Jon Mitchell is a Welsh journalist and author residing in

Yokohama, Japan is the second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a population of 3.7 million in 2023. It lies on Tokyo B ...

. Mitchell has written widely about Okinawa, especially on issues created by the ongoing presence of the

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. U.S. United States Code, federal law names six armed forces: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States Navy, Na ...

. He was awarded the inaugural Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan's Freedom of the Press Lifetime Achievement Award for this work in 2015. In 2021, Mitchell's book, ''Poisoning the Pacific: The US Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange,'' won Second Place in the

Society of Environmental Journalists The Society of Environmental Journalists is a non-profit national journalism organization created by and for journalists who report environmental topics in the news media. On its website, the organization says that "SEJ’s mission is to strengt ...

annual awards for Reporting on the Environment.

Work

Mitchell is a visiting researcher at the International Peace Research Institute of Meiji Gakuin University. He is a regular contributor for ''

The Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'' and an associate and contributing editor to '' The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus''. He is a special correspondent for the '' Okinawa Times''.

Investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend m ...

and human interest stories on

environmental contamination Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...

and the impact of military herbicides such as

Agent Orange Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the tactical uses of Rainbow Herbicides. It was used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1971. T ...

on Okinawa are frequent subjects of his writing. He is the author of three Japanese language books about US military contamination: ''Tsuiseki: Okinawa no Karehazai (Chasing Agent Orange on Okinawa)'' (Koubunken, 2014), ''Tsuiseki: Nichibeichiikyoutei to Kichikougai'' (''Military Contamination and the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement'') (Iwanami Shoten, 2018) and ''Eien no Kagakubusshitsu: Mizu no PFAS Osen (Forever Chemicals: How PFAS Poisons Japan and the World'') (Iwanami Shoten, 2020). In 2020,

Rowman & Littlefield Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an American independent academic publishing company founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns ...

published Mitchell's ''Poisoning the Pacific: The US Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange''. In April 2019, Okinawa International University, Ginowan City, opened the Jon Mitchell Collection to the public, consisting of more than 5500 pages of Department of Defense and CIA documents related to Okinawa. Mitchell has also donated FOIA-obtained documents to libraries at

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Hawaiʻi system and houses the main offic ...

and

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

. In 2022, Mitchell co-directed a 72-minute documentary titled “Nuchi nu Miji – Okinawa’s Water of Life” for Okinawa TV station,

Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting JORY-DTV (channel 5), also known as QAB is a Japan, Japanese television station serving Okinawa Prefecture as an affiliate of the All-Nippon News Network. The station is owned-and-operated by and its studios and headquarters are located in the ...

. The documentary depicted how US military

per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (also PFAS, PFASs, and informally referred to as "forever chemicals") are a group of synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain; there are 7 milli ...

had contaminated the drinking water sources in

Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan. It consists of three main island groups—the Okinawa Islands, the Sakishima Islands, and the Daitō Islands—spread across a maritime zone approximately 1,000 kilometers east to west an ...

. In March 2023,

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

’s Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies brought Mitchell to screen the documentary at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in Boston.

Awards and recognition

* The British media nicknamed him the "Bard of a Broken Country" for the poems he wrote after the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...

. The poems were gathered in a booklet called ''March and After'' and sold to support survivors of the disaster. *''Defoliated Island'', a TV documentary about Mitchell's investigation into the contamination from the alleged usage of military herbicides in Japan, was winner of a 2012 award for excellence from the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan. *Freedom of the Press Lifetime Achievement Award from the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (2015) *

Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award – Second place (2021) *In November 2022, Mitchell's co-directed documentary, “Nuchi nu Miji – Okinawa’s Water of Life”, received an Honorary Mention in the annual Galaxy Awards selected by Japan's Association of Broadcast Critics. *Japan Congress of Journalists awarded "Nuchi nu Miji - Okinawa's Water of Life" an award for excellence in September 2023. *

Outstanding Beat Reporting (Large Newsroom) – Third place (2023). *

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

Ishibashi Tanzan Journalism Grand Prize for public service (2023)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchell, Jon Living people British male journalists British journalists 21st-century Welsh writers Welsh writers Welsh non-fiction writers 21st-century Welsh poets 21st-century British male writers Year of birth missing (living people)