By Chris S. Nishiwaki
For the Northwest
Asian Weekly
(This article was copied with permission from the Northwest Asian Weekly).
The career of Los Angeles Times reporter Evelyn Iritani started innocently enough with an article in a University of Washington internal publication while she was a student there in the late 1970s.
This past April, the UW alum and former Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter reached the pinnacle of journalism when she won the Pulitzer Prize for her seven-part investigative series on Wal-Mart. The three-day series ran in late November and was co-written by Abigail Goldman, Nancy Cleeland and Tyler Marshall.
Iritani becomes the third Asian American with Northwest ties to win the top prize in journalism since 1997, joining Byron Acohido and Alex Tizon, both of whom won the prestigious award in ’97 while working at The Seattle Times.
Acohido won for beat reporting for his detailed investigation of rudder control problems on the Boeing 737, which contributed to new FAA requirements for major improvements. The team of Tizon, Eric Nalder and Deborah Nelson won the Pulitzer for their investigation of widespread corruption and inequities in the housing program for Native Americans, which triggered federal reform.
In the late 1970s Iritani was majoring in communications. She figured she could parlay her love of reading and writing and her sales skills into a successful career in public relations.
“One of the things that I discovered was that I wasn’t very good at selling things,” Iritani said sheepishly.
As required of communications majors, she enrolled in a news-reporting class taught by Ken Jackson.
“Part of what we had to do was write for a publication,” Iritani recalled during a phone interview from her home office in the Los Angeles suburb of South Pasadena. “In my case, it was a minority-education publication. It wasn’t more than a newsletter. I don’t even know the name.”
Writing that article kindled new passions in Iritani. She appreciated that journalism could serve as a social equalizer and a communication avenue.
“I discovered that I really like journalism,” Iritani said. “It appealed to the part of me that wants to be an educator and to the one that is curious and wants to know why things work the way they do.
“We needed to have a watchdog for the poor, minorities and those who don’t have a voice. I got really excited about that.”
Iritani went on to write for the school newspaper, The Daily, alongside future Pulitzer-winning P-I cartoonist David Horsey and future local comedian John Keister.
True to her humble journalism beginnings, Iritani remains humble despite winning the coveted Pulitzer.
“It’s a tremendous honor and very humbling at the same time,” Iritani said. “(Reporters) are risking their lives covering the war in Iraq and to be singled out for a Pulitzer, it’s quite humbling.
“I always say, ‘You are only as good as your last story,’” she said. “I feel like I’ll be judged on what I am publishing tomorrow. And now I am struggling with what I am writing for tomorrow.”
Born in Champaign, Ill., to an academic family, Iritani grew up in Aberdeen, Idaho, and eventually moved to Pullman during junior high. Her father had accepted a teaching job at Washington State University. Iritani attended the UW, where she met the man who would become her husband, Roger Ainsley, now the assistant foreign editor for The Los Angeles Times. Their daughter, Shaara, graduated from UC-Santa Barbara last month. Their son, Nicholas, will be entering his senior year of high school next fall.
Iritani accepted her first full-time job, with the P-I, upon graduation from the UW in 1978 and stayed there until 1995, when she accepted the foreign correspondent job in L.A. From her home office and occasional trips abroad, she covers business in Asia and its impact on the United States.
While reporting a feature story on China’s increasing clout in the global manufacturing industry, Iritani discovered that Wal-Mart was responsible for 10 percent of U.S.-China trade revenue. Iritani also discovered that Wal-Mart accounted for 57 percent of all supermarket sales in Mexico.
“I told myself, ‘We have to come back and take a closer look at that,’” Iritani recalled about the genesis of the series. “I don’t know if this is a truism, but if you think back to important stories, there are one or two facts you can’t forget. Whether that is a person or a number, that something really grabs your attention. It was kind of those jaw-dropping facts.”
Iritani delved into details of the true socioeconomic cost of buying a polo shirt from Wal-Mart for $8.63; the burden on the rank-and-file textile workers in East Asia and Central America who have to manufacture more shirts for a lower per-shirt profit just so their employer can retain its contract with Wal-Mart; the effect on diets and the economy in Mexico because consumers there were frequenting Wal-Mart instead of shopping for fresh produce from local family-owned fruit and vegetable stands.
L.A. Times readers caught on quickly to the investigative series dubbed “The Wal-Mart Effect.” Readers responded overwhelmingly and immediately to the articles.
“I realized that we succeeded in what we did when we received an outpouring of response for the coverage,” Iritani said. “People read it and read it thoroughly. They would say, ‘I read it and now I really realize how the global economy works. I’ll think twice before shopping at Wal-Mart.’”
Readers’ opinions have changed, but Iritani hasn’t. She remains very modest. She continues to write from her home office so she can spend time with her son. Her daughter remains close to her, too.
“That is my most important legacy. It is my kids,” Iritani said.
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