Re: Just what is SAFE? (mass media)

["Björn Cedervall" <bjorn_cedervall@hotmail.com>]

>From: Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>...
>then our media either do not even report it or you find a short >notice 
on page 37 in the newspapers. This is true for Goiana, for >the recent 
event in Turkey, the molten Co-60 source from
>Mexico, the accidents in irradiation facilities and industrial 
>radiography, the Estonian accident. 

When the recent Co-60 accident in Turkey finally was reported by
our major news agency in Sweden "TT" (="Tidningarnas telegrambyra")
the headline read "NUCLEAR POWER ACCIDENT in Turkey". This was
about 5-6 days ago. The first paragraph was also about a nuclear power
accident. TT came out with a different version about 12 hours
later. I have no idea about the extent to which the erroneous
message was spread but it can be safely assumed that almost every
newspaper in Sweden subscribes to "TT" and just publishes whatever
comes from there - as it is. Whether misinterpretations like this
leak through or not depends on the time of the day when the message
reaches the massmedia offices (and sometimes depending on _who_
gets the message - after all there are some serious mass media people
here - but many of them represent part of the entertainment business).

As a teacher earlier today at Karolinska Institutet, I had about 15 
nurses
(taking a larger radiation course, diagnostics, risks etc), and asked 
how
many of them had heard about the accident in Turkey. Only one knew about
the accident so most probably the Stockholm newspapers didn't get time 
to spread the "NUCLEAR POWER ACCIDENT in Turkey".
It is, however, interesting to note that many newspaper people
must have seen the corrected version (about a Co-60 preparation
used for medical purposes) and decided that it was not a selling
story. Recently, I asked (different lecture topic) some other 20
people about the oil accient in Nigeria that killed more than
1000 people. None knew about it - only one had a vague idea.
Our newspapers here cover, however, the Whitehouse soap opera
every day - and whenever we have our own, too frequent, scandals
(key words: politicians, credit cards, love clubs & tax money - the 
focus is on the tax money part).

Back to TT: TT has a high credibility and respect in most
people's minds but I have over the years noted that they spread 
desinformation and garbage in the field of radiation protection/risks 
etc. Their language is also strange, it is not only words like
"atomic garbage" but also constructions like "radioactive
radiation" etc. I was in touch with TT many years ago and
tried to correct some of this but they seem uninterested.

For instance, the report on prostate cancer among "nuclear workers" in 
U.K. more than a decade ago was totally biased and misinterpreted in 
Swedish radio. I asked them about their sources but they were totally 
uninterested in any kind of checking (BTW: Their misinterpretations were 
out one day before the publication of the key article in Brit. Med. J.).
---
Estonian accident: If you mention that in Sweden - 99.999% of our
population will think that you are referring to the boat accident
Sept. 1994 where almost 900 people died. The name of the boat was
"Estonia". I doubt that more than a few hundred people in Sweden
know about the radiation accient in Estonia.

bjorn_cedervall@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Exchange/8256/
Any opinions expressed above are those of mine and may not necessarily 
coincide with those of others.



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