rome under the same cover in
December 1944. The operation
was under the direct orders of
OSS director Maj. Gen. William J.
“Wild Bill” Donovan.
“I met Donovan at his office at
OSS headquarters,” Quigley told
me in an interview at his homein Hartford, Connecticut, in
May 2009, “and the conversation was very brief. He said,‘Martin, I want you to be alert
to the opening of communication with Japan, looking totheir surrender, using your
Vatican contacts.’”
That the OSS spymaster
himself would send Quigley
on such a delicate mission
to make contacts with Japan
points to its political importance. But both Donovan and
Quigley were practicing Roman
Catholics and their religious
backgrounds were instrumental in helping them gain accessto intelligence from church
sources, not only in Rome andparts of German-occupied
Europe, but from Asia as well.
Speaking of his former boss,
Quigley told me, “Donovan was
soft-spoken, old-fashioned anda man of great vision. He was
eager to undertake any scheme
he thought had some chance tohelp end the war.”

FEATURE
ETHICS
Lee emphasizes that
their original intention– as they drove from Germany to northern Jutland– was to find Chung Yoora, talk to her and giveher an opportunity to
explain herself. That was
the report he wanted tosend home. But the doors
and shutters to the villaremained closed and hisstory was at a standstill.

A Danish policeman
took the time to show
Lee’s team Chung’s passport, and their film ofthat moment has beenshown countless times on
South Korean television.

When the journalist
becomes the story
A young South Korean reporter faced a toughsituation, and made a choice.
Was it the right one? You make the call.
by ASGER ROJLE CHRISTENSEN

I

t was four o’clock in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve inthe tiny Danish village of Gug, on the outskirts of Aalborg.
It was dark enough for the Danes to have begun the traditional New Year’s fireworks, which would go on all night.
Lee Ga-hyuk, a young reporter for the South Korean cable
television company JTBC, and his cameraman, pulled up outside a villa where they suspected that Chung Yoo-ra, a 21-yearold woman who was one of the main characters in the worst
political corruption scandal in Lee’s homeland in decades,
was holed up. “We were very tired and a little scared,” Lee says.
At the end of December, Lee and teams of reporters from atleast six major Korean media outlets had flown to Frankfurt,
where the young woman was thought to be staying. They had
been in Germany for a week, and were about to follow a tip
from one of their sources and head for Austria, when theyreceived a phone call from Korea suggesting they go to Aalborg instead. It was likely, this source said, that Chung wasstaying close to a local horse training farm in the area, where
several of her own horses were located.
Chung was a successful equestrian who had won a team gold
medal for South Korea at the 2014 Asian Games. She was also
the daughter of Choi Soon-sil, a confidant of then-President
Park Geun-hye, who allegedly conspired with Park to strong8

arm donations from major corporations. Choi had been arrested
in November, and was being called the “Rasputin” of the scandal. Chung, her daughter, had fled from South Korea before
authorities could ask about her own involvement, and Interpol
had been asked by Seoul for help in tracking her down.
In Frankfurt, Lee’s team made a quick decision and headed
north rather than south. For security reasons, they left theirinterpreter and driver in Germany, so Lee and his cameraman took turns at the wheel, fueling themselves on a diet of
bananas over the 941-km, non-stop trip.
OUTSIDE THE VILLA IN Gug, the JTBC team considered theiroptions. They could see a luxury minivan with German license
plates parked outside, one that Chung and her companions
were known to have used. Through the window, they could
see an Asian rice cooker. They knocked on the door and calledout in Korean, but there was no response. The door was
locked and the shutters were pulled.
When they showed photographs of the wanted woman,neighbors confirmed that they had seen her taking walks inthe area with her small child. Lee and his colleague, now convinced they were on the scent, staked out the villa over the
next 24 hours. There was no movement. Nothing happened.
No one came or went.
Lee’s next act was to spark a storm of controversy and second-guessing: he dialed “114,” the emergency number of theDanish police. He spoke to a Danish police officer who, naturally, had never heard of Chung Yoo-ra or the scandal she wasembroiled in. He and his colleagues ended up having to check
Interpol records of wanted people on their computers; but
four hours later they appeared at the villa, where they took
Chung, her young son and several others into custody.
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FCCJ

