Issue:
April 2024 | Obituary
A tribute to Shiro Yoneyama (1950-2024)
It is with profound sadness and regret that I inform you of the death of Shiro Yoneyama, a long-time regular FCCJ member working for Japanese and foreign news agencies, who passed away at a Tokyo hospital on February 29, 2024, a few days after he was diagnosed with acute leukemia. He was 73. He is survived by his wife, two sons and a grandchild.
A graduate of Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, Shiro studied journalism at California State University, Fresno, for a few years and joined the kaigaibu (English news section) of Kyodo News in 1981 after working as a reporter for several years at UPI’s Tokyo bureau. He also worked as Kyodo’s correspondent and editor in Washington (1988-1991) and New York (2003-2005). At the FCCJ, he sat on the Professional Activities Committee.
After reaching the retirement age of 60 in 2010, Shiro worked as part-time editor of Kyodo’s newspaper, published in Japanese and English for radio transmission twice a day to about 800 oceangoing ships and fishing boats, as well as hotels in resorts abroad. He also taught students for a few years at two private universities in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
Shiro was a competent and caring journalist. During his stint in Washington, he had to cultivate news sources from scratch as he was the first kaigaibu reporter to work in the United States when other Japanese colleagues writing in their native language would take sources over from their predecessors. In his early years at kaigaibu, Shiro inaugurated a self-managed in-house English newsletter for better communication with non-Japanese colleagues, including those at overseas bureaus, at a time when there was no convenient tool of communication like the Internet. One of the overseas bureau staff members would say it was like “shooting in the dark” to write stories for kaigaibu in the absence of any feedback or reaction from Tokyo.
Shiro “had the true reporter’s gift of being able to easily approach people and get them talking in a friendly way,” says Michael Watson, a former kaigaibu copy editor now back in England. “Shiro was a decent, kind man who will be much missed by everyone who knew him. As a mutual friend said of him, he was one of nature's gentlemen.”
Shiro was also a convivial man, associated most obviously with his love of wine and conversation, recalls another former kaigaibu colleague Anthony Head, better known as Tony among us. “For me, Shiro was and will forever be ‘The Wine-Giver’,” says Tony, now a resident in England. “I could not begin to count the number of occasions on which, after midnight struck and the late-night shifts we worked together at Kyodo came to an end, Shiro would produce a bottle or two of wine from his locker, accompanied by some cans of beer and snacks from the convenience store downstairs, and we would sit around with our remaining colleagues and put the world to rights.”
Michael remembers how caring a man Shiro was. “There are times in life where you find yourself being blamed or criticized unjustly, but most people look away and don't want to get involved in case the bully turns on them,” he says. “When it happened to me, the one person I could rely on for unquestioning support was Shiro. He was a true and steadfast friend who would never let anyone down.”
Shiro was a true oenophile, and generous with it. He often organized a wining-and-dining get-together at Kyodo’s staff canteen, inviting not just friends but people he had known for a week or two, sometimes free of charge for newcomers, particularly ladies. He would bring a couple of bottles of wine - red and white – purchased at the FCCJ’s tasting sessions to offer participants.
I was a regular participant in these social gatherings. I enjoyed his very good company for nearly half a century, including the whole period of his career at kaigaibu, as well as during the long private time we shared after work, sometimes at the FCCJ’s dining bar we frequented as members.
Masanori Kikuta is former chief editor of the foreign news department at Kyodo News and an ex-FCCJ member
