DAVID MCNEILL Nominated by: Steve McClure Seconded by: Per Bodner

Candidate for Director-at-Large

David McNeill

Dear Colleagues

Thank you for nominating me as Director-at-Large. FCCJ members hardly need any description of the problems facing our profession in Japan: job cuts, falling rates, worsening conditions and the slow corrosion of standards among the most pressing. Amid the gathering clouds, the Club continues to hemorrhage money and members. Sad to say, it has also damaged its own reputation with what, to many outsiders, appear to be personality squabbles and a lack of transparency.

After watching several worthy predecessors try and fail to fix some of these problems, I don't pretend to have a magic solution. What I can offer is a renewed focus on honest governance, transparency and common sense from the perspective of a working freelancer unfortunately well acquainted with the industry's darker side. I'd like to stay above the personal politics that seem to mar so much daily interaction at the Club and concentrate on simply helping it to function more effectively.

For those who don't know me, I'm the Japan/Korea correspondent for The Chronicle of Higher Education and have written for The Irish Times and The Independent (London) newspapers since 2002/3. I've previously edited the Number 1 Shimbun, chaired the Freedom of the Press Committee and I currently chair the Foreign Press in Japan (FPIJ). I'm 44 and have lived in Japan for a decade. I came here first on an Education Ministry scholarship in 1993/5 to research a doctorate.