Norimitsu Onishi
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Norimitsu Onishi | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Notable credit(s) | The New York Times, The Detroit Free Press |
Norimitsu Onishi (大西 哲光, Ōnishi Norimitsu) is a Japanese Canadian journalist. He is a Paris correspondent for the New York Times, after holding the position as Bureau Chief in Johannesburg, Jakarta, Tokyo and Abidjan.[1]
He was a member of The New York Times reporting team that received the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for coverage of the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.[2] Team members named by The Times were Pam Belluck, Helene Cooper, Sheri Fink, Adam Nossiter, Onishi, Kevin Sack, and Ben C. Solomon.[3]
In November 2018, Onishi wrote an article about the lonely deaths of the elderly in Japan, titled "A Generation in Japan Faces a Lonely Death" for which he was nominated as a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing finalist.[4] Readers thanked Norimitsu for his "profoundly moving piece" about two people who live alone in a danchi, a sprawling government apartment complex, outside Tokyo.[5]
Onishi was born in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. When he was four years old, Onishi and his family immigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he attended college Jean-de-Brébeuf. He attended Princeton University and served as the chief editor of the student newspaper.[6]
Onishi was a reporter for The Detroit Free Press from 1992 until 1993.[citation needed] In December 1993, he joined The New York Times where he began as police reporter from January to July 1994 and city weekly reporter from July 1994 to March 1995.[citation needed] He went on to become the Queens bureau chief from March 1995 to September 1997 and later the West Africa bureau chief from 1998 to 2002.[7]
Onishi became the Tokyo bureau chief for the Times in August 2003. In 2008, he was transferred to head the Southeast Asia bureau in Jakarta; Martin Fackler succeeded him as chief of the Tokyo bureau. In 2012, he was part of a team of reporters, which also included Fackler and Hiroko Tabuchi, that was named as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for its investigative coverage of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.[8]
While reporting in West Africa, Onishi is credited with coining the word Nollywood as the now accepted nomenclature for what was at the time known locally as Nigeria's "home-video film industry".[9] In September and October 2014, Onishi reported on the ebola virus epidemic in West Africa from Liberia.[10][11][12]
Since July 2019, he is a Paris correspondent.[1]
Onishi received the 2020 Gerald Loeb Award for Breaking News for "Crash in Ethiopia".[13]