The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

April 2017 Volume 49 No. 4, ¥400

David McNeilln ofon the directio
Japan Forward

Julian Ryall
profilesBradley Martin

Eric Johnston
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Vol. 49, Number 4

April 2017contact the editors

no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJ
Editor Gregory Starr
Art Director Andrew Pothecarywww.forbiddencolour.com
Editorial Assistants Naomichi Iwamura,
Photo Coordinator Akiko Miyake
Publications committee members
Gavin Blair, Freelance (Chair); Geoffrey Tudor,
Orient Aviation; Monzurul Huq, Prothom Alo;John R. Harris, Automobile Magazine

Moritomo Gakuen
head, Yasunori KagoikeIn this issue
The Front Page
From the President by Khaldon AzhariCollections: The global war against journalists
From the archives
Sports Special
Baseball’s struggle for global relevanceby Robert Whiting
The sports beatby Jason Coskrey
ProfileBradley Martin
by Julian Ryall

p12
4
4
5
6
8

FCCJ BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President Khaldon Azhari, PanOrient News
1st Vice President Anthony Rowley,Singapore Business Times
2nd Vice President Todd Crowell, Freelance
Secretary David Satterwhite, Associate Member
Treasurer Robert Whiting, Author, Freelance
Directors-at-Large Said Karlsson, TT News Agency
Milton Isa, Associate Member
Yuichi Otsuka, Associate MemberPeter Langan, Freelance
Ex-officio Suvendrini Kakuchi,
University World News
Kanji Yoshisuke Iinuma
Associate Kanji Makoto Honjo, Associate Member
FCCJ COMMITTEE CHAIRSAssociate Members Liaison Milton Isa,
Masanobu Tsukagoshi
Compliance Kunio Hamada
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship Abby Leonard,
David SatterwhiteEntertainment Sandra Mori, Suvendrini Kakuchi
Exhibition Bruce Osborn
Film Karen Severns
Finance Robert Whiting
Food & Beverage Robert Whiting,Robert Kirschenbaum
Freedom of Press Khaldon AzhariHouse & Property Khaldon Azhari
Human Resources Khaldon Azhari
Information Technology Khaldon Azhari
Library, Archives & Workroom Koichi Ishiyama,
Suvendrini Kakuchi
Membership Andrew Horvat, Peter O’Connor
Membership Marketing Rie Sakamoto
Professional Activities Andrew Sharp,
Tetsuo Jimbo
Public Relations Khaldon Azhari
Publications Gavin Blair
Special Projects Haruko Watanabe
Web Committee Gavin Blair

10

Foreign Press in Japan Justin McCurry

When the Osaka media took the leadby Eric Johnston

12

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

When “forward” means “right”
by David McNeill

14

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.

16

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

Club News
Exhibition: Memories of Pyongyang
by Ciel Yiu
Film Committee receives industry award/
Join the Film Committee/Number 1 Shimbun collects
design award/New Members/New in the library
FCCJ

APRIL 2017

Cover illustration: Andrew Pothecary3

FRONT PAGE

TRYING TO GET A quorum at our March general
membership meeting, FCCJ’s annual budget meeting,should be a wakeup call for members. Had we notgotten a quorum – and we only made the bare minimum
by less than 10 attendees – we would have had to
From the“emergency” measures to pay our bills
President introduce
from April. When the Club was founded, emergency
measures were meant for things like earthquakes.
We had quorum problems before the Club became a Koeki (public interest)
Shadan Hojin, but nothing like those we have now.
Our new bylaws, which took effect three years ago when our koeki application
was approved, are the source of the problem. FCCJ’s tradition of openness andtransparency, which we pride ourselves on as a press organization, has regularly been
trampled upon by “interpretations” of the law which are not necessarily true.
We have been told, for instance, that Members need a “court order” to see
BOD meeting minutes. Our bylaws give every Member (Associate, Professional
Associate, Regular and Life) the right to see “Club records” including minutes. Yet
when Members go to the office to see the minutes, they are shown Article 97 of the
Shadan Hojin Law, which says they need to get a court order. In other words: start a
lawsuit to see records that our bylaws permit members to see.
In fact, that is not how our sponsor, the Cabinet Office, or even the Ministry ofJustice (MOJ), the ultimate arbiter of legal matters, interprets Article 97. Recently,
four Club members went to the Cabinet Office and confronted them with the
problem. They told us that the law does not “prohibit” the Club from introducing
our own rules, passing a bylaw, or giving members access to BOD and other records.
They said the aforementioned court order refers to ordinary citizens who do notbelong to the FCCJ.
On March 16, the Club lawyer spoke to the Ministry of Justice about this issue.
The MOJ official said that Art. 97 is a mandatory clause but if the entity (the FCCJ)
allows Members to inspect the minutes, that would not be prohibited by this Article.
In other words, we make our own internal rules in this particular case. We don’t
need a court order if the membership has approved a bylaw. Which we’ve done: On
June 10, 2015, the membership voted overwhelmingly (100-40) to approve a bylaw
which said that minutes, committee reports, member lists and other Club records
are now available for all members to inspect during office hours.
But the bigger picture: This current system of having to check with our lawyers
every time we have a disagreement is not tenable. And ultimately, we’re talking
about keeping secrets from the membership. Our Club never stood for that. And it
wasn’t the policy before our koeki application was approved.
Next, I believe we must address the quorum problem and, concurrently, our rules
for electing officers. I plan to tackle both in time for the June general meeting.
Concerning FCCJ elections, we need to go back our old system of electing ourofficers directly. We were told that the law requires our BOD to elect our officers
and that the membership can’t directly elect them. I am told by experts, as with theminutes’ issue, that we can create our own election rules and that BOD elections ofofficers applies to corporations, not to organizations like the FCCJ.
In this regard, I believe Associate Members on our BOD should not have the rightto vote for officers of a correspondents’ Club, namely for the FCCJ’s president, first
vice president and second vice president. While I respect the contributions of our
Associate Members and I consider them an integral part of our Club – after all, theyaccount for 90 percent of Club revenues – we need to draw the line clearly.
Indirect elections, by BOD members in a closed room, which I have written about
before, have caused great instability at the BOD. Now there is no president who canassure anybody that he will stay in office for longer than one week. The current rules
allow five BOD members at any time (theoretically) to call for an emergency BOD
meeting and hold it with a week’s notice and remove a president and appoint new one.
I also believe, but need to work out the details with the Associate Member Liaison
Committee, that Associate Members should elect their own BOD members. It is said
the Shadan Hojin Law opposes such a rule.
I and some BOD colleagues plan to propose a series of bylaws amendments inthe next couple of weeks led by an expanded Compliance Committee that we canvote on at the June GMM to help govern ourselves better and move us back to our
tradition of transparency. I am optimistic the age of “lost in translation” is coming
to an end.
– Khaldon Azhari
4

FROM THE ARCHIVES

COLLECTIONSPAYING A PRICE: The global war against journalists

THE PIVOTAL AMBASSADORDEADLIEST COUNTRIES IN 2016

On Nov. 14, 1974, former
U.S. Ambassador to Japan
Edwin O. Reischauer sharedwith our members his viewson a tumultuous year which
had been highlighted byPrime Minister Tanaka’s
appearance at the Club amonth earlier. Seated next to
him is FCCJ President Max
Desfor (AP). After reading
Reischauer’s 1960 treatiseon Japan, President John
F. Kennedy selected him
as ambassador, a position
he held for five years from1961 to 1966. The Club was
not only a venue for many
Reischauer appearances, buteven earlier, in 1956, waswhere he was introduced
by James Michener to Haru
Matsukata. Matsukata,
the correspondent for theSaturday Evening Post, andgrand-daughter of a Meijiera prime minister, became
his second wife.

