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RE: 60 minutes - Yucca Mountain
Mike is absolutely correct. 60 Minutes is entertainment and NOT news. That
said, I think that they have contributed significantly to public discourse
in this country, sometimes for good, sometimes not. The 60 Minutes
producers know what buttons to push to get public reaction and do their job
very well. Some of their stories on topics such as flawed or faulty
consumer products may have even saved some lives by getting unsafe products
out of the marketplace. Other stories are, admittedly, just gonzo
journalism.
Yes, I remember the moral outrage that I felt when they attacked nuclear
power in the 1980s. Oh the inaccuracies!
I try to put some emotional distance between the stories -- and remember
that -- they're just stories -- someone's personal synthesis of observation
processed through their own beliefs and biases.
Personally, I've found some of the recent stories about lapses and
vulnerabilities in homeland security, civil rights violations against
naturalized citizens from unpopular countries, and other alleged excesses of
government, to be timely, thought-provoking and certainly worthy of public
attention. I still reserve the right to exercise my remote!
George J. Vargo, Ph.D., CHP
Senior Scientist
MJW Corporation
http://www.mjwcorp.com
610-925-3377
610-925-5545 (fax)
vargo@physicist.net
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu] On Behalf Of Stabin, Michael
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 7:57 AM
To: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM; RADSAFE
Subject: RE: 60 minutes - Yucca Mountain
> -----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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