WAS LEE RIGHT TO callthe police? The reaction
in South Korea was muted. A few voices on theinternet criticized JTBC
for “irrevocably opening“I KNOW JOURNALISTS
the journalism parallel
should not be part ofto Pandora’s Box.” They
their own stories,” Lee
stated that the role of thesays. “But I don’t thinkjournalist should be tothese ethics can be used
observe and report, not toin our situation. We had
become an active particidriven more than 900
pant, and that JTBC had
kilometers. We had waittaken advantage of its
ed for a day. It was dark
own actions in being theand we were freezing.
first to report the arrest
The neighbors were susas exclusive news.
picious of us, and I can’tBut, generally, people
blame them for suspecting we
in Korea were so angry at PresiGetting the story
were Asian terrorists. And wedent Park and her associates that
Opposite, Lee Ga-hyuk reporting in Denmark (Private photo).
were afraid of getting beaten bymost tended to believe it was inTop, Lee talks to the arrested Chung Yoo-ra on camera (JTBC).
Chung Yoo-ra’s bodyguards.”
the public interest to have young
Above, the author in discussion with Lee in Seoul.
I asked him why, after confirmChung arrested as soon as posing that Chung was in the house, he didn’t just do a stand-up
sible. The public image of her was a spoiled young girl who
report from in front of the house, reporting the facts. “We
had greatly benefited from corruption, entering schools anddid consider that as a possible solution,” Lee says. “Anotheruniversities using political pressure on school authorities.
possibility was to wait in hope that she would choose to talk to
Business giants like Samsung had paid for her horses and her
us. But we began to fear she would flee or destroy evidence.”
stud farm rental fees. Many thought the journalists’ task in
The final decision was not Lee’s alone. “We discussed thethat situation was to collaborate in the arrest.
matter with our editors and lawyers in South Korea,” he says.
“We felt we had to speed up the process, so we chose to go to
I READ ABOUT THE incident the following day on a Danish
the Danish authorities.”
news website: a report that the Danish police had arrested the
Lee stressed that he did not go to the police in order toso-called “horse girl” after a tip from a South Korean journalbe able to film the arrest and get footage of the arrest as an
ist. It made me wonder, as it did many of my colleagues fromexclusive. He claims that he and his cameraman had no idea
all over the world that I later talked to about the case. Callingin advance that they would be allowed to be present at thethe police? It’s something that you just don’t do. It makes you
arrest. In fact, in the end, they were only allowed to be there
too much a part of the story.
at a relatively long distance.
A few months later, while inSeoul on another assignment, I
AFTER SEVERAL MONTHS OF
contacted Lee Ga-hyuk hoping tolegal limbo, Chung Yoo-ra wastalk about what really happened
extradited to Seoul in late May
during those hectic days in Gerwhere she was arrested, but later
many and Denmark. We had areleased, and now awaits trial.
quiet and informal talk – as colHer mother is in court, as is the former president she served.
leagues – on the ground floor of JTBC’s modern headquarMeanwhile, South Korea has elected a new president and isters in Seoul’s so-called “digital media city.” JTBC has recently
looking forward.
become an extremely popular television channel, especially“It's a big word to use, but during those days in northernamong the young. It has the same owner as one of the estabDenmark, we actually felt like we were on a mission,” Lee Galished conservative newspapers, but has a liberal image. And
hyuk explains. “We felt we represented all South Koreans. We
it’s considered a critical voice to the government and power.
were their eyes and ears while they were waiting at home for
It wasn’t as if JTBC tried to hide its involvement in Chung’s
any news.
arrest at the time. Their headline read, “JTBC called the police“So we chose to become part of the story.” ❶for fear of escape” – you can hardly play a more proactive rolein a news story than that.
Asger Rojle Christensen was Tokyo correspondent for various Danish
Upon orders from his editors, Lee Ga-hyuk had refused tonews media from 1989 until 1995 and again from 2013. He is based ingive interviews to several Danish media while in Denmark.
Japan as a journalist/analyst reporting on Asia. (A Danish version of thisBut it was obvious that he knew of our concerns, and hearticle was first published in Journalisten.)wanted to explain.

