-Hi, everyone.
Yeah, we're really excited to be here.
You know, I'm not sure where to begin.
And I wanted to just give a little setup
about what we're going to do tonight.
And as you heard, we're going to do a Q&A at the end.
So this is about Lori's memoir.
And we're going to learn a lot about her
and her career in journalism.
But also,
you know, it's a lot more than just journalism.
You know, I've been a good friend of Lori's.
She's a broadcast legend.
You all know that.
Her new book, “Being There: A Memoir
of an Asian American Journalist,”
is hot off the press.
It actually just came out today, right?
So you are the first to get it. -Yes.
-Tonight, we'll try to cover a lot of ground.
We'll talk to Lori about her extraordinary
journalism career and, of course, about this book,
which is also about identity, courage, community
and being there when the door hasn't always been open.
Most of you know, Lori, as a trusted journalist
who spent decades, 36 years at KING 5.
Wow. That's amazing, right?
Being a steady, reassuring presence during, you know,
moments of crisis, change and historic events.
You know, you you had our trust. -Right.
-Yeah.
And I've also had the
privilege of knowing her beyond the anchor desk
and as a former colleague and now a close friend.
And I first knew of Lori when we were both in college
at Stanford.
Her reputation preceded her
Miss Teenage America from Hawaiʻi.
You know,
I remember being in awe, all right.
And yes, all my guy friends wanted to date her.
-Where were they?
-They were intimidated by you.
Years later, our paths crossed again at KING-TV.
Over time, Lori became
not just a role model and a trailblazer for me
as an Asian American journalist,
but a generous mentor to so many
young journalists of color.
Along the way, we've shared laughter together.
Gals' trips.
Yeah, yeahs! -Yeah, yeahs!
-And really lovely conversations about family,
culture and advocacy.
And yet, even knowing Lori as I do, I,
I realized that after reading the memoir,
there's a lot I don't know about Lori.
And so we'll reveal that tonight.
I think longtime viewers will see the full humanity,
humanity behind a very familiar public face.
So tonight, I'll invite Lori
to read a few short passages from the memoir.
We don't want to give everything away,
so just a few. Okay.
And we'll reflect together.
And at the end, we'll open things up
for questions from the audience.
Okay, From all of you. So don't be shy.
So, Lori, thank you for being here.
-And thank you, Mimi, for doing this.
I know it's kind of awkward
because this is something we do.
We yack a lot as friends
and yet this is like a totally different setting.
-It is. -Smething that we're both not quite used to.
But you're going to love it.
-We will. -She's an expert.
She knows what she is doing. -This is all about Lori.
And even though she'll say it's not about her,
this is about her.
And she she should be honored.
-Yes, definitely.
(applause)
Okay.
So before we go back to the beginning of your story,
Lori, I want to start here.
You spent decades telling other people's stories,
often setting your own aside.
And you titled this memoir “Being There,
a Memoir of Asian American Journalist.”
What made you decide to write this now? And,
you know, why was it
important for you to get this out there?
-I decided to write the memoir because it's
although it's a memoir, it's not about me.
It's about us.
We have been as a generation through a lot.
We have been through
the civil rights movement, the voting rights movement,
the women's movement, the antiwar movement,
you name it. We've been through it.
We've been through all sorts of campaigns.
Black Power,
Asian American power, Hispanic power,
you know, Native American power.
We have been a generation
moving through a very important time.
And we deserve to tell this story as best as we can.
So I can only tell this story
through my eyes, through what I saw, felt and thought.
But it really is our story.
And the reason I chose to do it
now is because I felt the
we have a young generation coming up
that does not know this story.
So I thought,
okay, I'm going to just lay it out there and
and hope that they learn from it,
learn from our mistakes, and get inspired
by our achievements as a as a group, as a generation.
More specifically, I felt
they that I felt I had a lot to say
about the fact
that when I started in this business, when we started in
this business, when most of us started
as young journalists, maybe
there weren't that many women,
first of all, in the field, there weren't that many
women of color in the field, and there certainly weren't
many women of color leaders in the field either.
We weren't news directors, by and large.
We weren't producers,
executive producers. We weren't
making the decisions and calling the shots.
So this was an important thing
that I wanted the younger generation to learn that
in the beginning it wasn't there.
So we had to
create our own opportunities and this is what we did.
Lay out a little a little path,
a little journey path
so that they could read about it and follow.
So that was that was the motivation.
It's it's not about me, but it's about us ultimately.
-You know, you told me that the original title
of the memoir was “Astonished.”
-Right.
-And then so I want to know why that title and then
how did it change from “Astonished”
to “Being There?”
-I started with “Astonished”
because that's how I felt when I look back in my life.
Who would have thought a young girl in Hawaiʻi?
Parents are public school teachers,
so we weren't a very wealthy family
or influential or out of the ordinary.
Who would have thought that she would, one,
become Miss Teenage America?
That was very bizarre. Two, go to Stanford University.
I didn't even know where it was when I applied.
And then three enter a field that was so
rarely considered by Asian Americans in general.
Right.
Asian American families
wanted their kids to become doctors, lawyers
or engineers.
And if you were a woman, maybe a nurse or a teacher,
that was about it.
And so to become a journalist was so out of their
imaginations that a lot of Asian American kids
who wanted to be journalists were discouraged, laughed
at, you know, and basically told, no, don't do it.
So who would have thought that all the things
that happened in my life
would lead up to this moment tonight?
I'm astonished at everything that happened.
So that was my first thought.
One of the editors who read the book
and the title said “no.”
(laughter)
So. So
I picked “Being There” because that was another
close selection when just a few years ago,
I was walking around doing a little tour
with a young Cambodian American woman.
And she I was telling her what I knew about Seattle CID
and she said,
you know, she was kind of giggly and shy.
And she said,
“You know, every time you come on TV, my dad yells,
‘Everybody, Lori's on TV, come into, come and watch!’”
