With a career in journalism spanning more than two decades, Kumi Taguchi has become intimately familiar with vulnerability.
The host of SBS’s flagship current affairs program, Insight, has interviewed families who have lost their homes to bushfires, military personnel diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and people living with addiction, to name a few. But it wasn’t until Taguchi documented and shared her own story that the journalist truly understood what she asks people to do daily.
In 2019, when she was the host of the ABC’s Compass, Taguchi was encouraged by her team to explore her story of belonging. Her father, Akira, had passed away two years earlier, but his relatives in Japan were still unaware of his passing. Interested in understanding her father’s relationship with Japan and her own sense of identity, Taguchi set out to share her story. Her team planned the program over a series of months, but the idea of a documentary focusing on Taguchi’s life felt deeply uncomfortable to her.
“As a journalist, I feel like our credibility is nearly based on the fact that we aren’t the story, and