14
6
6
4
3
3
2
2
2
2

journalist deaths
Syria
Yemen
Iraq
Afghanistan

48

Somalia
Libya

Total

MexicoPakistan

58%
23%
10%
6%
2%
2%

TurkeyKILLED JOURNALISTS’ BEAT
(more than one category applies
in some cases)
War
Politics
Corruption

Camera operator
Photographer
Internet reporter/writer
Broadcast reporter
Print reporter/writer
EditorProducer

Political group
Military officials
Unknown
Criminal group
Paramilitary group
Local residents

RESULT OF MURDER CASES
OF PERPETRATORS

94%

Crime
Human Rights

Complete impunity

Culture6%

Partial justice

70
1234

Highest annual
number of journalist
deaths, 2007

Business
Sports

98% 2%
Male

33%
33%
29%
27%
15%
8%
6%

SUSPECTED SOURCE OF FIRE

India

75%
38%
19%
17%
17%
13%
4%
4%

MURDERED JOURNALISTS’ JOBS

FemaleAPRIL 2017

FCCJ

Journalists
killedsince
1992

Source: Committee to Protect Journalists
FCCJ

APRIL 2017

Born in Tokyo on Oct. 15, 1910, the son of missionaries, Reischauer
received his early education at The American School in Japan before
going on to higher education in the U.S. He graduated from Oberlin
and then Harvard, which led to a 40-year teaching career at the latterthat centered on East Asian history and culture. He was author andco-author of many scholarly articles during his lifetime. With theadvent of WWII, he pushed for participation by Japanese-Americans
in the U.S. military and later called for a postwar plan for peace inAsia that would involve Japan. During the war, he also assisted the
U.S. military as both a language instructor and translator of decoded
Japanese military messages.
As the new ambassador, Reischauer and his wife were warmly
received in 1961 by both the government elite and the population
at large. His arrival coincided with Japan’s transition from a poor
country recovering from WWII into a major world economy that pulled
it abreast of Britain by the end of his tenure in 1966. It was a pivotal
time. Reischauer has been lauded for his contribution in ending the
U.S. Occupation mentality and strengthening political ties between
Washington and Tokyo. He supported Japan’s rapid economic recovery,
which he believed would create a strong middle class and make it apeace-loving democratic country. His critics, on the other hand, saythat he failed to thwart Japan’s excessive barriers to free trade, bothtariff and non-tariff, that encouraged a trend toward mercantilism.
In 1964, Reischauer was stabbed in the thigh by a deranged
Japanese youth and subsequently received blood transfusions at the
nearby Toranomon hospital. Unfortunately, some of the blood wascontaminated, resulting in hepatitis that would have a negative impact
on his life over the next 26 years. He died of complications in Septemberof 1990, one month before his 81st birthday.

– Charles Pomeroy

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

FEATURE
BASEBALL: 1

Baseball’s
struggle for
globalrelevance
The U.S. game’s top executive insists that lastmonth’s championship is meaningful, while
dodging calls for a real “world” series.
by ROBERT WHITINGThe FCCJ was recently graced by the presence of Major
League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Rob Manfred,
who visited Japan on the occasion of the 4th World
Baseball Classic, a tournament created by MLB to spur international interest in the game.
Manfred, a smooth, well-dressed Harvard Law School
graduate in his late fifties, presides over the second mostprofitable sports league in the world. With 2016 a record
year for industry revenues and overall business performanceat nearly $10 billion a year, the MLB trails only the National
Football League at $13 billion. In the global rankings, it is far
ahead of the National Basketball Association, which takes in$5.6 billion for the 3rd spot, and the UK’s Premier League,
which draws about $4 billion a year in the 4th spot. The Japanese baseball league, Nippon Professional Baseball, is ranked
10th with revenue of $1.3 billion dollars.
Manfred is the 10th commissioner in a long line of notable
executives dating back to Judge Keensaw Landis, a man who
rooted out gambling in baseball and banned several players
for life for conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series, but also prolonged the segregation of organized baseball. Happy Chandler, a former U.S. Senatorand governor of Kentucky,
broke the color line, allowing
Jackie Robinson to become
the first black player for the
Brooklyn Dodgers while Ford
Frick, a former sports writerand National League PR executive, suspended baseball relations with Japan in 1965 in an argument over the rights toJapanese pitcher Masanori Murakami. Bowie Kuhn usheredin World Series night games, while Bud Selig, former ownerof the Milwaukee Brewers, monetized the game, increasing
revenue six-fold through a program of taxpayer-funded stadiums, integrated media and merchandising rights, regional
TV packages and digital platforms.
Manfred, a labor lawyer, has made collective bargaining his
specialty since joining MLB in 1987. It is primarily becauseof his efforts that the league has gone for a quarter century
without a strike or a lockout.

with baseball back on the schedule for the 2020 Tokyo games.
Manfred said, however, that he did not think MLB would eversupply players from their top rosters to play in the games.
“Having players away from their teams in mid-season would
alter the competition,” he said. “And I don’t think owners
would support any kind of break in our season other than the
all-star game. Continuity is the key to our competition.”

