Assessment of Media Performance

Reading this report was astonishing. A nuclear accident happens, and neither the media nor the public knows anything about what’s going on. I have no idea how I would have reported this story.

What I found the worst about the situation was that officials intentionally withheld information. How can such a thing happen? Not knowing anything is pretty much a theme that comes up in at every point of the story: this is why so many outside sources were quoted, there’s confusion about almost everything, officials saying contradicting things, etc.

While reading the report, I had the feeling that sometimes it blamed the journalists for the general confusion. But then it also makes it clear that they were officials who gave inconsistent and false information many times. On one hand, I understand that quoting officials saying contradicting things makes the public worried, but on the other hand, what else could the media do?

Apparently, the biggest problem was that journalists were at all not familiar with the topic. Well, who is? I guess that’s when clear and accurate writing comes up: if a journalist doesn’t know what he or she wants to say, how could he/she write an accurate story?

On pg. 190 the report says, “The media surveyed failed to include some of the information needed to understand fully the events.” Well, I guess with some more background research, journalists could have given more accurate description of the current situation, but they didn’t have much time to do it. Again, I think it’s not the journalist’s task to “translate” what a source said, but the interviewee should be clear about what his/her statements.

A question: when a nuclear plant declares general emergency, which is the highest level of radiation emergency, isn’t it required by law to explain the public what is going on and how dangerous the situation is?

Another question: isn’t lying to the media against the law? Those officials from Met Ed and NRC said that the accident happened due to equipment malfunction, but that wasn’t the case. Also, they gave conflicting information on the level of radiation. How can they get away with that??

It seems the government wasn’t helping the public at all either: the White House was trying to prevent journalists from getting to good sources. I don’t really get how they had the right to do that.

But of course the way media handled the story wasn’t perfect either. This was a nuclear catastrophe. Every journalist dreams of such a story with millions of people dying and big radioactive explosions. That’s why of course many journalists got on sidetracks with the “what if?” questions. I guess I would have done that, too. The report says, “Reporters as a group were putting a somewhat more alarming face on the accident than were their sources” (205). Well, I kind of understand why journalists did that: first of all, they had n credible sources, and second of all, it’s better to fear than to be frightened (as an old Hungarian proverb goes).

The airtime given to the coverage of the accident was 30-50% of news programs. I think that’s pretty impressive.

After reading the report, I’m angry and also frightened. How come that people just withhold information that when it comes to such a serious question? Ambiguity is the worst thing ever.