And I thought I was I was just astonished
that they would do that.
I said, “Why does he do that?”
She goes,
“We're just so excited to see an Asian woman on TV.”
And so that's when it hit me.
Oh oh my gosh.
Just “Being There” made this family and made
this young woman feel happy and excited and hopeful.
So that's where being there came from.
-All right.
We're going to hear more about you being there in
various places and moments.
But before we go any further, we want to take you all
back to the moment that changed your life.
In 1973,
when Lori won the Miss Teenage America Pageant.
Well, KING 5 Evening happened to take a look back
at that moment.
And we're going to play a little news piece
that's just
a little news piece that was done with Lori
when she was at KING.
-Good evening. An Olympian man.
-35 years ago, an unexpected experience launched
the broadcasting career of news anchor Lori Matsukawa.
-Police in Ferndale tonight are talking to...
-Ask her about the life changing event today.
And she just might do a little dance
from days gone by.
-Woo! -Flashback to 1974,
senior year at Aiea High in Hawaiʻi,
17-year-old Lori plans to study music
and become a piano teacher.
-I was looking around for money for college
and a friend of mine said, “Hey,
if you enter this Miss Teenage America pageant,
you could win a college scholarship.
Plus,
they don't have a bathing suit competition,
so you might even have a chance.”
-Lori wins the local pageant
and heads to Fort Worth, Texas.
-The Miss Teenage America Pageant. To join 43
other girls representing cities nationwide.
-Lori Matsukawa, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi.
-Also competing for the $10,000 scholarship
is a student from Rainier Beach High School.
-Karen Rains, Seattle, Washington.
-Karen and Lori remain friends today,
reunited by Miss Teenage America.
-That was one of the fun things about the pageant,
was learning a dance routine like you're,
you know, on Broadway, you know, and they said,
all right, everybody do this and do that. -Yes.
-Ring those bells.
(singing)
♪ Ring those bells. You’ve got to ring them bells ♪
♪ We've got to ring them ♪ -That's right.
We have to do this.
I mean, we had bells on our wrist.
♪♪
-The images from the live
telecast may be grainy, but not the memories.
-So let's start with the first presentation.
-Lori vividly remembers the talent portion
of the pageant.
♪♪
Instead of playing the piano like other contestants,
she dares to do something different.
The Māori poi ball dance. -And long
ago, Māoris were known to be very fierce warriors.
So that's eventually what I selected
as my talent
was the Māori poi ball dance, because I figured, who's
going to do that? Nobody.
And I was right.
♪♪
So here's the thing.
All week long we're practicing for the pageant.
I do the poi balls. No problem.
The night of the pageant in front of millions
of viewers, the balls collide and stop.
And I'm like, “Uh oh!”
-Despite the bobble,
Lori advances to the final round of the pageant.
(screaming and cheering)
Now nobody expects her to get this far.
Not Lori or her parents.
-My parents at the time thought,
what are the chances that she's going to win?
So they decided,
we're not going to go because it's too far.
So when they would do cutaways of the,
you know, the candidate and the parents.
It was hilarious because they show me
and they pan to my chaperone.
And she's this
Caucasian woman with the blond, you know, beehive.
Get up here, please.
Even when the judges narrowed the four finalists
down to two,
Lori still can't imagine winning.
-No, no. It never crossed my mind.
You know, at
when they were just the two of us,
I remember standing there think,
okay, now, when they announced
my name as first runner up,
I'm going to jump over and give her a big hug.
-Our first alternate is...
Miss Janet Dains from Levi, Utah.
Ladies and gentlemen...
-So that's why when they announced
her name as first runner up, I went.
My mouth drops open, my eyes bug out
because I didn't expect it.
-Lori Matsukawa!
(cheering and applause)
-The mouth never closed.
And here's when we went to the Kentucky Derby.
I rode in these big parades and got to meet
Col. Sanders
and got to meet Micky Dolenz of the Monkees.
This is the only picture I have of me and Sonny Bono.
Wow. It's the first time I've seen that picture.
But after being Miss Teenage America,
I mean, you travel to every city.
You're interviewed by
newspaper reporters, radio, television reporters.
I began to think, hey, this is a job I could do.
-Definitely a job she could do.
After using her scholarship money
to get a degree from Stanford University,
Lori worked her way up to the anchor chair.
Sitting pretty today, all because of a pageant
and a poi
ball dance she'll never forget.
-And so you just kind of hope
that it stays going until you end up. Yes.
(laughter and clapping)
And some people in this room
have actually seen that poi ball dance in person.
It's something you'll never forget, right?
-Okay, So, Lori, that was amazing.
You look beautiful.
I was. Yeah.
Your mouth was wide open the whole time. -Agog.
-So you were 17 years old?
-Yes. -Newly crowned Miss Teenage America.
And you were in disbelief.
And you write in your memoir, “How can this be?
I was the ugly duckling, the kid with glasses
and braces and knocked knees and no boyfriend.
How is this happening?”
And then even then, you asked the the pageant president
you asked him, you said,
“Will I have any problem because I'm Japanese?
I mean, I don't look like the usual Miss Teenage America.”
So I want to know where like, where did that awareness
come from? You're 17.
So early on.
You know what?
What did it teach you about visibility and belonging?
This is way before journalism.
-I thought about that question because all of the
Miss Teenage America winners before
me, all 12 of them, I was number 13.
All 12 of them were Caucasian women.
And most of the candidates
I don't know if you had a chance,
you were Caucasian women,
but there were African Americans there.
There was a Latina
there. There were several
Asian American candidates as well.
And so it was, again, the beginning of change.
People were beginning to see all kinds of folks
as part of the community.
And there was some inclusion even at that contest.
But I knew that
in my journeys I was going to be
the atypical Miss Teenage America.
If the head office ever got complaints
or heard bad things?
They never let me know.
