Media scaremongering about Fukishima power plant.

Run_to_da_hills

There seems to be a thin line between revealing necessary facts that could assist people in trouble and deliberately going out of the way to cause mass hysteria.

I think that this one takes the biscuit.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367524/Japanese-tsunami-earthquake-Nuclear-fuel-rods-exposed.html

coylemj

Pretty much on par for the Mail, all it's missing is an immigrant family with 14 children squatting in a big house and getting 1,000 a week from social welfare.

RandolphEsq

From following the Fukushima plant story over the past week, you could be forgiven for expecting some gigantic nuclear disaster. It was round-the-clock news on Sky, for example, and they kept replaying a video of the building enclosure collapsing. Scaremongering to the maximum, and that Daily Mail story is ridiculous!

Run_to_da_hills

"Japan fails to contain leaks as radiation heads our way, radiation spewed from the stricken Japanese nuclear power plant has reached Europe and is heading towards Ireland" "going to harm us for a long time" ..........

Irish Daily Mail.........23rd March 2011.

charlemont

Its always the Anglo Saxon Brit American media that go into a frenzy about these things and then they subtly try and blame the people involved for it all, as if to say it'll never happen here...

expectationlost

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

"Japan fails to contain leaks as radiation heads our way, radiation spewed from the stricken Japanese nuclear power plant has reached Europe and is heading towards Ireland" "going to harm us for a long time" ..........

Irish Daily Mail.........23rd March 2011.

wow really is there a copy of that anywhere?

Run_to_da_hills

expectationlost wrote: »

wow really is there a copy of that anywhere?

Page 2 of todays issue, any decent comic store should have it. LOL.

Bradidup

Japan reactor leaks at faster rate than Chernobyl.

Is this not scaremongering from a reputable source?

edwinkane

RandolphEsq wrote: »

From following the Fukushima plant story over the past week, you could be forgiven for expecting some gigantic nuclear disaster. It was round-the-clock news on Sky, for example, and they kept replaying a video of the building enclosure collapsing. Scaremongering to the maximum, and that Daily Mail story is ridiculous!

What do you expect if you watch Sky? Or read the Daily Mail? the extraordinary point here is that you watch Sky &, read the Daily mail, then tell everyone how dreadful they both are and that you expect them to be dreadful!

I don't have Sky so am spared their dreadfulness, nor do I read the Daily mail. Why do you have Sky if you are scornful about it?

HivemindXX

Bradidup wrote: »

Japan reactor leaks at faster rate than Chernobyl.

Is this not scaremongering from a reputable source?

It certainly is. Well scaremongering anyway, I don't know about reputable.

Here's the relevant bit

THE RELEASE of two types of radioactive particles in the first three-four days of Japan’s nuclear crisis is estimated to have reached 20-50 per cent of the amounts from Chernobyl in 10 days, an Austrian expert has said.

Doing the maths this goes from worst case 66% more leakage than Chernobyl to best case 50% less. A sensationalist but accurate headline would be "might be worse than Chernobyl". The actual headline is simply a lie.

This is leaving aside the strong possibility that the two specific particles they are talking about did not feature heavily in Chernobyl due to the different reactor design but other particles possibly of a more harmful nature were found at a much greater rate.

In fact, digging through the many links to sites hysterically quoting the headline news bite I did find one that had some more details about the Austrian paper.
http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=42386

This indicates the two particles in question are Iodine-131 and Cesium-137. Iodine is about 20% of the Chernobyl amount and Cesium could amount to 50%. It also says that comparisons are hard because of the different way the two reactors failed. Hard for scientists maybe, pretty damn easy for whoever writes the headlines in newspapers.

A while ago I decided the first question I should ask myself when reading or watching any reporting should be "how might this be a lie". It has proved very useful.

Run_to_da_hills

Japan on 'maximum' radiation alert as poison particles reach GLASGOW

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370682/Japan-nuclear-crisis-Mothers-flee-Fukushima-leak-radiation-alert.html

RandolphEsq

edwinkane wrote: »

What do you expect if you watch Sky? Or read the Daily Mail? the extraordinary point here is that you watch Sky &, read the Daily mail, then tell everyone how dreadful they both are and that you expect them to be dreadful!

I don't have Sky so am spared their dreadfulness, nor do I read the Daily mail. Why do you have Sky if you are scornful about it?

I enjoy Sky Sports, Sky Movies, the music channels and the entertainment channels. I only like the video aspect of Sky News, which is obviously fair enough

alphshuffel

The effect is more swear and it seems that will increase in the reactions. Whole world should help the Japan as this is world crisis. Japan has suffer last time with the same problem.