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Re: "positive" news reporting on Yucca Mountain & transportation accidents
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Sandy Perle <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>
An: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM <RuthWeiner@AOL.COM>
Cc: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Datum: Mittwoch, 10. Juli 2002 22:38
Betreff: Re: "positive" news reporting on Yucca Mountain & transportation
accidents
On 10 Jul 2002 at 15:54, RuthWeiner@aol.com wrote:
> Why does everybody get this number screwed up?
Ruth, I understand your question and concern. I suppose in answer to
your question could be, where would you suggest that the media search
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I have today looked after a lot of news with respect to Yucca mountain and I
remember that I read about the number of transports by train and by truck
since 19xx, the number of transports by either train or truck required to
bring the 77 000 tons to Yucca Mountain. I remember also to have read about
the number of transports within Europe to La Hague and Sellafield. But I do
not remember where I read about it. Maybe it was on the Yucca Mountain
Project website.
Ruth is right, because if a journalist is not even able to search the basics
of his article, namely does not look for the correct numbers, then it throws
some doubts about his intentions and abilities on him or her. Or it is just
an indication, that journalists have to write as many articles as possible
to earn enough money and so they do not have the time to make a thorough
research. Both alternatives are not acceptable, but sure the normal
situation.
Sandy is right, because "the public" does not care for numbers - except that
they are impressed more by "a million pico-Curies" than by "one
micro-Curie". They do not care for 1000 shipments or 50 shipments, as long
as they get the message, that it is "deadly radiation" which is transported.
"Even one single transport is irresponsible and too much of a risk,
especially considering the terrorist threat......." I refrain from
continuing this thread.....
I still think, that compared to Europe you still have in the USA a rather
"balanced" view - well, I know, it is not really balanced, but in Europe it
seems to have become a kind of high-treachery if one is not totally opposed
to nuclear power. I read today on the National Geographic Magazine site some
comments on the July article about nuclear waste - most were opposed to the
article, some putting forward really reasonable arguments against the
intentions of the article. (I received my copy only yesterday and I will
comment at RADSAFE as soon as I have been able to read it thorougly.) This
would be impossible in Europe - no paper would publish a letter to the
editor favouring nuclear power or solutions for reprocessing and safe
storage.
Best regards,
Franz
and who would be a contact to serve as the "authoritative" source of
this type of information? Your question is rhetorical to some degree.
Suppose the media was going to do a story on the number of a
particular type of medical procedure. There is a real number, and, it
changes by the minute. I expect that some pundit will quote a number,
and it will be most probably 100% incorrect. Did it really change
anything by not being totally accurate? probably not. I personally
don't know whether or not the number of shipments you quoted are
absolutely correct or not. What I do know is that there were a lot of
shipments. I doubt that the media would have your statistics, unless
there is one entity who is assigned the accountability of tracking
all of these shipments. Suppose you wanted to add in radioactive
waste shipments from medical facilities. Do you think there will be
an accurate accounting of that?
-------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle
Director, Technical
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service
ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100 Extension 2306
Fax:(714) 668-3149
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com
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