I would like to think that whenever I made an appearance
that I was just coming across
as a regular old teenager and the people
in the audience would accept me as such.
And it
it felt that way
when I went to the television stations
or appeared in the newspaper articles.
It was very positive live coverage.
It was very
I think I got a break because I was from Hawaiʻi, frankly.
They didn't see me so much as an Asian person,
so much as that exotic Hawaiian person.
So I did catch a break.
I did catch a break there.
But I wanted to be sure that if I was causing
any trouble, that they would let me know.
But they never they never said anything about that.
That's good.
-Never received any kind of hate mail or.
-No, no, that's.
-I was. I was really shocked.
That's another astonishing thing. Right?
You would think she would get some pushback.
The only time I did get hassled for being Japanese
was when I was in Japan.
I would go to the supermarket and we were
just introducing Dr Pepper.
Our sponsor, Dr Pepper in the markets.
And these little kids
would be standing there looking up, going,
and you could tell they're saying she's not Miss Teenage
America, she's not blond, she doesn't have blue eyes.
(grumbling)
So I had memorized a few Japanese lines
like, In Hawaiʻi, I learned hula dance.
I didn't go to Japanese language school.
And when they heard my Japanese, they knew,
oh yeah, she's not Japanese.
She's definitely American.
So I quashed that right there.
Right there.
-So, Lori, when you were in high school,
I understand you were very shy.
You said you were very, very shy.
You actually really started coming into your own
in high school. You joined the choir.
You joined speech club, speech and debate.
You were like award winner, of course.
And that helped you
step out of your shyness, right? -Yes.
Because when you don't have a boyfriend and
you have a lot of extra time.
So I you know, so that choir was good
because we had practice after school.
So I filled my time with practicing music and,
and we did a Polynesian show as well as an American show.
And so our Polynesian shows required our choir to perform
in Waikiki.
So here is our high school
choir performing in Waikiki like professional performers.
And so that was part of the astonishing,
you know, training that I got in high school.
How to go to a hotel, set up your show costume change,
right music, all in a row, organize, set up,
tear down, out and off the stage in 45 minutes.
And it was terrific training.
So if you don't have a boyfriend,
it's a great way to occupy some time.
And then on weekends,
I had a lot of time on weekends.
So I joined the Speech Club because that's
when they competed, was on Saturdays.
And they had a category called Storytelling.
You know, they have debate and stuff like that.
But I said storytelling.
Wow, I can do that.
And so that I think, helped
bring me out of my shell, too,
because to be a storyteller, you can't be shy.
You have to be so engrossed and excited about your story
that your audience gets excited, too.
So that was that was good training.
And so in a way, I was very lucky
not to have a boyfriend.
-It It was their loss for sure.
Okay. So high school, though.
So you're you grew to be pretty independent and.
Right. More confident.
But then we're going to segue
into something that happened to you
while you're in high school.
You were walking home from school
and a stranger grabbed you.
And it was only because passersby intervened
that you were able to get away.
Now, Lori, before we talk about this,
I want you to
read this excerpt, if you wouldn't mind.
-Here we go.
Okay.
This was when I was in,
I want to say 10th grade.
So what does that make me?
15, 16 years old.
Okay.
Every time I relive this scary time in my mind,
I thank
God for putting that soldier and his wife right there.
Right then.
But I also feel a simmering rage.
I know this experience has skewed my attitude
toward sex.
Men just want to have sex.
Rape people.
They are animals.
I never sought counseling for this trauma.
Like a good Japanese girl,
I kept it to myself because of Haji.
The shame it would bring to me and my family.
Maybe it was my fault.
Should I have walked a different route?
Why didn't I scream louder and put up a fight?
Now I know it was not my fault
that I became a victim.
As I got older, I went on dates
but never had a serious boyfriend because I knew
what was coming.
A sex act wanted or not.
Only after positive relationships
with kind and gentle men over several years
did I feel safe enough to enjoy lovemaking.
Today, I applaud women who have the courage
to call out the brutes still among us.
These women reject being called a victim.
They are survivors. Brava!
(applause)
-Yeah.
Thank you for sharing that, Lori.
And it was really hard,
and I think especially during this time, I think women
have become more brave and being able to speak out.
And I mean, what would you like to tell,
I guess, young women and young girls,
you know, about what you went through
and what you hope they learn from it?
-Boy, I all I can say is
that you have to not blame yourself
if you become a person who is attacked, assaulted,
even if it doesn't go on to become a sexual assault,
it could have very well become one,
because the police later told me that there was a
a buddy of this guy waiting in the garage
down the street there.
And who knows what would have happened
with two versus one. Right.
And so I would tell women to put up a fight, scream,
yell, take self-defense classes.
And if it is something that cannot be prevented
and you do get assaulted, to not feel it's your fault,
because it's not it's not your fault.
And and to the men and
and even other bystanders out there,
please don't hesitate to be an advocate
or a rescuer or a hero like this soldier was.
He was just driving down the street with his wife
and he could see us, you know, in this tussle.
And I'm thinking, my God, can't you see my purse?
And my books are scattered on the ground
and I'm tugging, you know, tugging with this guy.
And he go, you know, so he stopped,
and thank goodness this soldier stopped.
And his wife saw him roll down the window
and he goes, “Hey, what's going on?”
And he the assaulter said, “this is nothing.
This is my girlfriend.
We're just having a fight.”
And to, you know, today that would not be acceptable.
We're just having a fight.
But back then. Right.
And the
soldier opened his door and said, “hey,
you just let her let her go.”
And so he did.
He let go and he scooted away.
And then his wife said, “Honey,
you come sit in this car and you wait.”
So they call the police. So
defend yourself if you find yourself
being assaulted and if you see
an assault happening, get involved.
Don't don't just stand by and say,
someone else will do it
because you might be the only person there.
You might be the only person that will stop something
very, very dangerous.
-You know, something
you mentioned to was Haji.
