NewsPicks Global Unit Established to Strengthen the Team’s International News Reporting and Curation

NewsPicks Inc., a group company of Uzabase Inc., hereby announces the establishment of a new global unit within the NewsPicks Editorial Team.

NewsPicks has been expanding its international news section since Takashi Kawabata, who specialises in ASEAN economy and politics, joined in August 2015, and Tsuyoshi Nojima, who is well-versed in the culture, history, and politics of East Asia centred on Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, joined in September 2016.

This time, NewsPicks welcomes Takashi Yokota, the former chief editor of Newsweek Japan who has been active at the media foreground, and Yuki Kou, who worked at major TV stations as the director of news programmes and a special correspondent in New York, thereby establishing its new global unit.

Utilising the social networks woven by its members, NewsPicks will continue to curate and report international news, dealing with a wider range of topics covering international politics, economy, and society. Based on the facts evidenced by its thorough interviews, NewsPicks aims to deliver international news in a simpler, more comprehensible, and more familiar way to our readers.

In future, NewsPicks plans to establish a branch office in Silicon Valley California, USA, to conduct interviews and acquire information on technology, business, and start-ups through a local point of view of the birthplace of countless innovations, and deliver news via video streaming and original articles.

The NewsPicks Global Unit under the Editorial Team will provide explanations for the drastically changing world through various viewpoints, and present the real, original pictures of the global society, including that of Japan.
 

Comment from Norihiko Sasaki, NewsPicks Editor-in-Chief

Picturing the latest global landscape faster, more accurately, and in a simpler way – this is what NewsPicks is aiming for in its international news reporting. Having a broader understanding on global news enables one to encounter more ideas and expand one’s network in the economic, political, and business world, as well as in daily life. We will deliver news and provoke curiosity for our readers, and hope that they realise how interesting the world is and aspire to venture overseas.
 
The Global Unit of NewsPicks Editorial Team: Member Profiles

Takashi Yokota, NewsPicks Chief Global News Editor and Deputy Editor-in-Chief

Takashi Yokota was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1977 and grew up in San Francisco, USA. After graduating from the Environment Intelligence Department of Keio University in 1999, Yokota worked at the Tokyo branch of US weekly news magazine TIME from 1999 to 2000. In 2001, Yokota graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. After working as a reporter at the Tokyo branch of Los Angeles Times, he joined Newsweek Japan in 2003, and became the special correspondent for both Newsweek USA and International in 2009. From October 2010 to July 2017, Yokota was the editor-in-chief for Newsweek Japan.
 
Comment from Takashi Yokota
I look to expand NewsPicks’s international news coverage by utilising the expertise and experience I gained at my previous workplace as the editor-in-chief of Newsweek Japan and as a special correspondent in Tokyo for Newsweek International. Adhering to journalistic objectivity while retaining a unique point of view, I will deliver news articles about the world and Japan in its original form.

Yuki Kou, Global Content Producer
 
Yuki Kou worked as the director and journalist of news programmes in TV stations headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. She engaged in the social and economic news departments, and had been sent to the New York branch for five years in 2009 to report on the significant recovery of the US economy, which was underpinned by the IT industry. Under the impact of technological innovations that form the driving force for the US economic growth, Kou resigned in 2016 and has since been making full efforts to learn the possibility of digital media and new approaches in news reports as a visiting scholar at Stanford University.
 
Comment from Yuki Kou
With the enhancing connectivity in the world along with the evolving technologies, I realised that it is increasingly important to understand news from different angles. I want readers to feel that the world is just as close to us as the air we breathe. Through a mix of media channels including videos, texts, and photos, I aim to deliver news in an unprecedented and the most impressive way to our readers through NewsPicks.
 
 
About NewsPicks
NewsPicks is an economic news platform equipped with social networking functions. In addition to articles from 90 foreign and domestic media outlets, the service also delivers original articles by the NewsPicks editorial staff. NewsPicks users can check comments by prominent figures and experts from a variety of industries, thereby gaining an understanding of news from various perspectives.
With the NewsPicks Premium Service (JPY 1,500/month; JPY 1,400/month for the iOS version), users can access NewsPicks original content and read carefully selected articles from the world’s top media sources, such as The Wall Street Journal. In addition, NewsPicks also offers the NewsPicks Academia subscription (JPY 5,000/month), which enables users to participate in special lectures by well-known industry professionals and delivers NewsPicks Books each month.
 
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