LOS ANGELES — Togo W. Tanaka, a former journalist and businessman whose reports on life inside the Manzanar internment camp illuminated divisions in the Japanese-American community after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the tensions that erupted in riots at the World War II-era detention center, has died. He was 93.

Tanaka died of natural causes May 21 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, according to his daughter, Christine.

As editor of the English-language section of the bilingual newspaper Rafu Shimpo, Tanaka helped oversee the last issue in the spring of 1942 before 110,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were rounded up under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 and forced to relocate to detention centers in several states. Tanaka was sent to Manzanar, in California's Owens Valley.

Because of his journalism background, Tanaka worked as a camp historian documenting the internee experience for the War Relocation Authority. He also wrote reports for a University of California-Berkeley study on the evacuation and resettlement of Japanese-Americans during the war.

"These reports ... are a rare and intelligent window into not just Manzanar but Japanese-American life in pre-war Los Angeles," said University of Southern California Professor Lon Kurashige, an expert on Japanese-American history and identity.

His diligent reporting on every aspect of camp life, including the political factions dividing Manzanar's population, "got him into a lot of trouble," said Arthur Hansen, a Manzanar scholar and emeritus professor of history and Asian-American studies at California State University-Fullerton. So did his unflinching support of the United States. Tanaka advocated cooperation with the government that had branded lawful Japanese-Americans as security threats and forced them to give up their livelihoods.

Born in Portland, Ore., on Jan. 7, 1916, Tanaka grew up in Los Angeles with his immigrant parents. At 16, he graduated from high school and entered the University of California-Los Angeles, where he wrote for the Daily Bruin and earned a political science degree in 1936.

In his senior year, he was hired by the Rafu Shimpo, the leading Japanese-American daily in Southern California, to edit its English-language section. He wrote editorials urging Nisei — the first generation of American-born Japanese — to be loyal and patriotic citizens.

As U.S. relations with Japan deteriorated, Rafu Shimpo's publisher sent Tanaka to Washington, D.C., to seek assurances the newspaper could continue publishing when war came. Tanaka landed in a War Department interrogation room, where officers insinuated his patriotism was a sham.

The day after Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941, FBI agents arrested scores of Japanese immigrants considered "enemy aliens," including Tanaka. He was held for 11 days without explanation and was not permitted to contact anyone, including his wife, Jean. He was released on the 12th day without having been charged with any crime. Four months later, he and his family were evacuated to Manzanar.

On the eve of the first anniversary of the Pearl Harbor invasion, unrest swept Manzanar. The targets were people such as Tanaka who favored cooperation with camp authorities and the government. An angry mob stormed Tanaka's barracks, but Tanaka and his family were spared harm.

In 2005, he returned to Manzanar, where he found his desk and typewriter preserved in a permanent exhibit. "We were very touched to see him," said interpretive park ranger Richard Potashin, who helped plan the exhibit. "It was like history walking in the front door."

Tanaka is survived by his wife of 68 years, Jean Miho Tanaka; three children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.