Miki Ebara - Board of Governor
Miki Ebara is a veteran television journalist and documentarist, based in Tokyo, Japan.
Born in Tanabe, Wakayama in 1963, Miki was raised in Osaka by two parents who were both public school teachers. In 1980-81, Miki spent a year in Little Rock, Arkansas as an exchange student on the American Field Service, non-profit, international youth exchange program. She still considers her loving host-parents and 6 siblings her second family. Miki graduated from Little Rock Central High School in 1981, and Ikuno High School in Osaka in 1982, and received a Rotary Foundation scholarship to study journalism at University of Missouri. She graduated from Osaka University with a B.A in World History in 1987. While in university, Miki volunteered for AFS programs, by fund-raising, organizing camps for international students, and finding Japanese host-families.
After graduating university, Miki joined NHK, Japan’s public television network as a reporter in 1987. She covered various local stories from crime to election for 4 years, and moved to London where her profession as a foreign correspondent took off. For the following three decades, she was based in London, Bangkok and New York, covering wars and conflicts such as in Bosnia, the Middle East, 9-11 attacks in New York, Afghanistan and Iraq. She also reported from regions affected by natural disasters, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami and the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. Miki was one of very few Japanese female foreign correspondents and her stories focusing on humanity were well received by Japan’s public.
She and her team won the Ricardo Ortega Memorial Prize for their series of coverage of nuclear disarmament issue in 2010 at the UN. Miki also got a M.A in South East Asian studies from Chulalongkorn University while she was a Bangkok Correspondent.
From 2013, Miki worked with NHK’s world service for 10 years. She was the Editor-in-Chief for NHK WORLD and its Chief International Correspondent, then became Executive Producer. She was responsible for 24 hours news operation and at the same time, produced many notable documentaries, again with her focus on humanity. Examples include;
A Vanished Dream https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/3004674/
The Fallen Fortress https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/3004783/
SAMURAI WALL https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/3016060/
Art is Our Voice https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/3016129/
In 2023, Miki left NHK and became a contributor to NHK World as an independent journalist.