“We felt we had to speed up
the process, so we chose to
go to the Danish authorities”

FCCJ

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9

SERIESPROFILE

Johann Fleuri
by GAVIN BLAIR“Your first impressionis always wrong; if you
don’t dig and dig and dig
and try to understand,you don’t get the truth.
I like that.”t happened early, when I was
about 16 or 17 – the age thatyou start thinking about what
you want to do with your life,” says
Johann Fleuri, of first catching thejournalism bug. “I like writing, but
it was meeting people, talking withpeople and hearing their stories thatwas the fascinating thing for me.”During the final two years of acourse in modern literature andjournalism at university in Brittany in her native France, shebegan working for Ouest-France newspaper and two magazines. “I was working while studying, but mostly working. I
kept going to school a little, but not so much,” says Fleuri, who
after graduation was asked to join the launch of a new magazine in Normandy, owned by Ouest France’s parent company.
Working in a small team building a magazine from scratch
and getting feedback on test editions was a valuable experience in always keeping the reader in mind, explains Fleuri.
“Writers have to think about the reader, but also have to focus
on the people that we are talking to and the way we want towrite the piece: it’s easy to forget that someone is reading it –but that’s the goal, right? It helped me to learn that,” she says.
After a tough period of writing professionally while studying, followed by two years of working “every day until latewith no holidays,” she says she needed a rest. “I decided totravel and maybe write a piece or two, but basically take abreak. I had a list of countries I wanted to travel to and Japanwas first,” says Fleuri.
She visited Japan in 2009, determined to see the country
beyond the big cities, discover theculture and learn the language. “I felt
really comfortable here. I had an image
about Japan, but it was like nothing I
knew or had read about. I had traveled
before, but no other country gave me
the feeling that I really knew nothing
about it,” she recalls.
RETURNING TO JAPAN REGULARLY towrite for a variety of publications,
including Ouest-France, she won the
Robert Guillain prize in 2013 fromthe Japanese embassy in France
for her work on Tohoku. The award
included funding to return to Japan,
and she spent five weeks in Ishinomaki in 2013 covering the reconstruction process from the locals’
point of view. “I really felt I wanted
to settle here after that,” says Fleuri.
She moved to Japan in 2015.
As well as writing straight news
as correspondent for Ouest-France,
Flueri is also able to pursue her realpassion: in-depth stories digging
deep into Japanese society and culture. “Those are the kind of subjects
10

that makes Japan so interesting. Your
first impression is always wrong; if
you don’t dig and dig and dig andtry to understand, you don’t get thetruth. I like that,” she says.
Covering women’s issues for La
Gazette des femmes, she has written
about gender inequality in the workplace, including jobs that females are
excluded from, such as sushi chefs
and saké brewers. “I also wrote about
sexuality, discussing it with many women over a few months,”
she explains. “It’s not an easy subject to get people to talkabout, especially to a stranger, but it was very funny and I
had very unexpected answers. Fleuri believes that being able
to communicate directly in Japanese without a translator was
crucial in connecting with the women.
The freedom that some of the publications give her to spend
months on a single story allows her to get under the surface
of issues. “I wrote about whaling, and traveled around talking
to people for about six months. The reaction was quite negative at first because they thought I was just another foreigner
writing about whaling,” says Fleuri. “But I found it fascinating because the answers were nothing like I expected. Most
people I met were in favor of whaling even though they don’t
eat whale meat.”

THE KEEN INTEREST MANY French readers have in Japan andits culture allows Fleuri to get off the beaten track both thematically and geographically. “I’m very interested in theregions of Japan that are mostly forgotten,” she says. “Places
where the population is aging andthe young are moving away. There isno university in Shimane, for example, even though it's a large prefecture. So how can they expect the
young people to stay?”
Her first book, Portraits de Tokyo,
is being published in August andconsists of 20,000-word profiles of avariety of people, most of whom she
previously interviewed. “Their lives
and points of view are very different,”
Fleuri says. “The only common point
was that they live in Tokyo. One woman was an ‘office lady,’ another wasa guy who organizes funerals. Thereis also a Canadian rakugo performer
and a woman fighting against matahara or ‘maternity harassment.’”
Fleuri thinks her foreseeable future
will be in Japan. “There are so many
problems for women in the workplace, and it is so strange that nothing changes even though the problems are so clear,” she says. “I can see
myself being here for a long time. It
Gavin Blair covers Japanese business, society andwas a long process getting here, but
culture for publications in the U.S., Asia and Europe.
now that I’m here, I want to stay.” ❶AUGUST 2017

