Through the Eyes of the former Consul General Yamada (June, 2017 - July, 2020)

Ms. Lori Matsukawa’s Retirement

Ms. Lori Matsukawa is perhaps the best known Japanese American living here in Washington State. Most people in the Puget Sound area would recognize her if shown her picture. This is because she was both a reporter and a news anchor on the NBC-affiliated KING 5 evening news, a well-known station in the greater Seattle area. Folks tuning in at 5:00 PM, 6:30 PM and 11:00 PM met her through their TV screens every day. As a Japanese Consul General, I was proud and glad to see her, an American with a Japanese name and face, anchoring the main news program on a major TV station. 

On June 14, 2019, Ms. Matsukawa retired from KING 5, where she worked for 36 years, and her retirement was big news here in Washington. On the day of her retirement, The Seattle Times wrote a two-page article about her career as a journalist. Immediately following her last five-o’clock news program, KING 5 aired an hour-long special honoring her. Japanese/Asian newspapers in Washington also wrote features surrounding her retirement. Why did one female journalist become such big news herself?

It’s because of her career, her character, and her accomplishments. Her life itself had an impact on society.
 
Ms. Matsukawa was born in Hawaii. In 1974, she entered the Miss Teenage America contest – in hopes of winning a scholarship to study at a university – and won. She was interviewed on TV and this experience sparked an interest in the world of journalism, which led to a writing position at Stanford University’s school newspaper while she was a student there. After graduating, she started to work at a TV station in California where she met her husband, Larry Blackstock, who worked as a director at the company. In 1980, they moved to Seattle and got married. After working at another TV station in Seattle, she found her way to KING 5 in 1983. At first, she covered local variety news before becoming the anchor of the morning news, weekend news and, finally in 2014, anchor of the evening news.

Her professional journey may sound like she had a remarkably smooth sailing career. However, when she started to appear on TV, there were very few Asian female news anchors, and assigning a news anchor position to a woman of color seemed almost like a social experiment back then, according to The Seattle Times. In 1991, on the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a phone call complaining about the station’s choice to have a Japanese American cover the topic. Her boss at that time firmly defended her involvement, which gave her encouragement. In 1985, Ms. Matsukawa became a co-founder of the Seattle chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association and shortly after, founded the Northwest Journalists of Color scholarship to support students of color who aspire to become journalists. At the TV station, people would always see her mentoring Asian students who were on the path to becoming future journalists.
 
Ms. Matsukawa also made a significant impact on program production. In 2017, she made a special series called “Prisoners in Their Own Land” for the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which led to the internment of a hundred and twenty thousand Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans during World War II. The series showed not only their lives in the internment camp but also the hardships they experienced after the war and their fight to regain their reputation. Ms. Matsukawa’s accomplishments also include the introducing of Japan to KING 5 viewership. In 1995, she covered the re-introduction of Washington state apples to the Japanese market and other trade-related stories. In 2011, she covered the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake from Tokyo, and in 2017, visited Kobe and Fukushima prefecture to learn about disaster recovery.
 
In addition to her role as a journalist, Ms. Matsukawa is also a central figure in Japanese/Asian communities’ activities. In 2003, she founded the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington (JCCCW) with other Japanese American leaders. She has also emceed many events for Japanese/Asian organizations. I have seen her at the gatherings of various communities in the past two years. She is a very sociable person who warmly interacts with those she meets and has a charismatic vibe that pulls people in.  I believe that Ms. Matsukawa’s viewership grew because as an anchor, she presented the facts with a calm, balanced mindset and genuine warmth.

On the evening of June 13, the day before her retirement, her farewell party, which I attended, was held at KING 5. At the party, the CEO and her current and former colleagues shared stories about her one by one. Those who already retired shared amusing, nostalgic memories, while the young generations passionately talked about how she had mentored them. From their stories, I could tell that she is really loved by her colleagues.
 
Since I came to Seattle as Consul General two years ago, it’s been a pleasure to see her on many occasions. One and a half years ago, when Mr. Ichiro Fujisaki, the former Ambassador of Japan to the United States and also Ms. Matsukawa’s friend, visited Seattle, we had dinner together at my Official Residence. Because it was a weekday and she had a program recording, Ms. Matsukawa arrived a little late. After enjoying the conversation, but before the dessert was served, she returned to the TV station to present the 11 o’clock news. I thought her work sure is tough; the next time I invite her, I hope she can now take her time to enjoy the whole meal, including dessert! In her retirement interview, she said she would like to enjoy her free time and do stuff that she could not do before, like traveling. However, she does not seem to be a person who would stay quiet after retirement. Everyone will be interested to see what she does next.