Kentucky Newspaper Misleads Public

["D. Kosloff" <dkosloff@ncweb.com>]

The report below says in the beginning that records were erased.  Then very
near the end, it says that they were not erased, but taken out of a tracking
system.  This is a common technique for biasing public perception.  Put the
attention getting allegation (or in this case false statement) in the
headline and beginning of the story and "balance" it in the last few words.

Don Kosloff dkosloff@ncweb.com
2910 Main St Perry OH 44081

----- Original Message -----
From: <GlennACarlson@aol.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2000 11:50 PM
Subject: Uranium plant records erased, paper reports


> Uranium plant records erased, paper reports
>   Monday, May 1, 2000
>
>   By Associated Press
>
>   The operators of uranium processing plants in Paducah and
>   Piketon, Ohio, erased hundreds of safety and environmental
>   problems from computer records without proper government
>   approval, a Kentucky newspaper reported Sunday.
>
>   The Department of Energy had required plant operators to track
>   their progress toward correcting problems, but more than
>   one-fourth of such records at both plants were deleted without
>   DOE clearance in 1993, according to documents obtained by
>   The Courier-Journal.
>
>   The Energy Department, after a three-year investigation,
>   reconstructed the erased items from computer archives and
>   paper records and concluded the deletions were inappropriate.
>   DOE also found that nearly half the problems either had not
>   been fixed or should have been referred to other agencies
>   before being erased.
>
>   The erased items included government and operator findings of
>   a lax attitude toward safety by first-line supervisors, inconsistent
>   investigations of accidents, health and safety violations by both
>   management and rank-and-file workers.
>
>   The United States Enrichment Corp., which now leases and
>   operates both plants, was ordered to fix some of the remaining
>   uncorrected problems, but it was not fined, nor were the plants
>   shut down at any time, the newspaper reported.
>
>   The Justice Department is investigating the erasures as part of
>   its broader probe into allegations of fraud by contractors at the
>   Paducah plant.
>
>   USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said that while the
>   safety items were "deleted from the tracking system," they were
>   "never deleted from existence."
>
>   In memos to the Energy Department, USEC also has said it
>   had the right to erase certain items without permission and that
>   the findings it deleted did not have a significant impact on the
>   plants' safety.
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