FCCJ

ANDREW POTHECARY

I

“

FCCJ

AUGUST 201711

FEATURE
JOURNALISM

The state of the
fourth estate
A panel of veteran foreign correspondents looks at the results of recent upheavals
in the media world, and makes some observations about the days ahead.

These are, without a doubt, testing
Emmott was part of a three-member panel
by JULIAN RYALL
times for the profession of journalism.
of speakers invited to the Club to discuss the
There is the seemingly inexorable
future of journalism. Also at the top tablerise of social media compounded by a large part of the generwas Philip Bowring, a writer for the Far Eastern Economic
al public afflicted by a shrinking attention span. Traditional
Review for the majority of the two decades between 1972 andmedia outlets are seeing falling advertising leading to falling
1992, only interrupted by a spell at the Financial Times. He
revenues causing falling investment in journalists and, inevisubsequently spent 19 years as a columnist for the Internatably, falling standards. Too often the media seems to suctional Herald Tribune. With other expatriate journalists, Bowcumb to the easy allure of click-bait over quality reporting.
ring founded the Hong Kong-based Asia Sentinel in 2006 as a
And if those worries were not enough to keep a hack awake
digital heir to the now-defunct FEER and Asiaweek, while heat night, the world has a U.S. president who labels anythingalso contributes to a number of publications as a freelancethat does not reflect his own world view as “fake news,” damcolumnist and works as an author and consultant.
aging and degrading the perception of what even the most
The third member of the panel was Urban Lehner, who spent
reputable of media outlets produces.
33 years at the Wall Street Journal as a reporter, editor and execThat accusation of “fake news” is, in turn, increasingly
utive, with two spells as a correspondent in Tokyo over a total
being bandied about by those on the receiving end of unflatof eight years. He subsequently spent nine years as editortering coverage to tarnish anyone or anything that questions
in-chief and vice president of DTN/The Progressive Farmer,
their motives. We saw it in the recent British general election,
based in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the author of a number ofand in Japan, when the Liberal Democratic Party attemptedbooks, including The Asia Factor in U.S.-Japan Relations.
to get their licks in even before the July 2 vote for the Tokyo
While these three stalwarts of the media industry – with well
Metropolitan Assembly, perhaps sensing that they were aboutover a century of experience in newsrooms or other media workto suffer a drubbing. “It has become difficult for us to conplaces between them – enjoyed some of the “golden years” ofvey our policies [to the public] because of media reports,”
journalism, just how bleak is the outlook for the business now?
said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a campaign speech inwestern Tokyo on June 30, the Asahi Shimbun reported.
THE CHALLENGES, THEY AGREED, are abundant. At a fundaAbe was referring to media coverage of his own trials andmental level, the number of print titles of years gone by hastribulations over suggestions that he intervened to influshrunk, said Bowring, pointing out that one of the three largence ministry-level decisions on two
est publications that he wrote for has noteducational establishments, and that his
survived. (The Far Eastern Economic Review
defense minister, Tomomi Inada, hadceased publication in December, 2009.)
called on members of the Self-Defense“Because of the economic constraints on
Forces to vote for the LDP in the election.
these publications, primarily caused by“If we slip up when speaking, the media
declining advertising revenues or readerimmediately jump all over us,” claimed an
ship, there has been a move towards anapparently offended Toshihiro Nikai, secoligopoly of the old media, but we are also
retary general of the LDP. “If you thinkseeing that in the new media,” he said.
you can make our candidates unsuccessful, just do it. If the
It is a similar story in the book publishing world, he pointed
media think that they are the only entities that can influenceout, where the 30-something major English-language pubthe election outcome, then they are completely wrong.”
lishers may still exist in name, but are now mostly owned bythree or four large groups. Consequently, he said, there is
YET TESTING TIMES ARE precisely when quality journalism
less diversity in the types of books that are being published; ashould come to the fore and fulfill its remit of informing andsimilar consolidation has taken place in the media world and,enlightening readers, listeners or viewers, said Bill Emmott, ediin precisely the same way, diversity has been sacrificed.
tor-in-chief of the Economist for 13 years from 1993, a columnist
The dawning of the digital era initially promised to deliverfor publications that include La Stampa, Nikkei Business and thegreater diversity and, initially, maybe it did because countless
Financial Times as well as being the author of 13 books.
small, net-based publications cropped up to cater to every niche“For journalists and journalism, this is a difficult but alsointerest. It quickly became apparent, however, that revenue wasa very good period for us,” he told the Freedom of the Press
the problem. “Old media” lost revenue as its traditional adverDinner at the FCCJ on July 5. “We have to fight to make suretisers and readers fragmented to alternative outlets, but “newthat our voices are heard because they are voices of credibilmedia” were not able to earn vast sums because of the online
ity and authority and we have value as analysts. But we also
business model and have not – and still have not – come up withneed to raise our collective game because – while informationa viable method of taking cash from an online reader base.
is abundant – the understanding of that information is far
The outcome is that old media has less revenue and hence lessmore scarce,” he said.
to spend on traditional in-depth investigative stories, extensive“The problem weface in journalism
is getting noticed
and being believed”