BASEBALL IMMIGRANTS

the 2017 World Baseball Classic held last month might be thelast one. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said
with some irritation. “The WBC is broadcast in 182 countries.
It is a $100 million event . . . that has been profitable from Day
One and has really grown in terms of its revenue significanceand its popularity around the world. The WBC is the premierinternational baseball event . . . because it allows the greatest
baseball players in the world to compete against each otherand allows them to have that competition with the extra honor of representing their country. So I really don’t know where
the report came from.”
Manfred acknowledged, however, that the WBC popularity
is greatest in Japan, followed by Taiwan and Korea – and not
the U.S., where baseball was invented. Japan won the first two
tournaments in 2006 and 2009, thanks to the participation ofits MLB players, including Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka
and Yu Darvish. The Dominican Republic won in 2013.
As a result, games in the aforementioned Asian countries
draw top TV ratings. Sixty million fans in Japan tuned in forthe 2006 WBC final to witness Japan’s victory over Cuba in
San Diego, while a Japan-Taiwan 2013 matchup was the mostwatched TV program in Taiwanese history. By contrast, WBC
ratings in the U.S. were, in fact, so bad that ESPN, the country’s top sports network, stopped televising the games. Thismay have something to do with the fact that the U.S had yet to
win a medal, much less make the finals, until this year, when
they won the event. The games have only been shown on MLB

THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC
In a wide-ranging Q&A session, Manfred touched on a number of subjects, including U.S. media reports that suggested
6TV, primarily as filler, but that may change after the Americans’ showing this year.
The problem, Manfred explained, has been that the WBC isalways held in March, when most MLB players are just starting their spring training. Many players have been reluctant
to commit to playing for the national team and risking injury before the start of the season. Players from Japan, South
Korean and Taiwan, by contrast, start their training in January and are in top shape by the time the tourney starts.
So the value of the tournament for MLB, which controls
WBC global rights, is as a tool aimed at the growing international market. And though WBC ratings were sky high in
Puerto Rico, for example, baseball is still struggling to catchon in China and Brazil, where the growing middle classes are
an MLB target.
The other international stage for baseball is the Olympics,
APRIL 2017

FCCJ

AP PHOTO“Sixty million fans in Japan tuned in for the 2006
WBC final . . . By contrast, WBC ratings in the U.S.
were so bad that ESPN stopped televising the games”

Manfred also talked about being invited to Trump Tower thisJanuary to meet with the U.S. president, who is a huge New
York Yankees baseball fan, shortly before the presidential
inauguration. Despite the immigration issues raised by Trump
during the election campaign, he does not see anything thatwould have an effect on professional baseball’s increasinglyinternational roster,
be it in regard to
Japaneseplayers and theirfamilies livingin the U.S. during the baseballseason, or players and their families
from Latin America – Mexico
in particular. “We are getting our visas
in exactly the same way that we have for many
years,” he said, “and I don’t foresee any changes.”
The Major League debut of Superstar Shoei Otani, of the 2016
Japan Champion Nippon Ham Fighters and MVP of the Pacific
League last year, however, may be delayed, though it will havenothing to do with Trump. A new labor agreement is now inplace, limiting the money payable to international free agents
under 26 years old and with less than six years as a professional – a move designed to put them under the same limitations as active major leaguers who must put in six years withan MLB team before earning free agency. MLB teams now are
not allowed to spend more than $6 million per year total oninternational free agents.
What this means, said Manfred, is that Otani will not beable to go to the MLB until the end of the 2019 season if hewants to negotiate a big free-agent contract like the 7-year,$155 million deal that Masahiro Tanaka inked with the New
York Yankees in 2014.
If Otani wants to go earlier via the posting system thatallows NPB teams to send players to the U.S. before free-agent
eligibility for a special posting fee amounting to $20 million,
the most he could possibly get is that $6 million a year. That’s
assuming that the team that signed him wanted to spend all of
its allotted pool money for free agents on one player.
Asked if a special exception could be made for Otani,
grandfathering him in under the old posting rules which did
not have a salary cap, Manfred replied, “Before being elected
MLB commissioner, I was a labor lawyer. And rule Number
One in labor negotiations is that individually driven exceptions with a union get you into a lot of trouble. As appealing
as Mr. Otani is to everyone, it’s important when doing a collective bargaining agreement to keep your eyes on what therule should be for all players and not get distracted by theappeal of any one person.”Manfred dismissed the idea of an MLB franchise in Tokyo
or Osaka, or an MLB Asia Division with teams in South Korea,
Japan and Taiwan, citing the long travel distances and jet lag,before addressing the question of a “real World Series.” Thisis a reference to the wish of Japanese baseball leaders to holda series between the American and Japanese champions, withFCCJ

APRIL 2017

the winners claiming the title of “world champions.”
The idea dates back to the days of the V-9 Giants of Sadaharu Oh and Shigeo Nagashima and the special dream of Yomiuri owner Matsutaro Shoriki to have his team, the perennial
Japan champions, take on the best of the U.S. teams. MLB
teams – and quite often very good ones – have often visited
Japan in the post-season to play good-will exhibition games
on schedules determined in the pre-season and won a significant majority of their games. The winners of the Fall Classic,
however, have never made the trip.
Past commissioners have rebuffed such suggestions by sayingthat the level of Japanese baseball was not quite up to MLB standards. “How can the Japanese compete when American players
no longer usable in the major leagues were playing regularly inJapan?” said Commissioner Ford Frick back in 1965.
“The time is not yet right,” said Commissioner Bowie Kuhn
in 1981. He formed a committee to study the question and thatcommittee was never heard from again. And in 2005, Commissioner Bud Selig rejected an offer of $100,000,000 from Softbank and Fukuoka Hawks’ owner Masayoshi Son to hold such aseries. “That amount of money is nothing to us,” Son was
told by a spokesman for Selig.
Manfred’s response to this question? “Wealready have a real World Series andit is played in the United States
every October.” ❶Follow the ball

Opposite, Major League
Baseball Commissioner
Rob Manfred at the Club;
right, Japan’s Sho Nakata inthis year’s World BaseballClassic in Japan

Robert Whiting is theauthor of You Gotta Have
Wa, The Chrysanthemum
and the Bat and The
Meaning of Ichiro but
has since been curedof his addiction tobaseball.

7

FEATURE
BASEBALL: 2

The sports beat

– there was no kickback from the team. Oddly, though, theteam did try to crackdown on reporters who were covering
Valentine’s firing in 2009 with media guidelines that reportedly included a ban on wearing jeans.
The kisha clubs that control the flow of information fromthe Japanese government also exist in sports. They’re divided
by region, with different sports and leagues handling thingsin their own way. But they don’t seem as heavy-handed as
those covering the government, lacking for the most part,the hostile attitude toward non-members. Leagues and organizations have been slow to embrace internet media, however, and reporters from these companies sometimes run into
access issues.
Generally no reporter, kisha club member or not, isallowed in locker rooms. Some sports have mixed zones,
where you wait for the players to walk by and hope to catchthem. For baseball, there is just a lot of waiting for the players to come out of the clubhouse and firing questions atthem on their way to their cars or the bus. Some may stop to
speak with reporters, others will speak while walking, andothers ignore us. It mostly depends on the mood the player
is in, which depends a lot on how that day’s game went. In
some baseball stadiums, you can walk with the players to
the clubhouse, which offers another opportunity, but that
depends on the layout.
I once got into a locker room by accident. Greg LaRocca, who
was playing for the Orix Buffaloes, had promised to answer a
few questions, but found himself out of time. Nice guy that hewas, LaRocca’s solution was to pull me by the arm into the visitor’s locker room at Chiba Marine Stadium and do it there. Other than a few odd looks, the Buffaloes staff didn’t say anything.

