Jason Douglas, the new Tokyo Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), grew up reading Tintin, in part sparking his early interest in journalism. Tintin, the globe-trotting journalist in “The Adventures of Tintin” graphic novels, investigates political conspiracies in China and even encounters a Yeti in the Himalayas. While Douglas has yet to meet a Yeti, he has covered politics and economics in China.
Douglas, in an interview with the Todai Shimbun, provided unique insights into the life of a foreign correspondent, the editorial processes behind articles, and the future of journalism amidst AI. (Interview by Kamil Zeribi, Photos by Mutsuki Tanabe)
The WSJ, an American-based newspaper founded in July 1889, had the largest print circulation in the United States as of 2025 and has approximately four million digital subscribers around the world. The WSJ operates 85 bureaus across 51 countries. As Tokyo Bureau Chief, Douglas manages on-the-ground reporting, pitches stories, and edits articles to deliver back to a primarily American audience.
After graduating from university, Douglas started his career at his local newspaper in Belfast. He moved to London in 2007 to work for Dow Jones & Co. as a newswire reporter, allowing him to get his foot in the door and eventually transition to the WSJ in 2012. As Douglas became an economics writer, his focus increasingly shifted eastward, where he felt Asia was the “story of the century”. He moved to Singapore in 2022 as the WSJ’s Asia economics reporter in the midst of pandemic restrictions, mainly covering China’s role in the global economy.
Experience covering China proved to be an important foundation for his transition to Tokyo in July 2025, where Douglas now focuses on issues such as national defence, the economy, and Japan’s shift from post-war pacifism — all shaped by China’s growing regional influence. Days after his arrival in Japan, Douglas was thrust into domestic politics, with an upper house election on 20 July, followed soon after by the prime minister’s resignation. He became “totally immersed in Japanese politics and the rise of Prime Minister Takaichi”, who he described as the “most interesting prime minister Japan has had for quite some time”.
With the important job of covering these events, Douglas has to find stories about Japan that would also be interesting to the WSJ’s audience. He not only has to think about how to authentically represent a country that he has just arrived in, but also “how to present stories for an American audience”. For example, the WSJ, while covering domestic politics, places more emphasis on questions that are relevant to Americans, such as “What does she [Takaichi] mean for the US alliance? What does she mean for defence? What does she mean for Japan’s geopolitical outlook?” This draws him towards sources that can interpret Japan for an international audience.
At the same time, being new to Japan and learning Japanese, Douglas is self-aware of possible biases such as overreliance on English-speaking sources and says “as a foreign correspondent, you have to be extremely humble”. He works closely with Japanese colleagues to find local experts and overcome language barriers in interviews in order to bring Japanese perspectives into stories. He also has to be aware of sensitive subjects in Asia, such as conflicting territorial claims across the First Island Chain. In such cases, the WSJ attempts to include all relevant names to “acknowledge the fact that there’s a dispute”, for example referring to Japanese-administered islands in a recent article as the “Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands”, the Japanese and Chinese names. This sometimes results in phone calls from embassies “asking you to pop in for a chat because they are unhappy about this”.
However, despite the sensitivities surrounding international reporting, the process for writing an article remains relatively straightforward. When considering a topic, Douglas first picks up the phone to call economists about any abnormalities, notable data or recent trends. He gathers further information from reading, thereby forming an angle or assertion. Next, assertions must be supported by corroborating data. The “final piece of the puzzle”, especially for abstract articles, is to find real-world examples of people being affected. Douglas provided the example of AI, which has the potential to replace jobs. Finding someone who lost their job and sharing their experience will make the story tangible and impactful for a reader. Once all of this is done, the writing begins.
While writing remains strictly the work of the journalists at the WSJ, AI has proven “a positive thing” for Douglas, reducing time-consuming aspects of the job such as researching interviewee subjects, translation, and scanning interview transcripts. The WSJ has started embracing AI, noticeably with the addition of AI summaries at the beginning of every article that are checked by an editor before publication. However, Douglas cautions that journalists still need to be aware of its shortcomings. He notes that although “an AI model might be able to take a company’s earnings statement and spit out a story”, it is unable to do on-the-ground reporting, a crucial component to writing a “really good story”.
AI may make reporting more efficient for established reporters, but the reduction of entry-level work, which has been traditionally delegated to aspiring young journalists, could have consequences. The reduction in these entry-level positions will likely reduce opportunities for aspiring journalists to gain necessary skills, exposure, and experience. When Douglas began his career, he was reading corporate earnings statements and writing stories 20 times a day, allowing him to simultaneously build other skills and learn how to operate in a newsroom. Now, Douglas worries that “an aspiring reporter has to join a newsroom and basically be an experienced reporter from the get-go”.
Of course, today’s media industry is not the same as it was before AI, mobile phones, and TikTok, with new opportunities through video, audio, and podcasts. In other words, “more opportunities to do different types of reporting than there were when I began”, said Douglas. Young journalists already have an advantage as digital natives who understand how to present themselves and stories online. Most people don’t read newspapers in print — they read on their phones. As Douglas paraphrases editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, the WSJ app is competing “with everything else on their phone for 20 minutes of their attention”. While presentation used to be an afterthought, decisions about whether a story appears in print, with graphics, or in video format are now crucial for retaining readers’ attention and conveying information effectively. Even then, Douglas still considers the bedrock of journalism to be “telling stories well, writing well and being curious about the world”, which has remained “consistent throughout time”.
But journalism faces a range of unprecedented challenges from major layoffs at the Washington Post, the proliferation of AI, to increasing political polarization. This impacts not only journalists, but also makes it difficult for readers to know which information to trust. Douglas suggests, although “slightly self-serving”, that when deciding which newspapers to trust, readers should analyse the audience rather than the publication itself. He points to financial news organisations such as Reuters, Bloomberg or the Financial Times whose readers “have to make big decisions about large amounts of money and absolutely demand accurate information to make those decisions”.
Although the future of journalism remains uncertain, Douglas reminds us that from economic necessity, there will always be demand for objective reporting among readers who cannot afford to be wrong.
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International Journalism with the Wall Street Journal’s Tokyo Bureau Chief 2026 IUSTITIA.BG – Investigations 2009-2025 2026-05-28 02:00:29
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