12

AUGUST 2017

FCCJ

Philip Bowring“There has been a move towards
an oligopoly of the old media.”

Urban Lehner“The future of journalism isanything but certain.”background research and even newsroom headcount. Perhaps
most worryingly for foreign correspondents, there is also lesscash available for permanent overseas postings, as titles
rely on stringers, casuals, wire services and even, among themore unscrupulous, simply lifting other publications’ work.
“We have seen the diminishment of professional news
services in terms of numbers, but have we seen a compensation through improved quality?” Bowring asked. “It would
be hard to say that the quality of the surviving mainstream
media has increased. There is, instead, an increased relianceon cut-and-paste journalism, which has been exacerbated by
the likes of Yahoo and Google.” Such news aggregator sites
are “effectively stealing copy,” Bowring added, meaning thatrevenue is going to the intermediary companies rather thanthe original producers of the news.
LEHNER WAS FACED WITH a direct choice between the newand the old when he retired from the Wall Street Journal 14
years ago, he admitted. The choice was between the editorship of a city newspaper in Ohio and a data and technology
company in Nebraska. The decision was made, he said, after
he visited both companies and had a chance to speak to someof the employees.
At the Ohio newspaper, writers used the opportunity tojustify why he should not cut their beats if he took over. It
was not, he said, a happy place. The other company, which
provided data on commodity prices and weather to farmers,
wanted Lehner to oversee its transition from a technology
company to a media company delivering information thatwas not being suddenly provided for free on the Internet.
And while the decision was not easy – “one consideration
was that if I became the editor of a print publication, myfriends would ‘understand’,” he said – he went to the data
firm and built an award-winning team of news writers andanalysts. “I believe providing that sort of business-to-business information is one of the futures of journalism,” he said.
Emmott linked the problems in the journalism world tobroader problems of democracy and the role of the media inmodern-day democracy. “If we look at the history of journalism and the media, it is clear that it goes through ups anddowns,” he said. “This is one of the oldest professions and atime when papers were pristinely ethical cannot be identified, so the media has always grappled with issues such as
FCCJ

AUGUST 2017

Bill Emmott“Information is abundant, the understandingof that information is far more scarce.”