-Right.
-And shame and how it kept you silent.
And I think for many Japanese Americans, Haji
is something you're taught to carry
If you want to be seen as like
a good Japanese American,
you know,
and I know that that played a role in your life, right?
-It does.
And I don't know if other people can relate to this.
It's probably most common in Japanese American families,
but other Asian cultures to have this
do not bring shame to your family idea.
And so you don't say anything or do anything
that will bring shame and dishonor to your family.
So say you have a brother who has an addiction.
You don't talk about it, not even to your own other
family members about addiction.
You don't talk about needing help seeking help
because that would only bring shame to the family name.
And so Haji is a very destructive thing in that way.
On the other hand, Haji can
also be a positive thing because it keeps you in line.
And I think that's
what many of the parents were trying to do,
especially the first generation immigrant parents.
They're trying to keep their kids in line
and threatening their kids and saying,
“Don't you cause our family any shame?”
And so Asian kids tended to be very well behaved,
which which could have been good.
Which could have been bad, but Haji, you know,
both that good and bad element to it.
-Thank you.
You mentioned that your mom
was you know, Haji was part of her thing.
-She was really into Haji.
Don't don't mention you don't say anything.
You don't bring shame to your family
and it's and it's too bad.
I think today there's a lot more openness
people are willing to talk
about relatives who go to jail, for example,
for relatives who get pregnant,
you know, before they get married.
Those kind of things were not discussed before
because of Haji.
But now there's just
more openness and it's just a lot better
for people's mental health in general.
I really am glad that we're moving away
from that strict Japanese old school Haji.
-Okay,
Lori, let's move on and let's talk about journalism.
Okay?
Power, mentorship, and responsibility.
So early in your career, you write out of Stanford,
you got your first job
in lovely Redding, California, a small market.
Big lessons, right?
That's every every young journalist
I tell you start out
is a very small market and work your way up.
It was also very personally
significant because that's where you met Larry. Your husband.
-Yes. Larry, where are you?
There you are.
He was a director in in Redding.
And I was applying for a reporter anchor position.
And he was the one in the booth
when I did my audition.
So I'm doing my audition and I stumbled on a word.
And so Larry's tells me later,
I didn't think you were going to get the job.
-Did you really say that?
-So I was really surprised when you showed up
later and started working at the station.
And so that was the beginning of our three city romance.
We worked together in Redding,
and then I got a job in Portland, Oregon.
He got a job in Portland, Oregon.
And and
then we moved up to Seattle, which is actually where
Larry was raised.
And so we ended up in this in this beautiful city.
And we said, okay, third city,
it's about time we get married.
So that that's that's how that.
-And how long have you been married?
-This year it's going to be 44 years.
And 44.
And you'll read more about the book
because it wasn't exactly, you know, the Paradise flower
strewn path to romance that, you know, remember,
you're married and happy.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, Yeah.
Okay.
That's a that's another show,
but you can read it in the book.
-Okay.
So you ended up at KING 5.
You were at KOMO for a couple of years.
You ended up at KING 5 for 36 years.
You covered so many, so many things.
Right.
And we'll get into sort of what
your what was one of the most important,
important issues that you covered
and your legacy there. But,
you know, I know it was
you became one of the main anchors.
You traveled a lot.
But you also talk about a time when you were,
I think, passed over for a main anchor role.
-You would say, okay, this is important,
because when I first came to this city, this market,
it was in 1980, Mount St. Helens Right.
That's what was my first big story was,
yeah, I'm working the weekend shift.
my God, there's a volcano exploding
so that we can shift isn't always bad,
but even in 1980, it was still,
I would say, a pretty white market, television market.
They were still mostly white men on the anchor
and sports desks and weather and weathermen.
And there there were the, you know, one
white woman with all the men on the news desk.
So it was and the reporting staff was
largely Caucasian. And
so it was
not really representative representative of the city,
because the city, the region was very diverse in my mind.
And so it was important, I thought, that we,
you know, get the colors, get the colors in there.
And we started the third chapter
of the Asian American Journalists in 1983.
And so it was basically to start a pipeline
because I said,
you know,
a lot of
young people would become journalists
if they knew as a possibility.
So we have to tell them to go to college,
stay in college, study journalism,
and then we have to find them jobs and then get them
promoted to better jobs and get this pipeline going.
And so that was kind of our mission for
and it's been 40 years now since we started Asian
American journalists Association.
AAJA And in that time, I have to say that
not just this market, but markets across
the country have become so much more diverse.
So we have achieved a lot to the point
where we have to remind young Asian American journalists
in the field today,
hey, you know, it wasn't always this way.
We were so
isolated and so alone in the very beginning.
And so Asian American Journalists in print,
in magazines, on the radio, in broadcast,
we banded together and form this chain,
and we started pulling each other up this chain
with the goal of becoming decision makers, right?
We wanted that corner office.
We wanted to see Asian American CEOs,
news directors, executive producers, and
and now we're seeing a lot more,
you know, diversity on on the news sets, too.
- So it's sort of getting back to when you were
maybe passed over, do you think it had something
to do with the fact that you were Asian American?
-It might have.
I. I decided that I would just take
it as a hard knock because I was replaced.
I had
a weeknight. It was a victory for me.
I was named the weeknight 11:00 anchor at King,
and the first time they ever had a woman of color,
you know, taking that position.
And so I was very happy
we had a change of news directors,
and all of a sudden
I was called into the news director's office
and told
I was no longer going to be the anchor at 11 on King,
but I would be the anchor at 10:00 on Kong.
And I said,
“When are you going to tell everybody else?”
He says,
“Oh, in about 10 minutes when we have our staff meeting.”
So it was a decision that had been made.
No one knew it was coming
and I certainly didn't know was coming.
And poof, it happened.
And it was such a shock.
I think everybody in the newsroom was surprised.
I was surprised.
