Tokyo calling: how Japan communicates with the world

The BCCJ was very pleased to host a breakfast event “Tokyo calling: how Japan communicates with the world” in collaboration with the Financial Times on October 18 at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo.

Foreign perceptions of Japan are a strange jumble of opposites: technology-loving but reluctant to change, conformist but creative, pacifist and yet constantly criticised over wartime history.

Tomoaki Ishigaki, the Prime Minister’s director of global communications, is the man who has to try and put the country’s message across on the international stage. But how that message is delivered very much depends on the foreign journalists tasked with covering Japan, such as Robin Harding, Tokyo bureau chief for the Financial Times.

In an arm-chair conversation over breakfast joined by around 40 BCCJ members, Ishigaki and Harding discussed how the news about Japan is shaped, what Japan is trying to say to the world, and how its messages can often get warped in the process.

[This was event was strictly off-the-record]

Mr. Ishigaki (right) was talking on the stage with Mr. Harding (left)

Speakers on the day

 

Tomoaki Ishigaki | Deputy Cabinet Secretary for Public Affairs, and Director of Global Communications, Prime Minister’s Office

 

Robin Harding | Tokyo Bureau Chief, Financial Times

Speakers on the day

 

Tomoaki Ishigaki | Deputy Cabinet Secretary for Public Affairs, and Director of Global Communications, Prime Minister’s Office

 

Robin Harding | Tokyo Bureau Chief, Financial Times

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Read by advocates of better business 
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Try the Financial Times and benefit from our award-winning journalism. Use it to broaden perspectives, inspire confidence and enable better choices in life and business.

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