advertorials, sponsored sections and so on.
“But I believe the real problem we face in journalism today
is getting noticed and being believed,” he said. “Journalists
have lost the strong position they once held as providers andchannels of information. Information is now abundant, communicating information is abundant, so journalists no longer
have the dominant position.
EMMOTT SAID THAT A worrying paradox is that while information is abundant and freely available, fewer people now worry about the freedom of speech. He pointed to the pressure
being exerted on the government of Qatar over Al Jazeera –“one of the bright lights of the last decade and one that has
led to a much more liberated media in the Arab world” – while
U.S. President Donald Trump has apparently reveled in a video clip purporting to show him wrestling CNN to the ground.
For Lehner, the question of the future of journalism isclosely linked to how information will be delivered 20 years ormore from now. While the majority of the millennial generation access their daily dose of news via their mobile phones atpresent, that will surely change in the future.
But with falling earnings for the media and suggestions
from some quarters that governments should directly fundthe media (“a terrible idea and a slippery slope to censorship”), Lehner concluded that “the future of journalism isanything but certain or stable.”
Bowring, however, remained more optimistic and suggested that the antics of Trump may even have helped the print
sector. “People are becoming more choosy again,” he said.
“We are seeing a revival of print in the book trade and we see
the survival of print publications long after people thought
they would be dead.”That is borne out by recent figures that show the New YorkTimes – which Trump has derided as “failing” – recorded a net
jump of 300,000 digital news subscriptions in the Januaryto-March quarter alone, a record-high growth. Equally, revenue from digital subscriptions is up 40 percent on the same
period last year.
The industry can only hope that the reading public continues to choose quality over quantity and informed sources
over rumors. ❶Julian Ryall is Japan correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.

13

TECHNOLOGY

Meet Watson, your non-humanresources manager
by TIM HORNYAKYOU’RE ALMOST OUT OF college andit’s time to apply for a job. Hoping toscore a full-time position, you decideto try your luck with one of Japan’s
most innovative companies. You’recompeting against thousands ofothers, yet you trust in your winningpersonality. There’s just one thing:
you’ll have to charm an artificial
intelligence to land the job.
SoftBank has deployed IBM’s Watson
AI platform to screen university
applicants aiming to join the company
in April 2018. As the first company inJapan to make such an announcement,
the telecom giant was quick to say
the system will reduce time that staff
spend on the process by 75 percent.
This year, Watson is vetting
400 applications, which consistof typewritten answers toquestionnaires. The platform isscreening responses to one question,
namely: “What are your strong points
that match with SoftBank Values (No.
1, Speed, Challenge, Reverse Planning,
Tenacity)? Please tell us about an
episode that demonstrates yourstrong points.”“First, we’re using Watson toevaluate job application forms more
fairly by removing subjectivity,”says SoftBank spokesperson Rika
Takahashi. “Second, to spend
more time on communication withapplicants.”
IBM CREATED WATSON (NAMED
after its founder Thomas J. Watson)in an attempt to get computers tointeract with humans in a naturalway. Its ability to process natural
language and draw upon encyclopedic
knowledge earned it worldwide fame
when it defeated human champions
Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings on
the U.S. quiz show Jeopardy! in 2011,
winning a $1 million grand prize.
Since then, the machine has shrunkfrom the size of a room to about threestacked pizza boxes, and it’s now
accessible anywhere via the cloud.
For SoftBank’s recruiting, Watson
has been “trained” to discriminate
14

between good and bad answers by
analyzing 1,500 questionnaires pregraded by HR staff.
Watson is also one of the mostpersuasive examples of how what
Big Blue calls “cognitive computing”
is changing business. It has been
deployed, with varying degrees
of success, in everything fromlung cancer screening to militaryprocurement and even self-driving
buses. Japan’s Dai-ichi Life Insuranceand Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance
even introduced Watson-based AI
systems to sift and analyze documents
related to payment assessments.
“‘Cognitive’ to IBM is really a
new partnership between man andmachine,” Jay Bellissimo, generalmanager of the Watson & Cloud“Some say SoftBank
is a mobile phonecompany, but that’s
wrong. We are
an information
revolution company.”
Platform at IBM, told the New
Economy Summit, an innovation
conference held in Tokyo in April.
“It’s really focused on accelerating,enhancing and scaling humanexpertise.”
Able to read 800 million
pages in one second, Watson canunderstand natural speech or text,
assign contextual relationships toinformation and form hypotheses
based on probability scores andalgorithms focused on deep learning,a field of AI. As it ingests massive
amounts of data, it can detect relevant
patterns and assign them rankings
according to their likelihood of
fulfilling certain goals.
“If it gets something wrong, it will
re-weigh – and the algorithms will
do it again until it gets smarter andsmarter and gets the right answer,”
said Bellissimo. “The real power is in
the learning. Watson never forgets.”
In one example cited by Bellissimo,

