Skip to main content

Building the Narrative of Fukushima

JapanMail Over at the BBC, Fiona Fox has a stern talking to with her colleagues in the press – British, primarily - over their handling of events at Fukushima Daiichi:

One tabloid's Japan coverage was typical. Under the title "Japan's Horror: Battle to Stop Nuclear Meltdown", the double-page spread included three articles by different reporters on the nuclear threat: "Now Food's Nuked", "Dangers Might Get a Lot Worse" and "Despair of Victims in Nuke Zone". The only piece about the earthquake itself was the story of a Brit who had a miraculous escape.

But when the first excitement passed and outlets started talking to  scientists and engineers in the nuclear field and academia, a different story began to emerge:

As with all good scientists and academics, there were differences of emphasis and differences of opinion, but I think a fair reading of the consensus would go something like this:

  • This was a very, very serious situation
  • The Japanese operators appeared to have done a tremendous job in controlling it
  • It was not another Chernobyl
  • Almost everything reported to have happened was what experts would have expected to happen in a 40-year-old plant faced with the combined impacts of the earthquake and tsunami - The Japanese authorities did everything right in relation to protecting the local population - setting the exclusion zone, handing out iodine tablets etc.
  • The health risks to anyone in Tokyo from a radiation leak at the plant in Fukushima are really very small indeed.

Which is considerably less dramatic than the media could be expected to cope with.

So why did the best estimates of the best experts give way to another narrative? Why did so many responsible broadcasters and editors not allow the facts to get in the way of a good story? Why did almost every section of our media lead daily reports with 'another Chernobyl' or the coming apocalypse, when none of Britain's leading scientists or the Chief Scientific Adviser were in any way confirming that assessment?

We talked about this a little in the story about Pew below, but Fox’s story goes into much more detail. If you want a good explication of  how media narratives get formed, Fox does a terrific job laying it all out.

Fox makes one excellent point that needs calling out: fastening on Fukushima overwhelmed the actual crisis in Japan - the earthquake and tsunami.

Three meltdowns! When did that hap – oh!

Comments

Daniel said…
Wow, that post makes it sound like the Fukushima story is over. That spin seems premature as things continue to spiral downhill at the plant.

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin