Wednesday, March 6, 2013 in Tokyo, (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa)Guitar player of Queen Brian May speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Tokyo, Friday, Sept. 23, 2016 in Tokyo, (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)
My AP Story Sept. 23, 2016, when I spoke with a rock legend, who kindly called me “AP’s journalist of conscience.”
Sometimes my sources are a bit mechanical but cute. My AP Story July 13, 2015 on the Pepper robot when I am in an AP Photo, which is unusual.
Sometimes the photographer and I end up in pretty abandoned areas like the no-go zone in Fukushima. My AP Story April 29, 2014 that I filed from this trip.
Monday, April 28, 2014 in Sagamihara, (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa)
And at other times, the photographer and I end up meeting extraordinary people who were hidden in their moments of glory. My AP Story May 18, 2014 when I interview Mr. Haruo Nakajima. My AP Obit Aug. 8, 2017.
A shot from the interview for My 2024 AP Story in the studio of the artist in Shikoku.
We also do 360 video and end up being in that circle. This is from My AP Story Nov. 16, 2017 at a Toyota plant. Turn your cursor in the video below to see a 360 degree view of the plant:
From 2014 when I visited Nezu Museum, designed by Kengo Kuma, and speak with the curator for My AP Story about Japanese architects. I still like this story.
For the final one for the year, I contributed these paragraphs to the Dec. 31 AP Story (I’m repeating them here since they are unlikely to survive in full all the updates throughout the day):
Asia gets ready for the Year of the Snake
Much of Japan has shut down ahead of the nation’s biggest holiday, as temples and homes underwent a thorough cleaning, including swatting floor mats called “tatami” with big sticks. The upcoming Year of the Snake in the Asian zodiac is heralded as one of rebirth — alluding to the reptile’s shedding skin. Stores in Japan, which observes the zodiac cycle from Jan. 1, have been selling tiny figures of smiling snakes and other snake-themed products. Other places in Asia will start marking the Year of the Snake later, with the Lunar New Year.
I am one of the 12 journalists who won the Best of the AP award Sept. 14, 2024, the first year in my more than 30 years at the AP I win the award twice in a year. My AP Story and AP Photos that were part of the package:
My AP Story March 3, 2022 on the verdict for Greg Kelly, cleared on all counts except for charges in one of the eight contested years. He gets to go home because his sentence was suspended. The defense is appealing, asserting complete innocence.
My AP Story March 10, 2022 on the U.S. government seeking the two Americans in prison in Carlos Ghosn’s escape be allowed to serve the rest of their time in the U.S.
Joe Oyama in an Online California Archives photo, as he stands in the New York headquarters of the Common Council for American Unity. Joe was assistant editor of the Japanese American daily in Los Angeles before he was interned, in Santa Anita Assembly Center and Jerome Relocation Center, where both he and his wife Sami worked as journalists. After moving to New York in 1944, he was editor of the News Letter of the Japanese American Committee for Democracy. He and his wife were also both actors. They moved to Berkeley in their later years. I got to know him and Sami and their two children, who are also great artists. Joe was always supportive of my poetry: “Like champagne,” he said once. This poem is for Joe and all the other great journalists. May the legacy live on.
A Poem for Journalism
By Yuri Kageyama
A Tree, a Story, a Drum
Circles carved times over,
Coded rhythms of continents
Animal skin stretched, carefully nailed,
So our heartbeat is not lost _
The snare, congas, kpanlogo, tabla, taiko,
Talking drums speaking faraway tongues _
Stories killed, stories buried,
Stories denied, stories untold,
Perhaps we were just not stopped before
When our stories were not dangerous
But the Reporter is still here.
Hear the words
And see what they have seen:
Robert and Dori Maynard
Woodward and Bernstein
Margaret Bourke-White
Howard Imazeki
Gary Webb
Robert Capa
Anja Niedringhaus
Gerald Vizenor
Gwen Ifill
Joe Oyama
Gordon Parks
Hear that Music in the Skin,
Feel that Story in the Tree,
Banned by slave owners,
The Drum holds the Message,
The Pow Wow stirs in starlit nights
The Slap-Tone conviction that comes to us
The Dance cannot be silenced; listen:
Printers rumble, digital pages scroll, newspapers turn,
Borders fade into illusory walls,
Starving children, covered up documents, the ravages of war
The Voice through the centuries
Asking Questions
Even if no one cares to hear the Answers,
Accurate, objective, fast, ethical
No matter what they say,
I am deranged but I am not deranged
I am fake but I am not fake
I am afraid but I am not afraid
I am the Drum, the Tree, the Story.
a poem for Kenji Goto, a journalist, Feb. 1, 2015
by Yuri Kageyama
i have already written about you
another journalist
your story as a hostage
somewhere far away
in a wind-blowing desert
your story about
how it all ended
today
i do not know you
but i have to write something
else for you
this poem
it just doesn’t seem right
unless i do
people say you cared
you were great to work with
you will live on in our hearts
you laugh in your own videos
“No matter what happens to me,”
you say before you leave,
“I will always love the people of Syria.”
you are calm
you look straight into the camera
you are gentle in your death
you are brave in your death
i just have to write this
in even that video
you are beautiful
