Profile

Sonja Blaschke is a multilingual freelance journalist, magazine editor, news desk editor, author and line producer from Germany based in Japan. She moved to Tokyo in July 2005 and speaks Japanese fluently. She reports mostly about East Asia, especially Japan and Taiwan. In 2013 she lived several months in Taiwan, from 2016 to 2018 she also spent many months in Australia & New Zealand.

Sonja Blaschke Freelance East Asia and Oceania correspondent

Sonja Blaschke is a multilingual freelance journalist, magazine editor, news desk editor, author and line producer from Germany based in Japan. She moved to Tokyo in July 2005 and speaks Japanese fluently. She reports mostly about social issues, politics and current events like natural disasters in East Asia, especially Japan and Taiwan. In 2013, she lived several months in Taiwan, from 2016 to 2018 she also spent many months in Australia & New Zealand. After many years working as a line producer, she directed her first TV documentary „Rice Fields Instead of Tokyo“ in 2022 about young people moving from Tokyo to a remote mountain village to take up rice farming. In her spare time, you are most likely to find her at rock & metal gigs all over the world. Sonja will attend about 70 concerts and festivals a year, about which she writes online.

E-mail info@sonjablaschke.com
Phone Japan +81-90-1103-8299

instagram.com/itravelformetal

Services

Writing in German and English for print, online and corporate publishing media
Since 2010 line producer & stringer for TV and film productions in Japan for public broadcasters such as ARD and ZDF (was responsible for „green topics“ at the ZDF studio in Tokyo during the 2020/21 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as flagship science and documentary programmes such as „Terra X“), and for documentaries for TV and cinema release
In 2022, documentary debut as author and director with „Rice Fields Instead of Tokyo: Young Women in the Japanese Countryside“ (30 minutes) as part of the „NZZ Format“ series (broadcast on SRF1, SRF Info and 3sat in 2022 and 2023)
Since 2016 overnight newsdesk editor (nzz.ch) and member of the newsletter team („Morning Briefing“) of Swiss newspaper „Neue Zürcher Zeitung“ (NZZ)
Since 2017 freelance editor-in-chief of the only German-language business magazine focusing on Japan („Japanmarkt“), published by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Tokyo
Live broadcasts on camera on current affairs, mainly in English, for Deutsche Welle and other broadcasters such as Wion (India), Welt TV & NTV (Germany)
Speaking engagements at universities and academic institutions in Germany and Japan

Experience abroad

2016-18: Stays of several months (about 2 years in total) in Australia and New Zealand to expand the reporting area
2013: Five-month stay in Taiwan (attended language school to learn Mandarin)
In Tokyo since July 2005, in the first year as a fellow of the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation, a programme implemented by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ)
1999: Semester abroad as a student at a community college in Ohio, USA, and internship abroad in Spain (music publishing)

Qualifications:

Academic degree: Diplom-Kulturwirtin Univ., International Business & Cultural Studies (focus: UK and USA) at the University of Passau (Germany)
Additional degree: Journalist, correspondence course in specialist journalism at the Freie Journalistenschule Berlin (Germany)
Several stints of working in the music business: record company (BMG in Munich, Germany), music publishing (Warner/Chappell in Madrid, Spain) and radio (76.1 InterFM in Tokyo, Japan)
Foreign languages: fluent in English, Japanese, Spanish and French; five years of Latin, basic knowledge of Italian, Chinese and Russian
Driver’s license

Passions

Ever inquisitive traveller and explorer
Open-minded music enthusiast – everything from classical music to metal – and avid concertgoer (blog about personal concert travel on Instagram)