Excerpts from the Japan Media Review.

"Tomoko Ohji is one of just a handful of women working as a news reporter at one of Japan's top newspapers -- she works at Japan's No. 3 paper, the Mainichi Shimbun.

But that's not what makes her extraordinary: This year, Ohji won one of Japan's top journalism awards -- the Japanese Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association Editorial Division Awards -- for the second year in a row. The association has given out this award since 1957, but Ohji is the first woman to ever win it. She may also be the only person -- male or female -- to ever win the prize two years in a row.

Ohji won the 2002 award for an article that showed that the federal Defense Agency had illegally gathered information on people who used Japan's new Freedom of Information law to request information about the agency.

She won the 2003 award for an investigation that found that the Defense Agency illegally collected information on potential army recruits.

Her articles were published as Japanese legislators were considering new laws governing personal privacy. As a result of her articles, legislators toughened up the Personal Information Protection Law, adding harsher punishments for officials who violate the rules and adding stronger privacy protections.

"We have some 90 people in our section, but women occupy less than one-tenth. ... So, a female reporter receiving the award for the first time isn't because women are inferior or something, it is simply because of the percentage [of the female reporters in companies]. If we had more female reporters, they would definitely get awards."

Born in 1965, Ms. Ohji studied at Waseda University in Tokyo. Upon graduation, she became a reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun, and worked in bureaus in Hanshin, Kobe and Yokohama. She also worked for the magazine "Sunday Mainichi." Since 2001, she has been a news reporter at the company's Tokyo office.