The media started calling you know,
John Levesque at The Seattle
Times was like calling, saying, “Hey,
what did I hear about this?”
And it was just, you know, chaos and my mind was blown.
I think, “Why?
Why is this happening to me?”
And at that time, I'd been working decades at KING 5.
I'd been working, you know, at least 15 years at KING 5.
So the community really,
really came out and the community wrote
they wrote in, they called, they called,
they wrote letters to the editor.
They wrote letters to KING.
I was so amazed that there was
this reaction from all kinds of folks. So
I still didn't get the job back.
I considered maybe I should do a lawsuit, but I didn't.
I didn't think I would be successful.
I couldn't prove beyond a doubt
that it was because I was Asian that I didn't
I lost the job.
So I said, “Okay, I'm
just going to stick around because I have to be there.
I can make I can make a difference
by just being there and sticking around on KONG
and making that newscast more successful.”
And it sounds Pollyannaish, I know, but you know,
I'd be better off sticking with this station than not.
So I just kind of stuck it out two years later.
This anchorwoman
that had been in my place left to something else.
And so they said, okay, we're going to do a
international or a nationwide search for her replacement.
And so I applied and
I had to audition with Dennis Bounds again.
I had to you know,
I only been anchoring with him for ten years.
“Okay.
I'll I'll audition with Dennis.” And
they they said, well,
“Can you now that she's gone,
can you fill in for her until we finish this search.”
I said “Sure, I'll fill in.”
And then I stayed in that anchor
chair for the next 13 years.
It was kind of nuts.
I didn't you know, it was like, okay, I'll stay.
So. -Wow.
-So being there makes a difference.
I was so convinced that being there mattered.
I just stayed there and it ended up okay.
It ended up okay.
-And I also want to mention
that she does write in the book,
which I think is
a little funny, that
when the community when there was a lot of
sort of outrage in the community,
I think they thought
that Lori was the one who instigated it,
which she didn't.
You know,
it was just a natural,
natural thing from the community that erupted.
And so, yeah, the news director said called them off
-Like call off the dogs or something like that.
I said, “What call off who?”
He said, “I know you told them to write letters.”
I said, “No, I didn't.”
And I was thinking, but “I should have.”
-Yeah.
-Why didn't I think of that? Yes.
-Well, Lori, you mentioned Dennis Bounds.
So you were longtime co-anchor with with Dennis.
He was awesome.
And when you're about well, when you left KING
You are close to when you were leaving
KING. There at
KING. they offered a buyout, right?
And they offered you and Dennis.
But only one of you, because your anchors
could take the buyout, But because you had seniority,
you could have you had first dibs, right,
to take the buyout, but you decided not to.
And Dennis was very happy to take it.
Right. Right. But tell us why.
Because you said you had one important series
story to tell before you retire.
-I did.
I had started working on a project
with photographer Dave Wike on the
what I considered
the ultimate incarceration series
for KING 5's archive library.
I said we have to have the definitive story
of Japanese American incarceration.
What happened?
Part two
What happened after they came back from camp
and what they faced,
including the redress movement?
Part three The little-told story
of the conflict between families of the the
the people who were incarcerated who volunteered
to fight in the military versus the people who
resisted, resisted the draft and protested
and had to serve time in prison for that.
And then we did a story on how do we continue
the telling the story and remembering the story.
And I did a whole series of
covered a lot of art,
art and storytelling methods that were being used
to tell the story, including Butoh, Butoh, dance, a
spoken-word, opera story, you know,
just children's books children's books, right?
All kinds of ways of telling
and retelling the story so no one
would forget the lessons.
So I, I said, I have to do this project
because so many people who had survived incarceration
were beginning to die off.
I would clip these obituaries every Sunday,
and by the time
I was done with the series, I had a whole manila folder
full of hundreds of obituaries.
And I'm like, “Oh oh my gosh,
we have to tell their story now, now, now.”
So I said, “I have no time to retire, Dennis, You retire.
And Dave and I are going to finish this series.”
-And what was great about that series, Lori
won her first Emmy with that series. Yes.
(applause)
And they still
at KING, they still refer to that series
and go back and it's still used as an archival piece.
-They still use it.
-So that is an incredible legacy
you have left KING and all of us for sure.
You know, one of the things I loved about
your memoir was that you're not afraid to name people
who had a huge impact in your life,
including local heroes who were really courageous
during the civil rights movement, community work.
And I also want mention that Lori, you know, in
everything that she did, she was she founded
AAJA, the Asian American Journalists Association,
and it was so important to have her as a mentor
to so many young journalists.
But also she was one of the co-founders
of the Japanese Cultural
and Community Center of Washington.
So she did all this
when she was still working at KING.
I don't know how she did it. -Exhausted all the time.
-Yeah, but I mean, these were so important to you, this
keeping your culture and and and mentoring young people.
And I know that there have been some
very influential women in your life.
Can you name
maybe a couple that have had a huge impact on your life?
-Well, I have to say, as
as set
as she was in her ways, I have to say
my mom was pretty influential, Haji and all.
She was pretty influential.
And she really, you know, fought for what she believed.
And I think that that spirit,
that spunk was part of what kind of rubbed off on me.
I was inspired, too, by a woman.
She's not a local woman, but she eventually
she was the founder of the Japanese American
National Museum.
Her name is Irene Hirano Inouye.
She eventually married the late Senator Inouye,
and she was a quiet behind the scenes person.
And that's kind of what I admired about her
and I tried to
emulate is like she did so much to help people
and she didn't care that she didn't
get the credit necessarily.
You know, she was on several boards,
influential ones, Casey Family, Carnegie,
you know, these mega boards she even took,
you know, was credited with saving the city of Detroit
from selling its art artwork in its art museum
and by rallying, you know, corporate
foundations to save Detroit.
And so, you know, people don't mention Irene
as saving Detroit, but she didn't care.
