AP names Moritsugu bureau chief for Japan

BANGKOK (AP) The Associated Press has named its Asia-Pacific enterprise editor, Ken Moritsugu, as chief of bureau for Japan.

The appointment was announced Tuesday by Brian Carovillano, the news organization's Asia-Pacific news director.

As Tokyo bureau chief, Moritsugu will oversee text coverage and operations in Japan and work closely with colleagues in photos and video to coordinate AP's report across all media platforms. He succeeds Malcolm Foster, who has transferred to AP's Asia-Pacific headquarters in Bangkok as an editor.

Since joining the AP as enterprise editor based in Bangkok in 2007, Moritsugu has overseen major projects and in-depth, investigative and data journalism throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

He was the lead editor for "China's Reach," a multi-format data-driven series that won a "Best in Business" award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in 2012. After the 2011 tsunami and earthquake in Japan, he worked with reporters across the region to convey the human side of the tragedy and uncover what went wrong at the Fukushima nuclear plant and why.

Moritsugu, 50, started his reporting career for The Japan Times in Tokyo from 1984 to 1987. He later was a reporter at the St. Petersburg Times and Newsday, an economics correspondent in Washington for Knight-Ridder and a New Delhi-based freelance journalist. At Newsday, he was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800.

He is a past recipient of a Jefferson Fellowship from the East-West Center, a Journalists in Europe fellowship to study and work in Paris and the inaugural South Asian Journalists Association fellowship to produce a multimedia report on the challenges of reconstruction after the 2004 tsunami in South and Southeast Asia.

Moritsugu is vice president for print of the Asian American Journalists Association after having been president of both the Asia and New York chapters. Under his leadership, the Asia chapter quadrupled its membership, launched a regional conference in Hong Kong and won AAJA Chapter of the Year honors twice.

"Ken is a wise and inquisitive journalist who is always asking the smart question," Carovillano said. "He has been such a great asset to AP as enterprise editor. I look forward to his strong leadership in Tokyo."

Born in Montreal, Moritsugu is a naturalized U.S. citizen who holds an undergraduate degree in economics with a certificate in East Asian Studies from Princeton University.