Mindless nuclear hysteria? Welcome exceptions to media bias

[Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

Following is an interesting opinion piece from our local newspaper about
the nearby "big city" DOE-beat reporter.  Frank Munger dials me up when
he needs a "stakeholder" opinion.  I give him lots of quotable quotes,
and he gives me good exposure.  Work with your local reporter!

--Susan Gawarecki

The Oak Ridger - Thursday, July 6, 2000
Mindless nuclear hysteria? Welcome exceptions to media bias 

I have written often of what I discern as an anti-nuclear mind-set
within the media. There are exceptions, and I would hope that The Oak
Ridger has been one.

But overall, media people tend to think first of the negative and then
only later, if at all, of the positive where something nuclear is
concerned. Nor is this attitude -- approach -- significantly
different from that of the general public. As has been said often and
wisely, any technology of which the world first becomes aware by a bomb
blast killing tens of thousands is going to have image problems for some
time to come.

I use the phrase "media mind-set" rather than "media prejudice." There's
a difference, I think, "prejudice" suggesting malice aforethought,
whereas a "mind-set" just sort of evolves.

But what does someone else who has been reporting nuclear matters in Oak
Ridge in recent decades think? Like Frank Munger, reporter and columnist
for The Knoxville News-Sentinel, who has been on the Oak Ridge science
and technology beat since the early 1980s?

Maybe there's some paranoia at play among some in the nuclear industry,
Munger suggests in a recent interview conducted by two local health
physicists, Eric W. Abelquist and Paul W. Frame, both with Oak Ridge
Associated Universities, and published in the April newsletter of the
Health Physics Society.

"I don't see this conspiracy that some people seem to find that the news
media are out to get the nuclear industry or the health physicists or
even DOE," Munger told Abelquist and Frame. "It's kind of like people
saying, 'Well, I think the whole nuclear cleanup of the Cold War legacy
is overblown.' Maybe some of the things are overblown -- I don't know.
But I don't think the federal government is committed to spending
hundreds of billions of dollars just because of a media myth."

There was interplay between Munger and the health physics newsletter
prior to this interview. Frame and Mike Stabin, health physicist
formerly of Oak Ridge, had written a facetious piece about the
"radioactive hazards" of interviewing anti-nuclear activists, suggesting
dangers of radiation exposure simply from their bodily presence. Munger
had referred to Frame and Stabin's piece in one of his News-Sentinel
columns, commenting, "It's bound to be popular with folks who
believe the world is being undone by mindless nuclear hysteria."

Munger does not believe the world is threatened by nuclear hysteria. "I
think you (health physicists) overestimate how much people care one way
or the other (about radiation)," he told his interviewers, who talked
with him at his News-Sentinel Oak Ridge office on Tulsa Road.

Abelquist and Frame tossed out some bait. "OK," they said, "people are
swamped with tons of information, so simply reporting the truth about
radiation is pretty boring, but by playing on the fears of radiation,
news can be sold."

Munger took their bait only to a degree, responding, "The point that
boring news doesn't get in the paper is valid. ... But at the same time
I don't agree with this argument that 'I'm going to find something else
because the truth is boring.' That seems kind of cynical to me."

Abelquist and Frame pushed on: "So what do you think the mystique is
with radiation and the media? You have to agree that we have a
legitimate point here."

"I don't think there's any doubt that there's something exotic -- I
think you used the term 'mystique' -- with radiation. Again, keep in
mind its origins, I mean the secrecy of the whole nuclear program. ...
Many people find nuclear issues more interesting than your basic PCB
spill or your basic asbestos spill -- although there are plenty of other
things in modern-day society that rival (radiation); people would be
extremely interested in an anthrax scare," Munger responded.

The News-Sentinel writer cited the recent accident at the Y-12 Plant. "I
don't think the fact that it was a chemical accident, rather than a
nuclear accident, made it less attractive as a news story. I don't see
that it was a big difference between being a chemical nonnuclear
explosion vs. a nuclear accident in a nuclear facility."

Abelquist and Frame asked Munger what they, as health physicists, might
do to make reporting of nuclear matters more accurate, more fair.
Without conceding that such reporting is not accurate and fair, Munger
suggested, "Being open, accessible, identifying yourselves with your
credentials, making yourselves available."

And then, the interviewers write, "Frank surprised us a little." He
allowed as how "I think the nuclear industry has done a heck of a job
making itself available. The ANS (American Nuclear Society) has been
very aggressive, I think -- I get a lot of stuff from the nuclear
perspective being sent to me."

Munger said that he has not had any trouble finding experts to offer
background and comment. And, asked about various organizations that
offer lists of experts willing to help journalists, he agreed that these
lists can be valuable. However, he said also that some reporters are
leery of being shepherded to the designated expert. "I often don't want
to talk to the identified expert -- rather I'd try to find the expert
himself or herself."

And Munger has qualms about the apparent active concern of health
physicists about media coverage. (Earlier in the interview Abelquiest
and Frame had voiced concern that undue fears of radiation are
inhibiting beneficial projects like food irradiation, the space program
and metals recycling.)

"It surprised me," Munger said, "that I was seeing health physicists
sort of out in the lead in terms of being concerned about the image of
the nuclear industry. My view of health physicists has always been these
radiation protection specialists ... out on the floor like industrial
hygienists... the bastions of the safeguards for the workers themselves,
and that sometimes if necessary they went up against the management of a
production or research facility to make sure that the worker health and
worker safety was guarded. It would be a little bit of concern I think
if you have them identified as the people (health physicists) most
concerned about the image being tarnished in the (nuclear) industry. I
don't know if that's necessarily a conflict itself, but certainly it
might be one of perception."

* * *

Wise words from a class journalist, although I disagree about the recent
Y-12 accident. Had it been nuclear, it would have gotten much wider
coverage.

But the good news might be that the media did not, as has happened in
the past, jump to the conclusion that this Y-12 chemical accident was a
nuclear accident just because it happened at Oak Ridge. Moderating the
media anti-nuclear mind-set is a gradual process. -- RDS

Richard D. Smyser is founding editor of The Oak Ridger. You can reach
him by e-mail at rdsandmps@aol.com
-- 
==================================================
Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director
Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, Inc.
136 S Illinois Ave, Ste 208, Oak Ridge, TN 37830
Phone (865) 483-1333; Fax (865) 482-6572; E-mail loc@icx.net 
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