Covering sports in Japan is not much different
than anywhere else, requiring knowledge of thegames, a curious mind and a willingness to –sometimes – bend the rules.
by JASON COSKREY

Take me out to the ball game

Above, the author at work; below, Japan’s Sho Nakata
at the World Baseball Classic in Marchwon by a pitcher (28) and most consecutive games won by apitcher in a single regular season (24). Now, Tanaka pitches
for the New York Yankees, and I remain grateful for having
kept my balance.
It probably wouldn’t have happened in the U.S. There,
media are given time with players like Tanaka in the clubhouse, instead of having to catch them on their way to theteam bus. But such is life covering sports in Japan. There aretimes the facilities, tools and general media considerations
sports reporters have in other places are lacking – whichsometimes effects how you report on things.
Aside from this, which does take getting used to, reporting on sports in Japan isn’t wildly different than elsewhere.
Where the experiences diverge can mostly be chalked up to
simply being the way Japanese do things – which is, of course,
a common refrain of many of the foreign players who comehere. Like them, you’re operating in a different environment
with a different language and different cultural norms
and nuances. Jeremy Powell, who pitched in Japanfor eight seasons, told me once that one of themost important things for players is the “ability to have an open mind and embrace theJapanese way.”
GETTING ALONG REQUIRES AT least a tacit
understanding of how things work, but it
doesn’t mean that foreign journalists have tototally adapt to how the Japanese media operates. Sometimes we find ourselves reporting on
things the Japanese media might overlook (though
reporters for the tabloids, who are not afraid ofretaliatory actions, tend to do this already).
Stepping outside of the norms is how bestselling author Robert Whiting ran afoul of theYomiuri Giants organization, easily the mostpowerful singular entity in Japanese baseball– maybe all Japanese sports – in 1990 when
he reported that the club was announcing
false attendance figures rather than taking
the team’s word at face value like everyoneelse. Whiting was banned from Tokyo Domeindefinitely for his troubles. He was also, ofcourse, right.
It doesn’t usually get that dramatic thesedays. When I reported on one notable controversy – writing in 2008 that manager
Bobby Valentine claimed someone in the Chiba
Lotte Marines front office had asked him to resign

8

APRIL 2017

FCCJ

ONCE YOU ACTUALLY GET to speak with the players, it’s thesame all over the world: we try our best to get something
beyond the typical athlete clichés, something that we can makenews with, or at least make our write-ups more interesting.
Some players actually seem more relaxed around a foreign
reporter and tend to deviate from the normal stock answers.
Some are curious as well. A meeting with the Seibu Lions’

WHILE THERE ARE CHALLENGES, there is still a poetic quality
to sports writing, which is one reason I like it despite theissues. The heat of battle, of competition between opposing
forces, breeds great drama and stories.

“There is a poetic quality to sports writing, which is one reason
I like it despite the issues. The heat of battle, of competition between
opposing forces, breeds great drama and stories”

AP PHOTO

I

once almost knocked down Masahiro Tanaka on a flightof stairs.
It wasn’t on purpose, of course. Balance was a tenuous proposition at Seibu Dome that day. I was walking in
the midst of a pack of at least eight journalists all trying to
speak with Tanaka after a game while maneuvering up thestairs heading out to the parking lot. The stairwell isn’t narrow, but wouldn’t be mistaken for wide either, especially notwith a gaggle of people going up it all at once struggling tostay within hearing range. I slipped a little, catching myself
before I ended up falling face first into the white No. 18 on
the back of Tanaka’s red Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles uniform and possibly injuring him and his golden arm.
That was in 2013. Tanaka, one of Japan’s best pitchers,
would finish that season 24–0, a Japan Series champion, thePacific League MVP and owner of Guinness World Records
for most consecutive games won by a pitcher (30),most consecutive regular-season games

don’t always say yes to everything, but their PR staff is very
good at working with the media.
Japanese reporters are usually more interested in themechanics of what happened, rather than the narrative focus
on “why” that you see many sports reports in the West take.
Of course, as with all journalism, the answers are usually only
as good as the question that is asked. Prior to Game 1 of the2007 Japan Series, a Japanese reporter leaned in and asked
Trey Hillman, a down-to-earth Texan who managed the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters from 2003 to 2007, what he andhis wife had discussed over breakfast that morning. Hillman
just shook his head and said in his Texas drawl, “I’m not goingto tell you what my wife and I talked about this morning.”
Most Japanese reporters are helpful, used to the give-andtake of the media environment. Sometimes I can even beof help to them, as in an interesting experience I had during the Japan Series in 2014. Earlier the that year, Hanshin
Tigers outfielder Matt Murton had been caught up in controversy when something he said was mistranslated by a Japanese reporter. The mistranslation (an innocent mistake as
opposed to a malicious one) seemed to infer that Murton had
made a mistake on the field just because he didn’t like oneof his teammates. As everyone knows, the media around the
Tigers is as voracious as their mascot, and the story blew up.
Murton, who loved Japan and was always easy with his time
for the media, was a little more measured in his dealings withthe press after that.
So after Game 1 of the Japan Series at Osaka’s Koshien Stadium, I walked with him back to the clubhouse, going over thegame. When our conversation ended, I turned to see a throngof eager reporters’ faces, desperate to know every detail ofwhat Murton had said. Just like that, I was the main attraction
in a press scrum. It was a very, very small glimpse into what
we put the players through daily.

pitcher Yusei Kikuchi once extended for several minutes
because he wanted to quiz me on how I ended up covering
baseball in Japan. Conversely, there was a basketball player,
who shall remain nameless, who couldn’t have been lessinterested in being interviewed, and very likely would haveeven answered a question about the meaning of life with acurt “yes” or “no.”Softball pitcher Yukiko Ueno was great the couple oftimes I’ve interviewed her, giving thoughtful answers, smiling through it and being generally pleasant, while Seiichi
Uchikawa of the Hawks is always attentive if he’s got timeand one of the best interviews in baseball. As an organization, the Hokkaido Nippon Fighters are top-class in terms ofaccess and communication. With enough lead time the Fighters staff will make a good effort to honor player requests,
both home and on the road. They make their players available when possible, work to reschedule in the event either
you or the player has an unavoidable conflict and are quick
to respond to queries, which is rarer than it should be. TheyFCCJ

APRIL 2017

Also, as much as professional sports are essentially children’s games played on the grand stage, to the athletes, thegames are a major part of their lives. They are part (not thewhole) of who these people are, and the person they are helps
make up the athlete they become.
Through the games and the people who play them, you candiscover things that are more important than sports, theirreal-life triumphs and defeats, highs and lows that may also
help understand why this basketball player works so hard ather craft, or, for example, why a football player’s mother may
have been the one to share the love of the sport with him andbroken a barrier by bucking social norms and playing thegame herself; in fact, her story may be the more interesting
one for both social and sporting reasons.
Sports is human drama, and finding those things makes
the search for them, and the hurdles you have to leap oversometimes, worthwhile. ❶Jason Coskrey covers sports for the Japan Times.
9

