Norimitsu Onishi

Norimitsu Onishi
Born	Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan
Occupation	journalist
Notable credit(s)	The New York Times, The Detroit Free Press

Norimitsu Onishi (大西 哲光, Ōnishi Norimitsu) is a Japanese Canadian journalist. He heads the San Francisco bureau of the New York Times.

He was a member of The New York Times reporting team that received the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for coverage of the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. Team members named by The Times were Pam Belluck, Helene Cooper, Sheri Fink, Adam Nossiter, Onishi, Kevin Sack, and Ben C. Solomon.

Career

Onishi was born in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. When he was four years old, Onishi and his family immigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He attended Princeton University and served as the chief editor of the student newspaper.

Onishi was a reporter for The Detroit Free Press from 1992 until 1993. In December 1993, he joined The New York Times where he began as police reporter from January to July 1994 and city weekly reporter from July 1994 to March 1995. He went on to become the Queens bureau chief from March 1995 to September 1997 and later the West Africa bureau chief from 1998 to 2002.

Onishi became the Tokyo bureau chief for the Times in August 2003. In 2008, he was transferred to head the Southeast Asia bureau in Jakarta; Martin Fackler succeeded him as chief of the Tokyo bureau.

In September and October 2014, Onishi reported on the ebola virus epidemic in West Africa from Liberia.

Criticism

Some critics, especially conservatives in Japan such as Kohyu Nishimura and Yoshihisa Komori, accuse Onishi's leftist perspective of having a strong "anti-Japan" bias, which, they suggest, helps foster a vilified image of Japan abroad.

Another article, "Letter from Asia: Why Japan Seems Content to Be Run by One Party" provoked an official objection statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan for being "an incorrect article." In it, Norimitsu referred to Japan's democracy as an "illusion" and immature, comparing its government to that of North Korea and China.

His article on December 17, 2006, "Japan Rightists Fan Fury Over North Korea Abductions," was also criticized by Kyoko Nakayama, Tokyo Special adviser to the Japanese Prime Minister on Abduction. Thomas H. Snitch, a former professor of American University and the president of Little Falls Associates, Inc. also mentioned that Onishi's coverage on Japan's effort to deal with the issue of the North Korean abductions of Japanese is based on his political bias. Some Japanese conservatives claim that Onishi is a naturalized Japanese citizen of Korean descent.

External links

• Contributed articles by Norimitsu Onishi in the New York Times
• [1], Pulitzer Prize-winning articles on Ebola