Re: 60 minutes - Yucca Mountain

[William V Lipton <liptonw@dteenergy.com>]

One thing we should all keep in mind:  You do NOT have to talk to them.

Free speech includes the right not to talk.  No matter how provocative the

question or allegation, the best answer is generally, "No comment."  That's

not very entertaining and will rarely receive much air time.



If you feel compelled to reply, do so at a time and place of your choosing,

not in some ambush interview.



One current example:  Look at the NYSE "specialist" brokers who are under

investigation.  "No comment" is their usual response when questioned by the

"Wall Street Journal."



The opinions expressed are strictly mine.

It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Curies forever.



Bill Lipton

liptonw@dteenergy.com



"Stabin, Michael" wrote:



> > -----Original Message-----

> > From: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM

> >

> > It's impossible to know what was edited out....

> > Because I am very familiar with the project, I recognize the

> > bias and distortion in the program.  It makes me wonder about

> > the 60 minutes and similar programs for which I am not so

> > familiar with the subject matter.  Are they really biased

> > also?  I think they probably are.

>

> For the most part, yes. I stopped watching 60 Minutes in the early

> 1980's when they did a piece on safety issues and cost overruns at an

> Illinois (I think) nuclear plant. Officials from the plant videotaped

> along with the 60 Minutes crew, and they later circulated a tape showing

> the gross distortions that were due to film left on the cutting room

> floor. I realized then that I could not trust anything on that show that

> I DIDN'T know about intimately, since something I did know something

> about was so badly distorted, for political or entertainment purposes

> (or both). I watched a journalists' roundtable some years later in which

> a journalism scholar pointed out that these shows are indeed strictly

> entertainment, and should not be considered news in any form. Mike

> Wallace was surprised and upset by the opinion of a man he obviously

> respected, but could not refute his point.

>

> 60 Minutes also did a terrible hatchet job on someone I knew personally,

> a nuclear medicine physician from Oak Ridge of very high moral character

> and professional excellence, during the Clinton/O'Leary investigations

> into human uses of radiation in the 1940's and 1950's. The piece was

> reprehensible, and I heard several reports from ORAU employees of the

> rudeness of the 60 Minutes staff, particularly Leslie Stahl. It was

> amusing, however, when they asked employees to duct tape plastic over

> the air vents leading into one of the rooms near the old whole body

> irradiator at ORAU, in case any "old radiation" was still drifting

> around in there.

>

> Mike

>

> Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP

> Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences

> Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences

> Vanderbilt University

> 1161 21st Avenue South

> Nashville, TN 37232-2675

> Phone (615) 343-0068

> Fax   (615) 322-3764

> Pager (615) 835-5153

> e-mail     michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu

> internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com

>

>

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