Watson helped Australian oil andgas firm Woodside by providing
instant recommendations about oil rig
design after going through 200 million
bits of information based on 30 yearsof engineering experience built up at
the company.
BUT AS AI APPLICATIONS proliferate,
so do concerns that workers andtheir jobs will be squeezed out.
Such prominent scientists andentrepreneurs as physicist Stephen
Hawking and Tesla CEO Elon Musk
have expressed fears that uncontrolled
AI could pose a threat to humanity.
On a more pedestrian level, Watson
has struggled to live up to the massive
hype surrounding it: After forming apartnership with IBM Watson in 2013
to battle cancer, the University ofTexas MD Anderson Cancer Center put
the project on hold late last year, its
goals unmet despite an expenditure ofover $62 million.
Despite a scathing recent reportby Jefferies analyst James Kisner,
who criticized Watson as too costly
to develop compared to its earnings,
the company has pushed on withthe program as a core unit while
it struggles to transition fromtraditional businesses such as servers
and mainframes to cloud technology
and cybersecurity.
For its part, SoftBank is happy toexperiment with Watson – and it has
no doubts that AI is the future. The
employee vetting platform is one of its
latest AI projects following the launchof humanoid robot Pepper in 2015 andthe acquisition of high-profile robotics
companies Boston Dynamics andSchaft earlier this year.
“Some say SoftBank is a mobile
phone company, but that’s wrong,”
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son told ashareholders’ meeting in June. “We are
an information revolution company.
A cellphone is just a device. From
now on, we will be in an age where all
infrastructure will be connected byinformation networks.” ❶Tim Hornyak is a freelance writer who has
worked for IDG News, CNET News, Lonely
Planet and other media. He is the author of
Loving the Machine: The Art and Science ofJapanese Robots.
AUGUST 2017

FCCJ

CLUB NEWSCLUB NEWSJOIN THE FILM COMMITTEE . . .

FCCJ EXHIBITION. . . on Tuesday, Aug. 8 at 6:15 pm (note early start time) for Masato
Harada’s sweeping new epic, Sekigahara. The battle in a Gifu valley,fought on a single day in 1600, is considered the defining moment ofJapan’s future. Lasting just six hours, with forces estimated to number
180,000 – 30,000 of whom did not survive – its outcome brought
an end to the centuries-long Warring States period. Directing just his
second jidaigeki period drama (after 2015’s Kakekomi) and adapting a
best-selling three-volume novel, Harada populates Sekigahara with ateeming assortment of historic characters and enough political intrigue,
Machiavellian maneuvering and exciting ninja action for an entire
miniseries. But his focus is resolutely on the motives and strategies of
the two men whose forces would meet for the final showdown: Mitsunari
Ishida (Junichi Okada) and Ieyasu Tokugawa (Koji Yakusho). This is a
powerful reinterpretation that completely overturns our conventional
understanding, transforming their fateful conflict into a war between
justice and political opportunism. The director and the film’s breakout
star, Takehiro Hira, will be on hand for the Q&A session.
(Japan, 2017; 149 minutes; Japanese with English subtitles)– Karen Severns

AUTUMN FOOD CELEBRATIONJUST IN TIME TO welcome back members who have been fortunate
enough to escape the hottest days of Tokyo, the FCCJ Food andBeverage team is putting the finishing touches on a menu revamp
which will give everyone much reason to celebrate the arrival of
autumn with exceptional grub and wines.
Adding spice and color to our beloved classic dishes will be adelectable new minestrone, along with expanded salad choices you
can enjoy with a new selection of choice breads. Scrumptious seasonal
specials will vie for new patronage with equally delicious low-fat
selections – something that has long been requested by members.
And the Correspondents’ Lunches will now come with a delicious
selection of desserts for just ¥300 extra.
Come September, lunch-time fare will be available daily until threeo’clock, after which our guests can enjoy an extensive à la carte andset-course menu until the last order in the evening. The chefs will soon
announce an enticing new selection.
Although the autumn menu is already near completion,
management is eager to continue serving fine foods which reflect
the eclectic and valued tastes of our members. Please drop yourcomments into the Suggestions Box at the FCCJ Front Desk or write
us. We look forward to seeing you often in the Club Main Bar and
Dining Room.
– The F&B Committee

