News in Nihon (Japan)

For the first time in our whole trip, I toured a newspaper office here in Japan, as well as tour a TV station. I was impressed at the technology held within the hulking broadcasting building called Iwate Broadcasting Company. Lights, screens and dials all lit up with the employees hovering over them.

One of IBC's claims to fame is a Japanese style garden, which in the next couple of weeks, promises to come alive with an umbrella of cherry blossoms overhanging a stream.


At the newspaper, a woman about my age was there to answer questions about being a reporter in Japan. She actually had just started the job this month, but she spoke good English, so I think that's why they paired her with me. Her boss patiently answered all the questions I bombarded him with about their newspaper's journalism ethics and policies.

In Japan, many reporters are stationed at rooms at the government, education or police offices. They collect news releases and attend press conferences along side of their competitors. Newspapers that want such access must be members of a news organization to which they pay dues. It allows close access to sources, but excludes nonmembers and the public from the same information.


I was as struck by the similarities as I was the differences. They deal with many of the same obstacles and questions that we face. As they toured me around the Japanese reporter and me snuck in our questions to each other. They work her hard. She writes two or three stories a day, working 12 hours a day and has only one day off.

Lesson learned: I'm a slacker.