Journalists at the daily newspaper in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, who shot to fame after a U.S. museum acquired their handwritten editions, were inspired to grab their pens in a flooded newsroom by a story about their predecessors who acted likewise before the war.

"It was a miracle we survived and that motivated us to get down to our jobs," said Koichi Omi, president of the publisher of the Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun. "We are not heroes," Omi, 52, said in a recent interview. "Any media would have done the same faced with the same situation.

"I thought we were going to be killed by the tsunami," Omi said, recalling the devastation after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit Ishinomaki on March 11.