Temptation to express the sensation of riding waves
Photographs by NAKI

THE IMPRESSION FORMED WHEN riding waves canbe sublime – and the essence of living. I started
creating my artwork with the aim of capturing
these feelings. I hope you enjoy my work,

produced from various media, including surfboard
resin and the accessories I wore. My intention
is to show both my affinity with surfing and myconsciousness about recycling. ❶NAKI is a professional Japanese surfer who was the 1989 grand champion of the NSA all-Japan surfing
tournament. He moved California in 1994, where, during his daily encounters with the ocean, he pursued
photography to depict his fascination with the waves. He has been house photographer for both Surfing
and Surfer magazines, and was the first Japanese photographer to shoot the cover story of the Surfer’s
Journal. His publications include North Hawaii and exhibitions include shows for Diesel and Beams.
16

AUGUST 2017

IN MEMORIAM: JEAN PEARCE, 1921-2017

FCCJ

The Main BarFCCJAUGUST 2017

LONG-TIME JAPAN RESIDENT,FCCJ member, author and journalist
Jean Pearce passed away in Junein Washington D.C. at the age of
96. Jean’s long-running column in
the Japan Times and books were
the sources of insight for both new
and old Japan residents, and she
continued to write for the JT until theyear 2000. Jean was a member of
the FCCJ from 1963 and served on
numerous committees and Boards of
Directors in her 37-year membership.
– Dan Sloan
17

CLUB NEWS

New
Members

REGULAR MEMBERS
Status Change (From Professional/Journalist Associate to Regular)

PETER O’CONNOR, of Musashino University, first came to Japan in
1976, when he wrote advertising copy for Dentsu. He first visited the
FCCJ in 1977 when he was introduced to Murray Sayle. Peter is backat the Club as an historian of the transnational media of East Asia.
His most recent book was (in Irish Gaelic) An tÉirí Amach sa Domhan
Thoir: Mar a chonaic an tSeapáin, an tSín agus an Chóiré éirí amachna Cásca is a thionchar (Dublin, Coiscéim: 2016), on the influenceof Dublin’s 1916 Easter Rising on independence movements in East
Asia. Peter has been setting up databases of historical East Asian
newspapers with Brill Publishers, of Leiden, The Netherlands.
KATHRYN WORTLEY is a Japan correspondent for Canada- andUK-based business news agency International News Services. She
also writes freelance for Asia-Pacific travel publication TTG Asia,
the Asia Times, the Japan Times and Japan Today. After writing
for Scottish outdoor magazine Walkwise and Glasgow’s Evening
Times, Kathryn moved to Japan in 2008 to pursue her love of theJapanese language. She worked on video media in Kagoshima
before relocating to Tokyo for a project at the British Embassy.
She is a former editor of BCCJ Acumen, the magazine of the British
Chamber of Commerce in Japan.
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Rosa Argyropoulos,
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
Takako Ikegai, no affiliation
Takashi Matsumura, GENEQ Corporation
Shinnosuke Miyazaki, Arts And
Crafts Company

The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

August 2017 Volume 49 No. 8 ¥400

DIVINE
INTERVENTION
How the Vatican
was secretly
approached to
broker a peacedeal for Japan
toward the endof WWIItent-creation

gency.

Press Freedom:a conference ofveterans at the FCCJ

ustom-media.com | www.bij.tv

Reporting and scandal:
Korea, an exclusive andthe police in Denmark

In profile:French journalist
Johann Fleuri

Hideo Nakazawa, Hitachi, Ltd.
Yozo Omori, Streetmedia, Inc.
Ko Takemoto, no affiliation
Kimitaka Usami, K-Square Inc.
Gen Matsuda, AsZ Holdings, Inc.
REINSTATEMENT (ASSOCIATE)
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