SERIESPROFILE

Bradley Martin
by JULIAN RYALL

B

bang-bang,” says Martin. “That was going on in South Korea
radley Martin credits the burning desire to get as far
with the demonstrations against Park Chung-hee.”away as possible from Marietta, Georgia to thank for
Then came October 1979. “It happened to be my birthdatelines as coveted in the news business as Kabul andday, there had been a party and we had all had rather a lot
Pyongyang, as well as countless other corners of Asia over theto drink,” Martin says. “In the middle of the night, my edicourse of a five-decade career.
tor rang and I thought he said that a big yakuza had been
Now 74, he gets back to Marietta occasionally to see famkilled, that I needed to get down to the Reuters office to file
ily and friends, but shakes his head wryly when he admits,and then get the first plane to Seoul in the morning.” The“I don’t know more than four people there who did not vote
information seemed confused and contradictory, but Marfor Trump.” His first escape from Georgia was to Princetontin checked with his police contacts about yakuza killings –University, where he studied U.S. and Asian history. “We had
before learning that Park Chung-hee had been assassinatedalways had trinkets around the house from my uncles’ duties
by his own secret service chief.
in the Philippines and other parts of East Asia – Chinese gadOver the next few years, he spentgets and souvenirs, a Buddha statuemuch of his time in Seoul, interspersed– and I just became interested in thewith spells in New Delhi and Beijing,region without knowing very muchand kept a close eye on events in Korea
about it,” he says.
even after switching to the Asian Wall
Graduating in 1964 and starting law
Street Journal. He crossed the Khyberschool, Martin had no ambitions of a
Pass into Afghanistan aboard a public
media career, but was a voracious conbus soon after the Soviet invasion insumer of the news provided by News1979 and recalls watching battles takweek. The headlines were dominateding place around his hotel in Kabul. He
by the “wonderful war that was going
was in Gwangju, South Korea, in 1980
on in Southeast Asia at the time,”in the latter stages of the uprising,Martin recalls, and he even seriously
before it was put down.
considered joining the military to take
But everyone who covered Asia
part in “my generation’s war.”
wanted to get into North Korea. “It
Instead, his wife at the time conwas forbidden,” he says. “Eventually,
vinced him that they should both
I managed to get accredited to coverjoin the Peace Corps, and they swiftly
the 1979 World Table Tennis Champifound themselves teachers in Bangonships.” He did not take in many tablekok. “It took me three weeks to figure
tennis matches, instead using the timeout that what was going on over theto meet as many government officials
border was a stupid war that we could
as possible and to travel as much of the
not win, and I was extremely angry atcountry as his minders would permit.
how I had been misled,” Martin says. “IAn interview with Kim Yong-nam, now
told myself I could do better and thatthe president of the Supreme People’s
if I became a foreign correspondent, I
Assembly, lasted five hours.
would do better.”Martin’s reports were so successful
Lacking the required experiencethat he was nominated for a Pulitzer
and clips – the Thailand director ofPrize. They also served as the basis for
the Peace Corps was an old newshis critically acclaimed book, Under
paper hand and had to explain what
the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader:clips were – Martin launched a quarNorth Korea and the Kim Dynasty. “It
terly journal for the organization
was a fascinating place that was justand, after returning to the U.S., wasso different from anything else,” heable to parlay his experience intosays. “It was a religious kingdom where the people worshiped
a position on the Charlotte Observer. Cutting his teeth on
Kim Il-sung and I just soaked it all up.”poverty, race relations and urban affairs, he later moved toMartin has visited North Korean on seven occasions, includthe Baltimore Sun because it employed foreign corresponing while he was writing for Bloomberg, but does not expect todents. After three years as a business reporter, he was sentbe permitted to return again. An application last year to study
to Tokyo in 1977.
Korean in Pyongyang was summarily turned down.
“From the very beginning, I loved the place,” he says. “InGiven that Under the Loving Care is now 13 years old,those days, the Club was quite lively. There were fist fights in
Martin – who divides his time between homes in Hawaii
here and I was in at least one of them myself. You could say
and Nagano Prefecture – says he is toying with the idea ofwe were quite a rowdy bunch.”writing a follow-up, although his recent efforts have been
It was also a good time to be a correspondent, though Kakuei
focused on his first novel, Nuclear
Tanaka and the Lockheed scandal
Julian Ryall is Japan correspondent forBlues, expected to be published in thewere receding into history. “Japan was
the Daily Telegraph.
next couple of months. ❶interesting politically, but there was no

ANDREW POTHECARY“I told myself I could
do better and that if
I became a foreign
correspondent,
I would do better.”

10

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FEATURE
POLITICS AND THE MEDIA

When theOsaka media
took the lead
A local story exploded into a national
one – pushing Osaka’s journalists tomake it their own
BY ERIC JOHNSTON

I

t began as just another Osaka land deal gone bad, a local
story pursued by local reporters, of interest only to local
readers and viewers. Why had the school managed topurchase a piece of property from the government valued at¥956 million for a mere ¥134 million?
But when the scandal surrounding Moritomo Gakuen, a private educational firm advocating a nationalist, prewar educational system, reached the Prime Minister’s Office, suddenly,
what was once an “Osaka story” was now very much something larger. And when Yasunori Kagoike, the firm’s head, gave
sworn testimony to both houses of the Diet on March 23 – followed immediately afterwards by a press conference at FCCJ
– the story went from large to huge, with inflammatory allegations from Kagoike about the political support, and abandonment, of his cause by the PM’s wife as well as Osaka politicians.
These were followed by strong denials by those he named, theresult of which has been less, not more, clarity.
Japanese media coverage of Moritomo Gakuen, its educational philosophy and the parade of political figures who
have found themselves caught up in it, all the way up to andincluding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie, isa good example of the different approaches toward covering political scandals in Tokyo and Osaka. Reasons for thesedifferences often have to do with the basic editorial structure and corporate culture of the media organs themselves.
But they can also be due to local politics, by which “local”
means not only Osaka but also “local” political reporting in
Nagatacho.
Developing a chronology of when, exactly, the Moritomo
Gakuen scandal became news is difficult. Some media commentators point to initial reports in the local media last summer that questioned if Moritomo’s new elementary school,
which was originally due to open on April 1 this year but isnow postponed indefinitely, was financially sound. On theother hand, as long ago as 2012, Osaka prefecture authorities
had relaxed the restrictions on establishing private schools ingeneral at a time when only Moritomo Gakuen appeared to bepushing for the rules to be eased.
For the most part, mainstream local media didn’t explore
too deeply questions about who, exactly, was behind theschool. Not that some connections were a secret. One of themore prominent politicians supporting Moritomo’s educational philosophy was Takeo Hiranuma. Though now back in
the Liberal Democratic Party, Hiranuma and his close ally,
former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, tied up with former
Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto and his followers in 2014-2015
to form the first version of Nippon Ishin no Kai.
12

The political alliance between Hiranuma, Ishihara, Hashimoto and Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui would break up in late
September 2015, just a few weeks after PM Abe absented
himself from a contentious Diet debate on security to make aquick trip to Osaka, where he appeared on a Yomiuri Telecasting program. That same day, it was later learned, representatives from a firm hired by Moritomo met with local Finance
Ministry officials in Osaka.
What exactly was said at the meeting is unknown as the
Finance Ministry admitted during Diet questioning in February that notes from the meeting had been thrown away.
Abe returned to Tokyo that same day. But the next day, hiswife Akie spoke at Moritomo Gakuen’s kindergarten, where
she was introduced as the new elementary school’s honorary
principal. Akie would keep that title, and her face and greetings would be on Moritomo’s website, until the scandal brokeand she resigned.

political establishment yet who now had the experience of
dealing, often aggressively, with Hashimoto and Matsui on
countless occasions. As bizarre as it sounds, Hashimoto’s
constant criticism of the local media, his long harangues
during press conferences where he went after newspapers
like the Asahi and Mainichi that disagreed with him appears
to have made some of them better reporters – tougher andmore thorough.

