Tokyo staffers Mari Yamaguchi, reporter; Haruka Nuga, senior producer; and Eugene Hoshiko, chief photographer, scored reported beats thanks to careful planning and virus precautions both before and during a trip to Hiroshima for live coverage of the 75th anniversary of the first use of an atomic bomb in World War II.
Koko Kondo speaks during an interview with the AP near Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, western Japan, Aug. 5, 2020. Kondo was determined to find the person who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, western Japan, the person that caused the suffering and the terrible facial burns of the girls at her father’s church – and then square off and punch them in the face. Ten-year-old Kondo appeared on an American TV show called “This is Your Life” that featured her father, Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, one of six survivors profiled in John Hersey’s book “Hiroshima.” Kondo stared in hatred at another guest: Capt. Robert Lewis, co-pilot of B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the bomb.
AP Photo / Eugene Hoshiko
Koko Kondo prays at the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims near Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, western Japan, Aug. 5, 2020.
AP Photo / Eugene Hoshiko
Lee Jong-keun, an atomic bomb survivor, speaks after a memorial service for Korean atomic bomb victims in front of Monument to Korean Victims and Survivors at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan, Aug. 5, 2020. Lee kept his experience as an atomic bombing survivor secret for nearly 70 years, not even telling his wife, always fearing people might notice the burn marks on his face. But today Lee, a second-generation Korean born in Japan, is training young people to tell survivors’ stories, as well as the difficulties that Koreans have faced in Japan.
AP Photo / Eugene Hoshiko
Visitors observe a minute of silence for the victims of the atomic bombing, at 8:15 a.m., the time atomic bomb exploded over the city, at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park during the ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the bombing, in Hiroshima, western Japan, Aug. 6, 2020.
AP Photo / Eugene Hoshiko
Their efforts paid off with exclusives in all formats as they talked with survivors eager to tell their stories to a world that many feel is forgetting the events Aug. 9, 1945. One widely used piece told the story of a tram conductor who drove through Hiroshima as a girl, past huge piles of rubble and decomposing bodies just three days after the bomb exploded. Another profiled a Korean survivor who spoke of how he hid his role as a bomb survivor for decades.
The live coverage of the anniversary event was so fast that Hoshiko was able to push photos directly from his camera to the desk, allowing the photos to hit the wire within minutes of the ceremony’s start. The trio’s coverage made an impression, used by news outlets worldwide. Even major Japanese publications leaned heavily on AP’s coverage, sometimes over the work of their own journalists.
The Atomic Bomb Dome is seen in dusk in Hiroshima, western Japan, Aug. 4, 2020. The building was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996, in a call for a non-nuclear world and world peace.
AP Photo / Eugene Hoshiko