Media Honesty Needed, Now More Than Ever

The horrific disaster in Japan is no excuse for horrible reporting.

In fact, we need accurate reporting now more than ever to tell us exactly what is going on in the wake of this awful disaster.

There seems to be more mis-reporting, than actual reporting about what is going on with the nuclear power plants. In particular, we have this nugget from CBS Sunday Morning by Lucy Craft in Tokyo:

“Those who managed to survive the mega quake, the monster tsunami waves, and landslides, are now terrified by the prospect of a Three Mile Island-like radiation disaster of nuclear power plants in the state of Fukushima.”

The people of Japan should hope that this ends up like Three Mile Island.

Of course, perception is much different than reality, and the activist old media seems to hope that the perception that they gave us after the worst nuclear disaster in America history (that killed no one) can be resurrected. They want to bring back The China Syndrome and hope that all we will remember is Jane Fonda scaring the hell out of us. Maybe the media now actually believes the movie was real, and what happened at Three Mile Island was the fake, or, perhaps they’re just hoping the next generation doesn’t take the time to research what really happened at Three Mile Island.

For the record, here’s what the Kearney Commission concluded about cancer cases after the meltdown of the reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979. Again, remember, there were zero fatalities from this nuclear meltdown.

From Wikipedia:

The Kemeny Commission Report concluded that “there will either be no case of cancer or the number of cases will be so small that it will never be possible to detect them. The same conclusion applies to the other possible health effects. Several epidemiological studies in the years since the accident have supported the conclusion that radiation releases from the accident had no perceptible effect on cancer incidence in residents near the plant, though these findings have been contested by one team of researchers.

Thoughts and prayers are still with the people of Japan at this time. This disaster is bad enough without having to worry about the nuclear component, but it is there and it is real. There could still be a horrific nuclear disaster heaped upon the damage already done, but let’s hope and pray that at this point, all they have is another Three Mile Island.