I have a talent for pissing people off. I’m sure it comes from a personality defect, of which I have many, and I will strive to…
I have a talent for pissing people off. I’m sure it comes from a personality defect, of which I have many, and I will strive to work on improving my generally surly nature.
However, while I’m surly I don’t delight in the suffering of other people. Unfortunately, I have a cyberstalker who does. And when he can’t get to me, he attacks my friends. Or uses his virtual sock-puppets (Chris Beck, Kita (I don’t have the balls to use my real name) Yaesu to do it.
The worst troll in the world is one that claims to be a journalist—they abuse our profession by writing with malice, distorting the truth and mixing it with enough lies to make it seem plausible, and claim to be “reporting” to do it. I call them “trollnalists”.
There is a certain disgruntled self-professed journalist Christopher Johnson aka The Troll who has a personal vendetta against me and anyone who is my friend or employer. The reasons are very simple: I made the mistake of asking about his visa status when he was denied entry into Japan and/or deported in 2011. I then refused to write an article on his behalf in 2012. He took it very personally.
He’s accused me of 1) being addicted to meth-amphetamines 2) not having been a police reporter, which is probably because he can’t read enough Japanese to figure out what 警視庁記者クラブ means 3) being a womanizing asshole 4) plagiarism 5) being completely wrong about yakuza involvement in the nuclear industry 6) being mentally ill and in addition, he’s stalked and defamed my friends and colleagues, especially female reporters. It goes on and on.
He’ll probably alter his crazy blog posts soon to eliminate claim #5. He’s devoted 40 sprawling pages to my life which he continually rewrites when glaring errors are found. No one is sure what he does to support himself these days but perhaps his famous brother, Gordy Johnson aka Grady Johnson is supporting him. Who knows?
He is right about number 3. Gotta work on that. I can be an asshole and a womanizer. Guilty.
I didn’t mind so much his man-crush and attacks on me, but now he continues to harass other journalists I know, accusing them of plagiarism. He accuses them of taking money from corporations to slant their coverage, etc. He writes their editors, calls their offices, tweets at them endlessly. It’s hard to really explain how venal this individual is so I’ll let him speak for himself.
This is the kind of guy I’m dealing with. The kind of guy who left messages like this for his co-worker at NHK in 2007.
It is a revolting thing to do, for which CJ has never apologized. It makes him sound like a pedophile–and although he spent many years in Thailand, there is no evidence that he is one. But it’s still a fucking awful thing to say. An apology would be nice.
Dave Schaufele, the NHK co-worker, sent JSRC a note on the incident:
He does what trolls do. He writes my employers, he makes threatening calls to the FCCJ. He has a penchant for harassing my female friends especially. Maybe in his mind they are the weaker sex. I gather he’s a misanthrope and a misogynist. I wish he would just attack me. It’s such a dishonorable thing to do to attack the friends of the person you hate. Even the worst yakuza aren’t usually that low.
He is angry that I would not take up his cause or defend him. I don’t know him well and I didn’t think he had a position that I could defend and I politely declined to offer my support. By asking one pointed question, about his visa status, he perhaps feels that I sprung a hole in his credibility dyke, which caused him a flood of attack and ridicule.
I don’t know; I’m not a mind reader.
Recently his threats have escalated. He is very fond of threatening to sue people for slander. He also poses threats to them as questions under the guise of being a journalist. He makes sexual slurs about female reporters. He has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make me angry and scare individuals working with me. For many months, I ignored him. He went away. I ignored him again. But he came back and started harassing anyone he can identify as my friend or employer.
I realized that stepping back was the wrong approach. It was a cowardly act to do nothing. This man under the guise of ”journalism” has terrorized individual after individual because everyone hopes that he will grow bored and find a new person to attack and stalk–and thus they do nothing. This is understandable. But because no one stands up to this bully, the number of those who have suffered because of him keep growing.
Albert Einstein once said, “The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Einstein was right. I’m doing something about.
The more I know about the individual and his past, the more I began to feel increasingly uneasy. He has a history of making insidious threats. On October 16th, 2007, he left disgusting messages on the answering machine of an NHK colleague that implied he would sexually molest the individual’s children. The tape contains what seems to be the sounds of said journalist masturbating over the phone.
Allegedly, the dispute The Troll had with a co-worker ended in him making several obscene calls to the man’s home phone which resulted in his firing from NHK. NHK has not confirmed this although others who were working at NHK have and so has The Troll in his own blog.
Transcripts of threats made to NHK co-worker October 16th, 2007
The story of the Troll who threatened to molest the children of a fellow NHK worker
録音テープ（出所不明）被害者はNHK職員だとそうです。
10月16日2007年
Troll：
I will have to tell you that Tanaka-san and Iida-san are now well aware of your fucking bullshit. By all
means, do go and tell your side of the story to them, motherfucker.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I heard that your daughter gives really good head… and so does your son.
和訳：飯田さんと田中さんはあなたの嘘八百をよく知っているよと教えてやろうと思った。どう
ぞ、あなたの言い分を二人に言ってみな、この糞野郎。ところが、言い忘れたが、あなたの娘は
フェラチオがうまいそうだね。。。あなたの息子も。
新しいメッセージ、１０月１６日、火曜日、(平成１９年)
午後９時２２分
Sounds of what may be masturbation
約２０秒ジョンソンが自慰している音が聞こえる
メッセージを保存しました。次の新しいメセージです。
１０月１７日、水曜日、午前、１０時５８分。
Hey, I wanted to hear if your children are getting a good sleep because… when you get fired, and I get
fired, you’re going to have to put your kids out of international school and into Japanese school….
子供はよく寝ているか。聞きたかったな。あなたと僕は首になったら、あなたは自分の子供をイン
ターナショナルスクールから退学させなくちゃならない。そして子供を公立学校に入れると。。。
（俺はそこで教えて待っていますよ）
For the record, this is his explanation:
“The letter enraged ●●●。 His new round of phone calls and letters now insulted ●●● and my family, including my brother, leader of one of Canada’s most popular bands at that time.
