Dear members,
Happy new year from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. In early 2025, we will host (hopefully) the U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and a memorial for former director Mary Corbett on January 10, followed by our Hacks & Flacks party on January 23. Please note that space for this shinnenkai event will be limited and reservations are already peaking, so book your tickets soon to ensure a place at Japan’s best networking night.
Dear Members: We held an Extraordinary General Membership Meeting in late November and saw the election of Martin Fackler as Kanji and the passage of some key amendments. The Treasurer and I invited Rick Dyck as a special Finance Committee observer, who added insights to matters related to the Club. In these discussions at the meeting and with the General Manager, I am confident that our cash position is not only explicable, but firm as long as the FCCJ continues its current levy and sees the higher initiation income generated so far this year. Do we still have challenges? Of course, but those charged with managing these are working diligently to address them.
Dear members,
Just days after Japan's lower house elections and less than a week before the U.S. chooses a new president, the uncertainty surrounding both votes is palpable. We are hosting a viewing of the U.S. election results at the club on Wednesday November 6, and hoping that Japanese opposition party leaders visit to detail their plans for a coalition government later this month. The FCCJ is where news is made, so expect more speakers and analysis in a very consequential month ahead.
Dear members
We closed September with a Saturday Night Live honoring Sandra Mori and Geoff Tudor, who played key roles in popularizing this event. The club also showed the documentary The Making of a Japanese, held a Book Break with Japan and FCCJ stalwart Bob Whiting, as well as a memorial for Bob Neff and Terry Anderson. We also heard from LDP candidates hoping to be Japan’s next prime minister and hosted a panel on the country’s political horizon.
Dear members,
As summer winds down (although, unfortunately, not the temperatures), the new board has selected the club’s committees, launched Professional Activities Committee and Film Committee events and, on 23 August, met members and listened to their hopes about the FCCJ.
Dear Members,
It took a while, but a new BoD now represents the FCCJ and held its first meeting on August 9. I will serve as president, Khaldon Azhari as First Vice President, Randy Schmidt as Second Vice President, Anthony Rowley as Treasurer, and David Umeda as Secretary. Completing our directors are Shuri Fukunaga, Taeko Nagayama, Suvendrini Kakuchi, and outgoing President Dave McCombs, and Simon Farrell as Kanji. Milton Isa will serve as Reserve Director.
There is one open Kanji position and I hope to be able to update on next steps for this role shortly, as well as who will lead our many FCCJ Committees.
Ever wonder what’s going on at the club?
What do the club’s bylaws say about how many directors are needed to form a board? How does the FCCJ’s first-quarter revenue compare with the same period a year ago, and the five years before that? What board resolutions related to club restaurants were considered over the past 12 months?
Those are all fair questions to ask of the president. As it happens, I can answer any of those and many more in seconds. And that’s not because minute details of the club’s operations, board moves and bylaws are at the top of my mind and tip of my tongue.
A visitor to the club could be forgiven for asking: “What happened?” The glorious hallway leading to the main bar is decked with the faces of world leaders, entertainers, athletes, artists, business titans and authors who’ve crossed our threshold. But it’s been a while since we have hosted big global names on a regular basis.
I’m often told by members that this must be reversed. The idea is that if we just worked harder and smarter and talked to the right people, we’d begin to relive our glorious past as a club. It’s a seductive narrative, for some. Youth can be hard to let go of, as are memories.
It’s morning at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. The long, dark night of declining membership, cuts in services and senior staff turnover has ended.
Dear members,
Charles Darwin’s centuries-old insights into biology can help explain more than the origin of species. They also provide a helpful frame for analyzing what’s going on in society, including the news media industry.
We often hear that mainstream news media are losing trust, readership and viewership because they’re biased or too focused on this and not that. But what does mainstream mean if not broadly popular? They are the fittest, marketwise, and, above all, they survive.
“Survival of the fittest’’ encapsulates an important idea, even though it didn’t originate with Darwin and doesn’t reflect the core idea of his world-changing theory of evolution.