She says so long as they don't
have to sell that art collection to pay, you know,
for their union members, that's fine.
So I think Irene was really influential,
not taking credit, not being worried about
who gets the credit, just get the job done.
I think that's an important lesson, too.
-Definitely.
Yeah.
I want to like maybe pause a little here
and invite any questions that you might have for Lori.
I know that
I'll take a look at the iPad here,
but also if you wanted to come up to the microphone,
-I think it's I think it's over this way.
-I can't see it this way.
Yeah. Yeah.
I can see her not be afraid to ask questions of Lori,
but I'm going.
I'll just start it off before if first
I wanted to know, like,
of everything you've covered Mount St. Helens,
I think even you went to New York,
you went to Japan covering the the earthquake, tsunami.
What maybe had the most impact on you?
I think the biggest impact, I think my my most exciting
and eye opening story was when we followed Gary
Locke to his first trade mission to China.
This was a story that I pitched and we got to go,
and it was the hardest I had ever worked in my life.
And again, my hero, Dave Wike,
was my videographer on that shoot, too.
We were working 13 hour, 15 hour days
following Gary around. His first day
there, he decided to go on the Great Wall of China,
scoot up the stairs and fly a kite.
So here we are all
Dave and I are trying to follow him up these stairs.
And if you've ever seen those stairs, they're like
really large stairs.
They're not little steps.
They're like, you know, three feet
high, like four horses or something.
And so I'm trying to chase them.
I'm carrying this wooden tripod
and we're trying to chase after the governor.
And I said, “Oh, forget it.
This is just too much.
I'm going to wait and we're going to get him on
on his way down.”
So we're sitting there
on the Great Wall of China waiting for the governor,
and all of a sudden I start feeling really lightheaded
and I must have passed out because I
opened my eyes and I hear someone saying, “Is she okay?
Does she need water?”
And my photographer, Dave, said,
he said, “What, you scared me to death
because you just kind of
sank off the wall and into the floor.”
And he said, “if you had gone the opposite,
if you had gone back instead of four,
you would have fallen down
30 feet down the Great Wall of China.”
So I said, “Well,
thank you
for stopping me from falling off the Great Wall of China.”
And then, and then here comes the governor.
Okay, so you have to get up
and start chasing after him to do the interview.
So we had some words with Governor Locke, “Don't do that.
We're trying to cover your trip, so don't run away.”
So I think we we got to an understanding
and the rest of the trip was pretty good.
The rest of the trip, we got good coverage.
Exciting.
-Do you have any questions here?
-Don't be shy, everyone.
-All right.
I won't be shy,
but I will say I was one of the producers
at KING-TV for many, many years.
And working with Lori, I will always say that
probably of all the on-air talent,
you could have breaking news and you'd say to Lori,
we have 10 minutes.
So you whatever you think she'd be like,
I'm on this, right?
And you didn't have to think about it again.
You could go live on air and go to Lori
and she would have that.
absolute latest
give us 10 minutes or 2 hours, just the best.
And so working with Lori was a pleasure.
She was one of the most solid
people I've ever worked with, never failed to ever
say.
-Thanks, Diane.
That's so nice.
And now I can see that
some of you I can see a lot of KING 5
colleagues here. -Hi to the KING 5 folks! -Mimi Jung. Hi!
Hi, Mike James! -Look, Mike and Donna James right there.
I anchored
with Mike James, too, and it was a pleasure, Mike.
-Same here.
-So here's the deal.
Another reason I had to write
this book is there are people going into the business
who have never known that there was a time
where we used typewriters
in the newsroom, that we use five-ply carbon
paper scripts that we didn't have cell phones.
So how do we talk to the base?
We use the radio
and who remembers the KING 5 radio numbers?
Anybody? Anybody?
-KSB 4A Yeah, Yes.
Category five, right?
Yeah.
And and you have to say your unit number,
which is your car number, Unit two was a crew right?
Unit two and then unit ten, Right.
KSB 4A3
and you had to kind of call in your, your stories
sometimes using a payphone at the King County courthouse
and you had to wait in line until the guy from KIRO
finished his.
And it was like
really, really that was really bad.
That was really bad.
-Yes. We have a question.
-QUESTION Hi, Lori. -Hi, Barb.
-Hi. It's so great to see you.
I don't know that
all of you know
that besides being her
contributions to journalism, Lori
has just been a champion of the Japanese American
Asian American community in Seattle.
So I want to thank you for that.
But I do have a question,
and it has to do with the model
minority myth, which I'm sure you're familiar with.
I'm wondering what you think about it
and how you feel it either helped you or hindered you
in your career.
-That's a terrific question.
I think it hindered myself.
I hindered myself
with this model minority myth,
and it kind of goes back to that Haji thing, too.
You know, don't bring shame to your family.
Don't do anything that would,
you know, make you stand out, stick up.
Right. Be obnoxious. Yes.
So I did kind of try to be the good Japanese
girl and not cause trouble and not make waves.
And I thought by being nice and by being,
you know, pleasant and good,
it would get me far in journalism and no,
in this business,
you really have to be aggressive
and you have to toot your own horn.
You can't just
expect people to notice, “Hey, there's a good
there's a good, hardworking person.”
It doesn't happen that way.
So I think by kind of
absorbing my model minority myth in my own head,
I was my own worst enemy at times.
Yeah, I had to outgrow that.
-So what do you think about journalism now?
Has it gotten better?
Has it gotten worse since you were in it?
-In many ways, the journalism has gotten better
because the technology allows them to go into scenes
that they we didn't go into before.
We can go into courtrooms
now that we didn't go into before we could go into
jails, we can, you know, use smaller,
less obtrusive technology to cover events.
I think a people
because of the need to get the need for speed,
sometimes there's a lot of context in history
that's lost.
And so
my hope is that we focus on context and reason
and tell people why this is an important story.
I think that's lacking today's fast moving,
very short soundbite, limited news coverage.
