That's a Wrap
/
After 36 years anchoring the news, KING (Seattle) Anchor Lori Matsukawa called it a career on Friday.
The longtime Anchor was offered a buyout from Tegna back in 2016, but she said she still had work to do and turned it down.
The Seattle Times writes that for the next year, she worked on a series about Japanese American internment and redress, “Prisoners in Their Own Land.” It aired in 2017, on the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced internment of around 120,000 people along the West Coast during World War II. The series earned Matsukawa a regional Emmy — her first — the following year.
“That was the exclamation point on my career. I said, ‘This is it. This is everything I could have hoped for,'” Matsukawa recently recalled. “Once that project was done, I felt I did my big opus, and I thought, ‘Now I can retire and be happy.'”
In her nearly four decades as a broadcast journalist in Seattle, Matsukawa is known not only known for her awards, but for mentoring countless young journalists and fostering deep community connections. She co-founded both the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington and the Seattle chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).
“She pioneered the idea of a journalist being really involved in the community,” said Ron Chew, another founder of AAJA Seattle. “Lori never had that kind of division in her life. She was always at community events for nonprofits and on community boards, all while maintaining a professional career that had great integrity.”
She anchored her last show Friday at 11PM.
Matsukawa says she is ready to retire. She and her husband plan to stay in the Seattle area, but look forward to having more time to travel and see their son, who lives in California. But it feels bittersweet to leave the station, she said.
“People grow to feel like they know you. You’re in their living rooms and bedrooms every day. And in a way, I feel like I know them,” Matsukawa said. “It’s kind of sad to leave that relationship I have with viewers. But it’s a good time to retire.”
