the
Yomiuri
as a civic service. Essentially, these were birth announcements. And so that we had the broadest exposure to all manner of news, we were expected to write up the results of local sports events, compile statistics, and report weather forecasts. Each of these, needless to say, required a different style of recording and writing and inputting.
We were then given a calendar for the month, indicating when and who had early duty, late duty, overnight duty, and sports coverage. Some of the senior staff had little squares with diagonal lines noted for certain days. I asked what they were.
“Vacation days,” answered Nakajima.
“But there’re no such diagonal lines for us,” I said.
“That’s because you have no vacation days,” he said.
Around 1 P.M., we were getting an intensive course in typing sports records into the computer when there was a call from the police press club. A man had been found stabbed to death in a station wagon in Tsurugashima. The Saitama prefectural police had made the announcement, and it looked as if they were going to set up a Homicide Special Investigation Unit.
Ono was visibly excited. “All right, punks, grab your notepads. Take your cameras, and let’s go.” Murder was always big news in Saitama, just as it is anywhere in Japan. It says a great deal about the safety of the country that a murder, any murder, is national news. There are exceptions, however, and that’s when the victim is Chinese, a yakuza, a homeless person, or a nonwhite foreigner. Then the news value drops 50 percent.
Ono explained the protocol. “We’re going to do
kikikomi
[crime scene and related interviews] at the site of the murder and at the company of the deceased. Your job is to find out anything about him—who he was, when he was last seen, who might have wanted to kill him—and to get a photo. And bring back a head shot; I don’t care where youget it from, just get it. If you find anything interesting, call it in to the reporter in the police press club or the Urawa office. Now go.”
We went. New employees were forbidden from driving a car for the first six months, so two of us went with Yamamoto and other reporters, and two of us grabbed a taxi from a company that had a contract with the
Yomiuri
.
Tsurugashima was a long way from Urawa. The Nishi Irima police were handling the initial investigation. Investigative Division One (homicide, violent crimes) from the SPP headquarters was dispatching the division chief. When I arrived at the crime scene, Yamamoto brought me up to speed:
Around 11 P.M. the night before, Ryu Machida, aged forty-one, had been found dead by his wife in a station wagon parked in the middle of a heavy industrial area. He was lying in the backseat, stabbed in the left breast. He had apparently bled to death. Machida had last been seen three days earlier, when he had gone to work. He hadn’t returned home, and his family had filed a missing persons report with the local police, asking for a formal search for him on the fourteenth.
It was still cold for April. I was thrilled to be out in the field, armed with my official
Yomiuri
business card and armband. The crime scene, though, proved to be elusive. The police had cordoned off a large area around the car with yellow tape that read KEEP OUT. The surrounding area was almost empty of human life. I dutifully walked around knocking on doors, trying to find someone who might have seen something. Most of the time people were stunned into silence, seeing my white face, and if they ever recovered, it was only to say, blankly, no.
The Face and Chappy weren’t having any luck either.
At a car parts factory, I introduced myself to an older employee as “Jake Adelstein from the
Yomiuri Shinbun.”
I got what was turning out to be the usual reception: “I don’t need any.”
“I’m not selling anything.”
“I already have a newspaper subscription.”
“I’m not selling newspapers. I’m a reporter for
Yomiuri
as a civic service. Essentially, these were birth announcements. And so that we had the broadest exposure to all manner of news, we were expected to write up the results of local sports events, compile statistics, and report weather forecasts. Each of these, needless to say, required a different style of recording and writing and inputting.
We were then given a calendar for the month, indicating when and who had early duty, late duty, overnight duty, and sports coverage. Some of the senior staff had little squares with diagonal lines noted for certain days. I asked what they were.
“Vacation days,” answered Nakajima.
“But there’re no such diagonal lines for us,” I said.
“That’s because you have no vacation days,” he said.
Around 1 P.M., we were getting an intensive course in typing sports records into the computer when there was a call from the police press club. A man had been found stabbed to death in a station wagon in Tsurugashima. The Saitama prefectural police had made the announcement, and it looked as if they were going to set up a Homicide Special Investigation Unit.
Ono was visibly excited. “All right, punks, grab your notepads. Take your cameras, and let’s go.” Murder was always big news in Saitama, just as it is anywhere in Japan. It says a great deal about the safety of the country that a murder, any murder, is national news. There are exceptions, however, and that’s when the victim is Chinese, a yakuza, a homeless person, or a nonwhite foreigner. Then the news value drops 50 percent.
Ono explained the protocol. “We’re going to do
kikikomi
[crime scene and related interviews] at the site of the murder and at the company of the deceased. Your job is to find out anything about him—who he was, when he was last seen, who might have wanted to kill him—and to get a photo. And bring back a head shot; I don’t care where youget it from, just get it. If you find anything interesting, call it in to the reporter in the police press club or the Urawa office. Now go.”
We went. New employees were forbidden from driving a car for the first six months, so two of us went with Yamamoto and other reporters, and two of us grabbed a taxi from a company that had a contract with the
Yomiuri
.
Tsurugashima was a long way from Urawa. The Nishi Irima police were handling the initial investigation. Investigative Division One (homicide, violent crimes) from the SPP headquarters was dispatching the division chief. When I arrived at the crime scene, Yamamoto brought me up to speed:
Around 11 P.M. the night before, Ryu Machida, aged forty-one, had been found dead by his wife in a station wagon parked in the middle of a heavy industrial area. He was lying in the backseat, stabbed in the left breast. He had apparently bled to death. Machida had last been seen three days earlier, when he had gone to work. He hadn’t returned home, and his family had filed a missing persons report with the local police, asking for a formal search for him on the fourteenth.
It was still cold for April. I was thrilled to be out in the field, armed with my official
Yomiuri
business card and armband. The crime scene, though, proved to be elusive. The police had cordoned off a large area around the car with yellow tape that read KEEP OUT. The surrounding area was almost empty of human life. I dutifully walked around knocking on doors, trying to find someone who might have seen something. Most of the time people were stunned into silence, seeing my white face, and if they ever recovered, it was only to say, blankly, no.
The Face and Chappy weren’t having any luck either.
At a car parts factory, I introduced myself to an older employee as “Jake Adelstein from the
Yomiuri Shinbun.”
I got what was turning out to be the usual reception: “I don’t need any.”
“I’m not selling anything.”
“I already have a newspaper subscription.”
“I’m not selling newspapers. I’m a reporter for
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