So generally, I think the news coverage is
okay, but it could be a lot better.
And it's very scary that it's being attacked
by an administration that doesn't seem
to value this fourth estate.
And I fear for the fate
of the fourth estate in the US Supreme Court.
We have seen, you know, the US Supreme Court
with the whole incarceration of Japanese Americans thing,
that they make mistakes, that they are not,
you know, infallible.
And I just don't want to see a repetition of that,
a repeat of that today, just absolutely not.
And I'm fearful.
I'm fearful for the fourth estate today.
-Hi. Hi.
I'm glad that you brought that up.
I was going to comment on the very same thing
and ask you to say some more
about the First Amendment issues with journalism
these days, particularly vis-à-vis our administration.
Thank you.
-I can't speak
for all journalists, but I am afraid for our future.
I, I think we need
to all stand up and protect our local for example,
we all have to stand up and protect our local news,
whether it's our community papers,
whether it's the Seattle Times, whether it's right.
KUOW Right.
We have to be prepared to stand up and
protect our local journalism because journalism and news
is local, not The New York Times
cannot cover Seattle King County, Pierce County.
They cannot cover the state
of Washington like local news.
So we have to protect, defend, subscribe
to our local news first and then and then subscribe
to national news or regional news coverage
and and speak out in defense of journalists
because they they have an important job.
They are sometimes the only ones you can,
you know, really hope to get a smattering
of information from that is mostly true.
It's hard because they are kind of left
looking for reliable sources,
which may or may not be there.
So support your local
media in any way, shape or form that you can and
and stand up for journalists,
stand up for them, get them into the,
into the places they need to be.
Yeah.
-Lori, on that note, I want to ask you,
because as a journalist, you always had to pretty much
remain unbiased, you know, unbiased, right.
And really couldn't advocate
for certain issues and things.
So how did you how did you sort of maintain
that balance?
And also, what is it like now being outside of journalism
and being able to actually,
you know, freely protest if you want,
you know, be an advocate for for various issues?
-I think when I was at KING,
I had a a bit of license.
There was something called the minority report beat
and so that was reporting on
anything that happened in communities of color.
And for the longest time, there were a few of us
reporters of color in the KING newsroom
that were fiercely against being pigeonholed
as the minority affairs reporter.
You know, we didn't want to be labeled with that.
We don't want to be sent out to the Cinco
de Mayo celebration every year.
We didn't want to be the one sent out
to write the Bon Odori And every July.
And so, yeah, but I realized that
at some point if we didn't cover it,
it wouldn't get covered at all, which is even worse.
So I said, okay, if, if they want me to cover
minority communities, I'm going to cover them.
So I began covering all of the communities.
If it was,
you know, if it was
African American business days, I was out there
and if it was Latino, you know, Cinco de Mayo,
and if it was Native American salmon days,
every every ethnic group became my ethnic group.
And because if we if I didn't cover it,
nobody else was going to cover it.
And it gave me a little license
to kind of like be out there.
And so you end up
putting these communities of color
and their issues out there.
And I didn't get I didn't get pushback.
I don't know how that came to be.
I don't know.
People who are closer
to the administration maybe would know.
I don't know what the news honchos at KING 5 thought, but
if I was going to cover it.
And so that's why we covered the incarceration stuff
so much, because they didn't say anything.
So I just kept covering it.
Right. Be bold.
-Thank thank you for all your thoughtful questions.
Are there any more I just want to
put it out there just to see.
Here, we've got one more.
-And there's there's so much
that younger generations don't seem to know.
Who don't seem to get their news from
the local news from reading the paper.
Much more on the Internet and social media.
And do you think that
it's best to somehow engage
with that medium or how do you overcome that?
How do we get younger people to to actually watch
the news, read the news, or get reliable information?
-You can't tell them what to do.
What is your what is your what is your thought on that?
I, I don't know.
I don't think I could tell
any young person what to do or how to consume news.
-No, I yeah,
I don't think you can tell people, but that's
I guess that's part of my question is, is then
how does the
mainstream media then engage with that
you know, or transfer onto web based media?
I don't think you're going
to get people away from from social media
or from X
or all of those other little snippets of news.
But how do you get yourself out into that
lane?
-One one thing that I found helpful,
especially since I've been retired
and this leads to your question
about you know, you're a lot more free.
I'm a lot more free to, you know, express my opinion
and get active in various community events
because I'm no longer representing
a station or a company and I'm no longer
working as a journalist.
I'm not wearing a journalist hat.
I'm just a citizen with an opinion.
And so
what I
find important is being an advocate
and having a point of view and being willing to
share
knowledge with journalists, you know,
saying, hey, if you want to do a story about,
you know, I know Barb is is very involved in
efforts to track immigration, you know, ICE
and immigration
arrests and deportations out of King County Airport.
So if if you want to cover stories about deportation
flights out of King County Airport,
I know an organization that does that.
And I find, well, a certain amount of value
being a liaison between groups and media.
So maybe that's all I can do at this point,
but I think that's helpful.
You know, people will will call you up and say,
“Hey, Lori, who do we call about X, Y, Z?”
So there's value in being maybe a liaison or a bridge
between groups that have a point of view
and media and have the media decide,
is this a group that I want to talk to or not?
So maybe a liaison because you can't tell young
people, stop reading it on the Internet.
They're going to that's how they get their news.
That's how they get their news. -So
so, Lori, as we're wrapping things up,
besides writing a book and writing a children's book, too.
So you all know about her children's book, right?
One more question.
Sorry, I didn't see you there.
Go ahead. -Thank you.
So I did a lot of advocacy for a couple decades
trying to get national news
to be more diverse.
And since Connie Chung, we really haven't
had Asian Americans
at the top of the national not as national anchors.
And we also haven't
had that many who make it to producer levels.
And I came to learn that the producers controlled
so much about who got to tell what stories
and what the stories were going to be.