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF TOKYO MEDIA’S INSULAR VIEW
So, in the beginning, when the rest of Japan considered theMoritomo story a local one at best, Osaka’s reporters had nocompetition from their Tokyo affiliates. Of course, while they
aggressively pursued some questions, especially the detailed
financial aspects of the story that could be confirmed if one
searched the public records, other subjects were talked about
in the press room but not always displayed prominently on thefront page. These included questions like who else, besides
those who were public supporters, might be involved in the
scandal, and where the money to fund Moritomo Gakuen
might be coming from.
Still, what was striking about the Moritomo scandal was theextent to which the Osaka media drove the story in the beginning and the extent the Tokyo media attempted to play it down,
hoping it was nothing more than an early spring blizzard thatwould blow hard for a day or so and then calm down. Thatbegan to change in late February as it became clear there
was a lot of smoke at Moritomo, even if nobody could
quite see the actual fire just yet, and the Tokyo media,
especially the television media, picked up the coverage.
It was also surely no coincidence that two of the more
prominent members of the Democratic Party who were
keeping the issue alive, Kiyomi Tsujimoto and Tetsuya Fukuyama, were from the Kansai region (and in Tsujimoto’s case,the electoral district bordering the one where Moritomo
Gakuen is located). At the same time, Osaka media reporting sometimes defied the expectations of media experts who
might pigeonhole one media group or another. When even
Osaka-based Yomiuri Telecasting and the local affiliate of
Fuji-Sankei, Kansai TV, began asking hard-hitting questions
about Abe’s role in the scandal, it was clear this was a story
that was not going to peter out quickly. On the other hand,Tokyo-based pundits and well-known announcers at both
networks continued to urge caution about Kagoike’s claims.
Especially when he told a group of visiting Diet members that
Abe had, through his wife, donated one million yen, a claim
she assiduously denies..
As I write this in late March, how the Moritomo Gakuen
scandal will end is unclear. For the Osaka media, Kagoike’s
allegations and the realization this is not just another story
for the metro section has led to a more cautious approachto the reporting, and once again, a return to looking at local
angles – starting with how and why Moritomo got such a huge
discount on the land it purchased. In addition, those whocover the Osaka courts, the police, the prosecutors’ office, as
well as the city and the prefectural governments, are expected to be quite busy as angry parents sue Moritomo, businesses file suits to get their money back, and opposition politicians in Osaka prefecture demand investigations into what
happened. This will take place regardless of what happens to
the prime minister or members of his Cabinet because Moritomo Gakuen is still a “local” Osaka story, even if it now has
national implications.❶

A LOCAL NATIONAL STORY, OR A NATIONALLOCAL STORY?
Unlike the Tokyo-based media, major newspapers or television stations in Osaka lack what political reporters in thenation’s capital would recognize as a Political News section.
Traditionally, the Osaka beat meant covering economics orsocial issues as well as metro issues like crime and the courts.
Reporters were attached to Osaka prefecture and Osaka citypress clubs, but their approach to politics was purely local.
Under local editors and producMan in the news
ers, they have historically proYasunori Kagoike, head of
duced a style of reporting that can
the private educationalbe more feisty and critical of govfirm, Moritomo Gakuen
ernment policies than the politispeaks at the Club after
cal hacks in Tokyo, but also more
answering questions at the
wonkish. Many Osaka reporters, atDiet on March 23
least in the print media, who are
ostensibly covering politics havewritten books on local government policies. It’s quite different from the often celebrity-driven, “who’s up and who’sdown?” ruling and opposition party games type of reportingthat so obsesses Tokyo-based political pundits and reporters. Osaka media suck up and report the most minute andmundane details about municipal sewage disposal and water
treatment, corporate zoning, the city tax code, health andwelfare policies for the elderly, or the safety of local public
transportation systems. Talking grand political theory andstrategy with politicians or their staff or trading gossip overlate-night drinks is not their first priority.
That changed somewhat when Toru Hashimoto and Ichiro
Matsui decided to take their Osaka-based Ishin movement
to the Diet by tying up with Ishihara and Hiranuma to form
Nippon Ishin no Kai. Suddenly, reporters in Osaka were asking questions in local press clubs about national and international developments and the party’s position on everythingfrom historical tensions between South Korea and Japanover the comfort women issue to how Hashimoto and Matsui viewed constitutional revision and the role of Japan’s
self-defense forces. For Osaka reporters used to quiet press
conferences on very local issues and unfamiliar with the way
their Tokyo colleagues covered the Prime Minister’s Office,the Foreign Ministry and the Diet, dealing with the outspoken, highly opinionated and often volatile Hashimoto in particular was an unprecedented challenge.
They would learn, however. By February, over a year after
Hashimoto retired from local politics, the Moritomo scandal was breaking. It would be propelled forward by Osaka media types who were very much outsiders to Tokyo’s
APRIL 2017

FCCJ

Eric Johnston is a staff writer with the Japan Times. The opinions
expressed within are his own and not necessarily those of the Japan Times.

