The Journalist Wall of Shame for Fukushima reporting.
Find it here. It’s hard to pick the most egregious, but I was amused by:
Report attempts to link quake with “Supermoon,” a fringe, psuedo-scientific theory that has been thoroughly discredited. Also manages to desecrate memories of Indonesian tsunami victims as well.
or:
Sensational headline – “Just 48 hours to avoid ‘another Chernobyl’” – based on quotes from French bureaucrat, not a nuclear expert. Quotes from actual nuclear expert, saying Fukushima situation is in fact ‘not like Chernobyl,’ buried in third-last paragraph.
or:
Headline says “Japão confirma possibilidade de explosão nuclear em reator afetado pelo terremoto” which means “Japan confirms possibility of nuclear explosion in nuclear reactor affected by the earthquake”. As far as I know there has never been any official report about the risk of a “nuclear explosion”. There were reports about the risk of another hydrogen explosion which is very different from a nuclear explosion. Hydrogen builds-up rising internal pressure. It’s not a nuclear reaction.
(Oops. almost forgot, H/T to commenter Poul.)
Speaking of the “supermoon”, the “global warming caused the quake” lunatics are out, too. It was really illuminating to watch who would bite that bait over at Judith Curry’s climate blog. Let’s just say that someone who I used to think had some sense is now on my five-alarm crazy list.
As far as the media goes, the one thing that they all are consistently doing wrong is referring to “radiation” as if it were a substance (of course our “physicist” does that, too). Any radiation leaks zing out into outer space. What’s been coming out of the plant and creating problems is radioactive fallout.
It’s like fingernails on a blackboard when I read about how some radiation got out and into the food.
Has anyone from the LSM covered Fukushima so much as competently?
Yes — see the Monbiot thing I am posting now — but it hasn’t been common.
If you recall, he was one of the few (maybe only) global warming hard-cores who didn’t try to whitewash climategate. Unlike most of his comrades, he has a streak of intellectual honesty.
And that rare bird, the intellectually honest global warming alarmist, has to yield to the logic of nuclear power. Wind and all the rest of the “green” technology is a pipe dream (at least in the next 3-5 decades), and every knows it at some level, unless they’re just simply too ignorant.
So his position is perfectly consistent. What’s disturbing is the fact that it’s also rare.
want to see real lunatics? see what NPR sciency blog has:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/03/21/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage#more
no relation to reactor, but most bizarelly idiotic i’ve seen from any media. feel free to delete this post if you don’t think there’s a story there.
Nothing the legacy media likes more than tears.
I’m not only not going to delete it, I’m going to write more about it later today (it’s time for the day job.)
just don’t forget my H/T
“kosmonaut body molten on impact”? “cabin hit the ground “with the speed of a meteorite”? “Dangerously low on fuel as they re-enter”? and that’s just after a cursory look.
Quite a photo, isn’t it?
i am almost sure i saw the movie it was pulled from…
There may need to be a politician Hall of Fame too, for stupid remarks and actions that seem like they were well calculated to foster a sense of panic. I really like the European countries that decided to shut all their nukes for safety tests. (Presumably because Spain and Germany are in imminent danger of Tsunami). Then there is this jackass:
(This is from the Telegraph, though this quote was all over the media last week)
If I may play amateur psychologist…
Politicians tend to be control freaks by nature. The idea of something that doesn’t bend to their will terrifies them. If the plant was issuing demands, these same people would insist on capitulation.
actually, he was absolutely correct. what’s your problem with this statement?
“apocalypse”: “end of the world”
“out of control”: except that it was successfully controlled
“Cannot exclude the worst: well, duh. Some idiot could decide to try dropping a nuke on the plant for example. There’s a measurable probability that the plant will be hit with a Tunguska-size impact. But the probability was very small and it’s getting smaller.
Other than that…
if recriticality happens (possible according to japanese) it may have apocalyptic results. it has not negligibly small probability at all.
fire, explosions, and water loss in pools were clearly out of control.
Poul, are you really worried that recriticality in the spent fuel rods will end the world?
If not, then “apocalyptic” is overkill.
And while the media are afraid to go to Tokyo to report on the aftermath of the quake and tsunami, we have this going on:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368660/Libya-US-female-war-photographer-sexually-assaulted-pro-Gaddafi-forces.html
Can we have a little perspective on relative dangers?
I wouldn’t call it out of control, that kind of implies that you will never get control back.
I think they will call this an event. In the US, it would be called an Unusual Event.