What is your thinking about why it's been so hard,
Asian Americans to really crack
that particular glass ceiling?
-Well,
I don't know what I look to the producers
out in the crowd.
Why do you think there aren't that many?
Why...you’re a producer.
-I don't I can't I really can't answer that.
-I the thinking of the news directors
and producers of color that I know.
I'm thinking of Janice Gin and all those people.
They have to have a lot of fire in the belly.
And so initially
a lot of us hajji,
all of us model minority were
we were kind of saddled
with things,
so we weren't able to have that fire in the belly
and just say to hell with this, I'm going to become
a news director, producer, you know, CEO or whatever.
So there are individuals
who have that fire in the belly,
and because they're behind the scenes,
you don't see them, but they are there.
And we just have to make sure that as an organization,
for example, AAJA, is out there promoting them.
When we promote them at our conventions,
we promote them
among organizations like The New York
Times, like CNN, and they're there.
It's just that maybe the general public
doesn't hear their names because producers,
you know, they work hard, they make the decisions.
They they do a lot to determine what you see,
but they're not the ones that get the credit,
but they're there.
And we just have to continue to encourage them.
And that's why
these young people who are getting all
their news on the Internet, we can't just
say, you're worthless.
They're not they are communicators.
They're communicating.
We just have to make sure that they have the context,
the wisdom,
the collective knowledge that we all kind of hold
and we keep this we keep this connection
and we help advocate for each other.
-Yeah,
critical thinking as well.
Anyone else?
Do we have any more questions?
One more here.
-As you look back at your career
like everybody else, you knew something
and I saw you come up to this microphone
after 20 years year.
You also have a reporting running for the
I'm sorry.
you're totally familiar with
you know, as
you look back at your career
and I think like everybody else, we have some regrets.
So I was wondering,
what would you say situation that you've encountered
that you wish you could have a do over?
I'll be curious about that.
-So know for
you know, I really how I don't know.
The biggest decision I ever made in my career
was whether to go to the network or stay in Seattle.
Right.
Because it was everybody's dream at the time.
I'm going to go work for the network, right?
Everybody wants go to that big job.
And I sometimes wonder
if I, you know, did I blow it
when I chose to stay here instead of go to work in L.A.
for NBC?
But it's only a wonder.
It's not a regret.
And I don't want to do over.
I think I even I made the right decision for me.
But I really am curious what would have happened
if I had gone to L.A., Our family.
that would have been that.
Yeah, I think
-I think you mentioned
that you did have that opportunity to go to L.A.,
but because of your family, right, Larry?
A new son. Right.
Those all came into play.
And then also you ended up doing big stories
that where, you know, I think she used to
think, Lori must tackle NBC News, right?
-Tokyo, right?
Yeah, That was my big dream, Tokyo
Russia, you know, so, you know Moscow.
But I so then I gave up this NBC job
because knowing NBC,
I probably would have ended up being Lori
Matsukawa, NBC News, Portland, Oregon.
Right.
Because your
your your whole set, the whole West
Coast is now your beat.
So on any given day,
you'd be in Ellensburg or you'd be in, you know,
Yuba City, Arizona.
So after I said, No, I'm going to stay at KING,
then KING starts sending me
to Japan and El Salvador and, you know, China.
And I'm going like, okay, this is good.
So again, astonishing, isn't it?
Isn't it astonishing?
So that's why I had to write it down.
It's like, so astonishing.
But I did want
the young people today to know Mike James, that it
it was a there was a time when, yes,
we used typewriters and five-ply carbon script paper.
So thanks so much.
And if you if you do buy the book,
please be merciful, because I'm not really an author.
I'm just basically as a journalist scribe,
I'm just describing through my eyes
what we all went through a tremendous amount of change
technologically, socially and in the industry too,
and in among the genders and everything great.
-We have another question.
-Hello. Hello.
So my question is, what are your thoughts about
we've talked a little bit about,
you know,
different media
channels that people are getting their news from now.
What are your thoughts about people
who've been in network, in
print journalism, web journalism,
striking out on their own and becoming
independent journalists and all that as a trend?
Because now people are following personalities
without having the backing of an organization.
So what are your thoughts about that?
Is the trend in journalism, in news?
-I hope that that they will continue
to be truth tellers first and foremost
if they are truth tellers as well as storytellers
we need them.
We need this fourth estate to keep our country
balanced, democracy safe.
Our democracy protected.
We need an informed public.
I'm hoping that they will, through media,
keep people engaged somehow
and if it's on the Internet, so be it.
I mean, our
our own son gets all of his news on the Internet,
but hopefully there are reputable
sources of news on the Internet.
And there are there are reputable sources.
So, you know, let's keep them all informed.
Let's keep them engaged.
The worst would be to not engage at all.
That would be the worst.
-And I think donating and supporting independent
journalism like NPR, right.
There's The 19th, which is a women run
independent journalism organization.
And, you know, shout out to Connie Ballmer
who's who stepped up.
Yeah, that's right.
To support NPR.
So I think we just yeah, we just need to keep
supporting these independent journalists.
So, Lori, this has been really amazing.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you for so much for bringing so much.
I guess, joy, creativity to
as well as your
just being such an incredible role model,
really for all of us.
And kindness
and courage and community are so important to you.
And I do have one last gift for you.
-I love gifts. That that may bring this full circle.
So I want you to open it.
my goodness.
It says Mimi on it.
Oh no! Are you ready?
Poi balls!
-Come on, Lori.
You still got it in You do?
You still have it in you? Come on. No.
No? Just a little bit.
Come on. Just a little bit.
Yes! -Mimi!
-Oh oh my gosh.
-I knew you'd hate me for it.
This is crazy.
Okay, true story.
I actually made a pair of poi
balls for the Obama girls when they were much younger,
but there is still in the White House. Okay.
And I got a thank you letter from Michelle.
(chatter)
(cheering and applause)