FCCJ

APRIL 201713

FEATURE
ONLINE NEWS

When “forward” means “right”

Japan Forward
intends to present the“true face of Japan”. . . to overcome
misunderstandings“born of linguistic
barriers”

The Sankei group wants to launch a new English-language
news organ that more aggressively pushes Japanese perspectives.
Good luck with that.
BY DAVID MCNEILL

F

oreign journalists are often
blamed for distorting theimage of Japan by, forexample, moralizing about thequirks of its economy and politics, or peddling hardy perennials (geishas, sexless marriages, gangsters, suicide) thatconvey exoticism, not depth or
nuance. Then there’s the shrill
online outrage that now greets
each foreign story about historical issues such as the comfort women coerced into World War II militarybrothels, who have been the subject of
undignified diplomatic haggling for the lasttwo decades.
Some correspondents, such as Carsten Germis of theGerman daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, have even beenaccused (by the foreign ministry, no less) of taking bribes
from China for writing about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s
attempts to whitewash Japan’s wartime misdeeds.
So, try to imagine a project that might redraw this distorted
picture. It would give “Japanese perspectives” on diplomacy,
culture and history. It might come from the media stable mostclosely associated in Japan with unabashed nationalism – theSankei Shimbun. It would have a hinomaru as its symbol and amoniker like “Japan First,” except that’s the name of a political party, and a popular tweet handle (“Japan for the Japanese; Anti-Globalism, Anti-Communism”). Not “Japan Best,”
because that sounds childish. How about “Japan Forward”?
What you might have pictured is actually the pre-launch
edition of an English-language online newspaper thatemerged in May of last year from the Sankei group. The aim
says an editorial, is to provide a forum for “Japanese voices”
and deliver them to the world “as we think about the future.”
Articles on the website’s front page include an interview with
Abe in which he pledges to bring Japanese abductees homefrom North Korea. Defense Minister Tomomi Inada defends
her controversial pilgrimage last December to Yasukuni
Shrine, and a cheeky commentary urges President Donald
Trump to also visit the Shinto landmark.
THAT SUGGESTS A FIXATION with rightist causes but it’s not
the whole picture. Sure, there are oven-ready articles fromthe Sankei cupboard and polemical broadsides against China.
But Japan Forward also carries thoughtful essays on the riseof Yuriko Koike, Tokyo’s governor, and on Abe’s relationshipwith Trump.
The schizophrenic tone – not so much nationalist swaggerDavid McNeill writes for the Independent, the Economist and otherpublications. He has been based in Tokyo since 2000

14

ing as an apologetic lurch – may
reflect the presence of several
foreign contributors and commissioning editors. They include
Paul Nadeau, who doubles as a
private secretary to Tsuyoshi
Hoshino, an LDP lawmaker andformer Sankei reporter.
When approached by Sankei
editors to collaborate with the
publication, Nadeau, a Tokyobased American and occasional
writer, says he was at least sympathetic enough to the complaint thatJapan was sometimes ill served by its
corps of gaijin hacks to want to help. “One of
the issues with Western reporting on Japan is that
it often tends to fit Western frames to Japanese political
discussions,” he says, citing an article in the Washington Post
by Anna Fifield quoting a university professor in comparing
Inada to Marie Le Pen, France’s rightwing firebrand. “Okay,they’re both conservative and women, but Inada has spoken
positively for LGBT rights, and immigration. You’d never see
Le Pen do that.”
Nadeau says he was also “frustrated” by articles citing a
steady rise in Japanese defence spending as evidence of its
remilitarization. “The numbers are quite small in context
and there are a lot of constraints that prevent spending fromgrowing higher.” It’s not a distortion or bias, he explains: “It’san incomplete characterization.”
The Sankei, the smallest of Japan’s major dailies, had been
the only one without an English-language edition. The Yomiuri still churns out its print offshoot, the Japan News. The
Nikkei launched a magazine, the Nikkei Asian Review, in 2014,
while both the Mainichi and Asahi long ago pulled their English newspapers but have continued with an online presence.

with “Japan is great” praise. As Masakazu Shirana and Teiichi
Ikeda, reporters with the Tokyo Shimbun noted recently, it is aphenomenon that seems less a harbinger for the future thana nod to the past, specifically the xenophobic 1930s.
Still Japan Forward has its work cut out: the beta version
isn’t particularly revolutionary. Among the recent uploads isstandard rightist fare, such as an accusatory piece on the Chinese government’s support of Japan-focused hatred. Muchof the content in the rather clumsily designed interface waspretty bland stuff. There was an introduction to Tokyo’s Nezu
Shrine, coverage of the last day of the recent sumo tournament and a breathless promo of a new luxury train line. If thisis anything to go by, none of the English editions of the Japanese dailies, much less the Japan Times – dubbed the “antiJapan Times” by the right – have anything to fear from their
new competition.
Though the beta edition is intended to end with a formal
launch in May, when the business plan calls for sponsorship to make it a self-sustaining operation, they have yet toface the full-throttle complexities of an ongoing website,requiring quality writing and editing on a regular basis, andthough we reached out for comment from the Sankei, we
received no reply.
Will the Sankei’s promise to promote “diverse perspectives”
survive? Perhaps not: Senior editors have already reportedly
reined in articles that strayed too far from its unofficial remit– to make Japan appear great again. ❶Site lines

The beta edition of
the site’s front page;a feature on China’s
Japan-bashing; search
results for historythemed articles.

BUT IF THE EDITORIAL team’s “mission statement” on theJapan Forward website is to be believed, something is still
missing. So they intend to present the “true face of Japan,”and are setting out to overcome misunderstandings “born of
linguistic barriers.” They are open to a “freewheeling debate,”
welcoming “well-expressed dissenting and dissimilar views,”
and basing the editorial on the Sankei’s high-quality articles,
editorials, interviews and other Japan-original content.” Typically, one of its earlier efforts was titled “‘Japan First’ Is the
Only Response to ‘America First,’” in which Sankei executive
editor Masato Inui warned that: “A dog-eat-dog world is coming, and we must hurry to prepare for it.”
Laudable aspirations, if one believes that the time is ripe
for a publication that will more assertively push Japan’sinterests. It comes at a time when there has been a resurgence of national pride, with TV and books increasingly filled
APRIL 2017

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CLUB NEWSCLUB NEWSFCCJ EXHIBITIONFILM COMMITTEE RECEIVES INDUSTRY AWARD

Memories ofPyongyang

The FCCJ’s Film Committee was honored at a ceremony in early March with a
Cine-Culture Club Award for its “contributions to the development of cinema culture”
and its “domestic and international promotion of Japanese cinema.” Sponsored by theJapan Fashion Association, it was among a number of commendations given across a
range of fields, including product and technology development, cultural activities andregional promotions. The award was accepted by Film Committee Chair Karen Severns
and her partner Koichi Mori, who have together coordinated over 150 film screenings
with more than 300 Q&A guests over the past 10 years.

Photography andvideo: Ciel Liu

OUR TRIP TO PYONGYANG consisted
almost entirely of carefullyscheduled activities, with guides
that rarely left our side when wewere outside of the hotel. Still, it wasa rare opportunity to observe thepeople in this reclusive country andto think about their lives.
The disconnection from theoutside world is palpable. In thiscity, time and space are definedby propaganda-driven activities
like visits to monuments andperformances. The enormous
clockwork mechanism of mass-dance
practices and labor duties neverceases to spin. It is fascinating, andnot a little unsettling.
The city planning is monolithic,
with apartment block after
apartment block stretching out inan order so neat and structured
it continues to haunt the mind.
Advertising and other signs ofcommercial activity are extremely
rare. The ever-present contrast
between tightly restricted selfexpression and an over-enthusiasm
to defend government propaganda
challenges our concepts of freedom
and personal fulfillment. Here, onemust at all times be of a single bodyand mind with the regime.
Is this loyalty sincere or a productof fear? Many of the people we
encountered seemed curious aboutus, yet were scared to look at us forlong. Did they – could they – imagine
other ways of life?
Eight days was a short time todiscover Pyongyang, yet it was a lifechanging experience. It challenged
everything I knew and took for granted.
On this journey, I learned
something about the complexityof the human condition and about
what everyday life can look like inplaces very different from those weknow. I hope my photographs will
inspire thought, not only about the
lives of the citizens of Pyongyang
but also about the feelings andpreconceptions that we harborwithin ourselves. ❶16JOIN THE FILM COMMITTEE . . .

