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Jon Mitchell (journalist)

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Welsh journalist and author For other people named Jon Mitchell, see Jon Mitchell (disambiguation).
Jon Mitchell at Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, June 2021.

Jon Mitchell is a Welsh journalist and author residing in Yokohama, Japan. Mitchell has written widely about Okinawa, especially on issues created by the ongoing presence of the United States Armed Forces. He was awarded the inaugural Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan's Freedom of the Press Lifetime Achievement Award for this work in 2015. In 2021, Mitchell's book, Poisoning the Pacific: The US Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange, won Second Place in the Society of Environmental Journalists annual awards for Reporting on the Environment.

Work

Mitchell is a visiting researcher at the International Peace Research Institute of Meiji Gakuin University. He is a regular contributor for The Japan Times and an associate and contributing editor to The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. He is a special correspondent for the Okinawa Times. Investigative journalism and human interest stories on environmental contamination and the impact of military herbicides such as Agent Orange on Okinawa are frequent subjects of his writing. He is the author of three Japanese language books about US military contamination: Tsuiseki: Okinawa no Karehazai (Chasing Agent Orange on Okinawa) (Koubunken, 2014), Tsuiseki: Nichibeichiikyoutei to Kichikougai (Military Contamination and the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement) (Iwanami Shoten, 2018) and Eien no Kagakubusshitsu: Mizu no PFAS Osen (Forever Chemicals: How PFAS Poisons Japan and the World) (Iwanami Shoten, 2020). In 2020, Rowman & Littlefield published Mitchell's Poisoning the Pacific: The US Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange.

In April 2019, Okinawa International University, Ginowan City, opened the Jon Mitchell Collection to the public, consisting of more than 5500 pages of Department of Defense and CIA documents related to Okinawa. Mitchell has also donated FOIA-obtained documents to libraries at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and George Washington University.

In 2022, Mitchell co-directed a 72-minute documentary titled “Nuchi nu Miji – Okinawa’s Water of Life” for Okinawa TV station, Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting. The documentary depicted how US military per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances had contaminated the drinking water sources in Okinawa Prefecture. In March 2023, Harvard University’s Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies brought Mitchell to screen the documentary at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in Boston.

Awards and recognition

  • The British media nicknamed him the "Bard of a Broken Country" for the poems he wrote after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The poems were gathered in a booklet called March and After and sold to support survivors of the disaster.
  • Defoliated Island, a TV documentary about Mitchell's investigation into the contamination from the alleged usage of military herbicides in Japan, was winner of a 2012 award for excellence from the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan.
  • Freedom of the Press Lifetime Achievement Award from the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (2015)
  • Society of Environmental Journalists Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award – Second place (2021)
  • In November 2022, Mitchell's co-directed documentary, “Nuchi nu Miji – Okinawa’s Water of Life”,  received an Honorary Mention in the annual Galaxy Awards selected by Japan's Association of Broadcast Critics.
  • Japan Congress of Journalists awarded "Nuchi nu Miji - Okinawa's Water of Life" an award for excellence in September 2023.
  • Society of Environmental Journalists Outstanding Beat Reporting (Large Newsroom) – Third place (2023).
  • Waseda University Ishibashi Tanzan Journalism Grand Prize for public service (2023)

References

  1. ^ "Japan Times contributor Mitchell among winners of FCCJ's first Freedom of the Press awards". japantimes.co.jp. The Japan Times. 4 May 2015. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
  2. ^ Ryall, Julian (2 June 2015). "The first annual FCCJ Freedom of the Press Awards celebrated people and organizations that continue to take on difficult and sensitive issues". fccj.or.jp. Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. Retrieved 8 August 2016.
  3. ^ Society of Environmental Journalists (6 August 2021). "Winners: SEJ 20th Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment". Retrieved 6 August 2021.
  4. ^ Mitchell, Jon (18 July 2016). "特約通信員 ジョン・ミッチェル氏" [Authorized correspondent Mr. Jon Mitchell] (in Japanese). Retrieved 10 August 2016. Okinawa Times, Inc., has signed a special agreement contract with British journalist Jon Mitchell... Mitchell has covered environmental problems and issues of the US forces in Japan. Original articles will be written in English and published in Japanese. Jon Mitchell was born in Wales in 1974 and became a journalist. He came to Japan in 1998 and covers pollution problems at Okinawa US military bases. In 2015, he received the inaugural freedom of the press "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. Mitchell authored (Tracking) "Chasing Agent Orange on Okinawa" and is a Meiji Gakuin University International Peace Research Institute researcher.
  5. About Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. retrieved 8 August 2016
  6. Mitchell, Jon (26 May 2016). "Report: American Military 'Poisoning' Okinawa For Years". The Takeaway (Interview). Interviewed by John Hockenberry. New York: WNYC.
  7. Turner, Robin (20 October 2015). "Welsh journalist campaigns for 'truth' over Japan's Vietnam Agent Orange stocks". walesonline.co.uk. Wales Online. Retrieved 8 August 2016.
  8. Ramirez, Rachel (10 October 2020). "'Poisoning the Pacific': New book details US military contamination of islands and ocean". theguardian.com. The Guardian. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
  9. Moronaga, Yuji (8 May 2019). "U.S. records reveal extent of pollution at bases in Japan". Asahi Shimbun.
  10. Mitchell, Jon (15 May 2019). "The FOIA and the Study of US Policy on Okinawa and Japan". Asia-Pacific Journal. 17.
  11. Teruya, Lynette. "Research Guides: Okinawan Studies: Okinawa FOIA Collection". guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  12. Luck, Kristen. "Research Guides: US-Japan Military Base Issues: Government Resources". libguides.gwu.edu. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  13. "Film Screening: "Nuchi Nu Miji – Okinawa's Water of Life" | Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies". rijs.fas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  14. "Bard of a Broken Country". walesonline.co.uk. Wales Online. 27 March 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2016.
  15. Kosaka, Kris (9 October 2011). "Hymns for Human Potential". japantimes.co.jp. The Japan Times. Retrieved 8 August 2016.
  16. McGlinchey, Afric (7 November 2011). "'March and After' by Jon Mitchell". sabotagereviews.com. Sabotage Reviews. Retrieved 8 August 2016.
  17. Mitchell, Jon (18 March 2014). "Military Contamination on Okinawa: PCBs and Agent Orange at Kadena Air Base". apjjf.org. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (Volume 12, Issue 12, Number 1, Mar 2014). Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  18. "Lifetime award for journalist who started career with school paper at Olchfa in Swansea". southwales-eveningpost.co.uk. South Wales Evening Post. 13 May 2015. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  19. "第60回（2022年度） - NPO法人 放送批評懇談会" (in Japanese). 16 November 2022. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  20. "【66回 JCJ賞決まる】JCJ大賞 鈴木エイト『自民党の統一教会汚染 追跡3000日』『自民党の統一教会汚染2 山上徹也からの伝言』、 JCJ賞5点 9月23日（土）午後1時から東京・全水道会館で贈賞式". 日本ジャーナリスト会議（JCJ） (in Japanese). 6 September 2023. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  21. "Outstanding Beat Reporting, Large: SEJ 22nd Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment | SEJ". www.sej.org. 26 September 2023. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
  22. "第23回ジャーナリズム大賞作品決定". 早稲田大学 (in Japanese). Retrieved 10 December 2023.

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