Cross-border investigative journalism from Japan

Dear Reader,

Thank you for your continued support of Tansa’s reporting.

A New Addition to Tansa

In April, Shota Tomonaga joined Tansa as a reporter and photographer. With his addition, the team now consists of the editor-in-chief, three reporters, a media director responsible for website design and digital marketing, and one management staff member as full-time staff, bringing the total team size to nine, including volunteers and interns.

Here is a message from Shota.

I am Shota Tomonaga, and I joined Tansa on April 1.

I began interning at Tansa’s predecessor, the Waseda Chronicle, in my second year of university. After graduating, I spent two years as a reporter and three years as a photographer at The Asahi Shimbun.

Every time I attended a Tansa event, I drew strength from the growing number of supporters and the members’ efforts to publish articles, which motivated me in my own reporting and photography. I am delighted to finally return to Tansa, and determined  to use the skills I have developed to produce even better journalism.

A passion that has remained unchanged since my student days

What was I most dedicated to during my student days? My immediate answer is my internship at Tansa.

I joined Tansa in the winter of my second year and was involved not only in reporting and research but also in creating the “Money for Docs Database,” which organized and published the flow of funds paid by pharmaceutical companies to doctors. It was a massive project that took over six months to complete, and it revealed the full picture of the payment to doctors—a flow that is often obscured because it is disclosed on a per-pharmaceutical-company basis. I found great fulfillment in Tansa’s activities, as the work I was involved in—whether directly or indirectly—benefited the lives of citizens.

At the end of March 2021, the Tansa members held a farewell party for me.

With my university graduation approaching, I had already secured a position as a photographer at The Asahi Shimbun. As the party was drawing to a close, Editor-in-Chief Makoto Watanabe urged me to say a few words for my graduation. “What should I say? I can’t quite put my thoughts together.” I stood up, still taking my time to think about what to say, and the moment I uttered my first words, tears welled up and my voice choked.

Although I was involved in various projects during my three years at Tansa, I never managed to write a single investigative report on a topic I had personally chosen to pursue. The faces and voices of the people I had interviewed—who had trusted me as a journalist and entrusted me with their stories—floated into my mind.

“I haven’t achieved anything. After graduation, I’ll be joining a major media outlet like The Asahi Shimbun, and I don’t even have the courage to take the leap into joining Tansa as a full-time member.”

Before I knew it, the feeling of regret and helplessness had become so overwhelming that I couldn't hold back my tears.

Crying wouldn't solve anything. Since I was working at The Asahi Shimbun, I wanted to hone my reporting and photography skills and to return to Tansa. I decided to work there for no more than five years. For the first two years after joining the company, I worked as a reporter, crisscrossing Niigata Prefecture to cover a wide range of topics, including crimes, accidents, trials, and local news. I spent the remaining three years working as a photographer at the Tokyo headquarters. No matter what kind of story I was covering, I always approached it by asking myself whether I was overlooking any victims, and if so, how I could make even the slightest difference in the situation.

One theme I focused on particularly was reporting on assisted reproductive technology (ART) involving sperm donation from a third party. Discussions were underway regarding a bill to establish rules for ART involving third parties.

I felt it was wrong that the bill had been drafted to limit access to this medical treatment to legally married couples. This is because there are already various family structures in Japan, including same-sex female couples who have had children through ART using sperm donation.

It happened when I was interviewing a female couple raising a child conceived through ART using donor sperm.

Suddenly, I heard a thudding sound. I looked over to see a one-and-a-half-year-old child, having woken from a nap, running toward his mother—who was being interviewed—with a pacifier in his mouth. As he was lifted into his mother’s arms, I realized that if a law restricting sperm donation-based ART to legally married couples were to pass, this child, born to two women, might have the very way he was conceived denied. Isn’t this a bill that could potentially disadvantage and victimize children who have no choice in how they are born? Whenever I struggled with the reporting, I always recalled that scene to stay focused.

While keeping up with daily news and sports events, I conducted repeated interviews with female couples who had given birth through sperm donation, their children, medical institutions, and members of the Diet, and wrote a series of articles alongside other reporters.

As a journalist and a member of Tansa, I will be tackling investigative reporting—a field I never experienced at The Asahi Shimbun. I will also continue to cover ART.

My driving force is the question: “How can I change this injustice?” This has remained unchanged since my student days.

Tansa moving into its 10th year

Since 2017, Tansa has been publishing investigative reports.

Tansa’s reporting has been recognized both domestically and internationally, and since its founding, it has won 16 journalism awards, including the “Freedom of the Press Awards” from the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan(FCCJ). 

To date, we have produced various series and achieved significant results. Here are two series of cross-border investigative reports.

• Coal Crusades (2018-2021)

Japan and South Korea were building coal-fired power plants in Indonesia that they could not construct in their own countries due to safety concerns. Tansa, in collaboration with South Korea’s “Newstapa” and Indonesia’s “Tempo”, reported that plans to build a new power plant have been scrapped.

• The True Mother Files: How a Cult Religion Infiltrated Japan's Ruling Party (2026)

Tansa obtained the “The True Mother Files,” an internal document of the Unification Church, from the South Korean investigative journalism organization “Newstapa.” Through a joint investigation, they uncovered the depth of the symbiotic relationship between the Unification Church and the Liberal Democratic Party, which has spanned more than 60 years.

Thanks to your continued support, we have been able to hire a full-time reporter. Hiring reporters is essential to Tansa’s mission of improving the lives of victims through our investigative reporting. Our investigations reveal — and aim thereby to end — wrongdoing by the powerful, such as government bodies and corporations.

We sincerely ask for your continued support. 

Thank you.