From left: Committee board liason David Satterwhite, Mori and Severns with Kohei Ando,
who bestowed the award. PHOTO: MANCE THOMPSONNUMBER 1 SHIMBUN COLLECTS DESIGN AWARD
The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

November 2016, Volume 48 No. 11, ¥400

NOANALY
RTH ZIN
KO G
REA

How foreign correspondents reportfrom the peninsula — and from Japan
Profile:The new New York Times
Bureau Chief Motoko Rich

Sexy pages:
Yoshiwara hosts
unique book store

Waiting for Putin:
A history of deals on
the northern isles

Cutting open Kim Jong-un’s head wins
Number 1 Shimbun an award – or at least theillustrative representation of such on our
November 2016 cover about the journalists
analyzing North Korea has done so. Designer
Andrew Pothecary submitted the cover tothe Society of Publication Designers (SPD)Annual Design Competition and achieved
a “Merit” win. The New York-based SPD has
been running for 52 years and is “dedicatedto promoting and encouraging excellencein editorial design.” This year’s jury wasco-chaired by designers from Condé Naste
Traveler and Texas Monthly and included 36
jury members including design, illustrator andphotographic representatives from the New
Yorker to Popular Mechanics.

. . . at 7:00 on Tues., April 25 for asneak preview screening of writerdirector Kiyoshi Sasabe’s moving
Yaeko’s Hum, the fact-based storyof an educator who becomes a
devoted caregiver when his wife
develops early-onset Alzheimer’s.
A poignant argument against theoutsourcing of care, the film stars
Takeshi Masu as the loving husband
whose devotion not only enhances
Yaeko’s quality of life, but allows
her to live long past the disease’s
typical survival rate. Yaeko is played
by Yoko Takahashi, returning to
the screen for her first role in
28 years, playing both younger
and older versions of the former
music teacher who can no longer
remember the lyrics to her favorite
songs, but loves to hum them. The
director and his two stars will be
there for a Q&A session following
the screening.
(Japan, 2016; 112 minutes; Japanesewith English subtitles.)– Karen Severns

YOUR ADIN OUR PAGES
Advertize in
Number 1 Shimbun
After the completion of her MA in Photography and Electronic Arts in London, Ciel Liu started hercareer as a reporter for the Mandarin television channels in Singapore and worked as a freelancer
creating contents for clients in different countries. Currently she is working extensively withtraditional craftsmen and culture in Japan, and documenting the Outsider artists in Cuba. www.
cielimpression.com

APRIL 2017

FCCJ

Contact
no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp

FCCJ

APRIL 201717

CLUB NEWS

New
Members

REINSTATEMENT (REGULAR MEMBERS)

The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of JapanDARRYL GIBSON is a freelance journalist and consultant forinternational sporting events in Asia, Europe and North America.
He wrote his first news story for the Gazette at the University ofWestern Ontario in October 1967. He has been a television reporterand cinematographer; radio reporter; newspaper reporter andbureau chief; foreign correspondent for the Canadian Press in Asia
based in Tokyo from 1981 until 2004; freelancer for newspapers,
magazines and wire services around the world; for radio, including adecade with NPR, and television; and sub-editor and Asia editor at
Kyodo News from 1980 to 2015. After retiring from Kyodo in 2015,
he spent seven months in Italy before returning to Japan.
REED STEVENSON rejoins the FCCJ after a 14-year hiatus,
following his return to Tokyo as technology editor at Bloomberg. Hislast stint in Japan was reporting for Reuters from 1996 to 2002. In
between, Reed’s bureau chief assignments with the news agency
took him to Seattle, Amsterdam and Dubai. He joined Bloomberg in
San Francisco four years ago. A graduate of an international schoolin Yokohama and the University of Pennsylvania, he’s enjoying thebenefits of deflation in Japan and looking forward to catching up
with news colleagues in Tokyo.
PROFESSIONAL/JOURNALISTASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Malte Jaspersen, Kyoto Sangyo
University
Satoko Hirano, Heaps Co., Ltd.
Yukako Kimura, Arttrav Inc.
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Julio Arias, Delegation of theEuropean Union

New in the
Library

18

Setsuko Ogata, Otsuka Kagu Ltd.
Megumi Aiba, Dentsu Inc.
Makoto Hirabayashi, Mr Japan Co., Ltd.
Togo Hosaka, Hack Japan Holdings
Co., Ltd.
Shinichiro Komatsu, Support Co., Ltd.
Akinobu Oguchi, Kinseiryuhou
Association
Mysa Ohkawa, SMBC Trust Bank
Kan Takahashi, Ajinomoto Co., Inc.
Shoichi Yamamura, Intervision

Fallacies in the Allied Nations’Historical Perception as Observed bya British Journalist
Henry Scott Stokes
Hamilton Books
Gift from Society for the Disseminationof Historical Fact

Terebi dokyumentari o tsukutta
hitobito
Nihon Hoso Kyokai Hoso Bunka
Kenkyujo (ed.)
NHK Shuppan
Gift from NHK Broadcasting Culture
Research Institute

Five Years After: Reassessing Japan’s
Responses to the Earthquake, Tsunami,
and the Nuclear Disaster
Keiichi Tsunekawa (ed.)
University of Tokyo Press
Gift from Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science

Crouching Tiger: What China’s
Militarism Means for the WorldPeter Navarro; Gordon G. Chang(Foreword)
Prometheus Books

April 2017 Volume 49 No. 4, ¥400

David McNeillofon the direction
Japan Forward

Julian Ryall
profilesBradley Martin

Eric Johnston
on the Osakathemedia’s role indalMoritomo scan

BAL?
BALL GOsionGer’sLO
Club visit
CAN BAitinSE
misg on the MLB Com
Robert Wh
rts in Japany on covering spo+ Jason Coskre

PITCH US
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STORY

and support yourClub magazine

Please send your story ideas tono.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp,
and be sure to note whether you have(or have access to) visuals.
Our rates are ¥20 per published word,¥20,000 for a front cover photo.
Photo essays: ¥15,000 for full-page
photos and ¥5,000 for smaller shots.
All payments will be made in credit toyour member account.

APRIL 2017

FCCJ

RICOH COMPANY, LTD.
PR Department
8-13-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku,
Tokyo 104-8222
Tel: 03-6278-5228
Email: koho@ricoh.co.jp
www.ricoh.com