Tokyo chief photographer Eugene Hoshiko, correspondent Mari Yamaguchi and video journalist Ayaka McGill provided exclusive coverage unmatched by any other international news agency of the ceremony honoring South Korean slaves who died in Japanese gold mines during WWII. It took Hoshiko, Yamaguchi and McGill six hours to reach the gold mines on remote Sado Island, which were honored as UNESCO world heritage sites only after Japan said it would honor the Korean slaves brought there during Japan’s colonial domination of Korea. With the event mired in chaos and the South Korean side boycotting the ceremony at the last minute, Hoshiko used his deep sources to discover that the Koreans would hold a separate private ceremony the next day, allowing AP further exclusive access. McGill’s video was praised by Korean clients, and Yamaguchi’s stories, including explainers and other sidebars written with the help of the Seoul bureau, laid out how the events of eight decades ago still reverberate in ties between the two U.S. allies and neighbors, Japan and South Korea. Hoshiko’s exclusive photos were used on the front pages of major South Korean newspapers, including the Chosun Ilbo, the country’s largest. Major South Korean customer MBN TV lavished praise on exclusive coverage that they couldn’t get from other foreign agencies.
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