Published: January 23rd, 2012 at 4:29 pm ET
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Title: Aftershocking: Frontline’s Fukushima Doc a Lazy Apologia for the Nuclear Industry
Source: Truthout
Author: Gregg Levine
Date: Jan 23, 2012
Take, for example, Frontline correspondent Miles O’Brien’s cavalier treatment of the potential increase in Japanese cancer deaths [...]
[T]o assess the cancer risk, O’Brien [...] changes exposure over a single year to “over the course of a long period of time”–an inexcusable muddying of the facts. [...]
So, as one might imagine, Dr. Suzuki’s cancer estimate, be it from his own deliberate downplay or O’Brien’s sloppy framing, is widely disputed. In fact, a quick survey of the literature might call the estimate in Frontline an absurdly low outlier. [...]
[A]s the program ends, O’Brien declares that every nuclear plant in Japan will be shut down by May–and as he says this, the camera peers out the window of a slow-moving elevated train. The view is a darkened Japanese city, and as O’Brien finishes his monologue, the train grinds to a halt.
Ooh, skeddy. Was this Frontline, or Monster Chiller Horror Theater?
Yes, the end seemed that absurd. “Nuclear Aftershocks” paints a picture many members of both the nuclear and fossil fuels lobbies would love to have you believe: a sort of zero-sum, vaguely binary, cake-or-death world where every possible future holds only the oldest, dirtiest and most dangerous options for electrical power generation. You get coal, you get gas, or you get nuclear–make up your mind! [...]
Read the report here
See also:
- Watch PBS Frontline: Fukushima radiation 10% of Chernobyl -- Risk of getting cancer very, very small -- Gov't limit of 20 millisievert very conservative (VIDEO)
- PBS Frontline's Miles O'Brien: Cheeseburgers and fries a much bigger risk to our health than cesium -- Japan's 20 milliSv/yr for evacuation "extremely low" (4 times higher than Chernobyl limit)
- NYTimes: Coal produces more radiation and deaths than nuclear -- PBS special on Fukushima could have used George Monbiot or the like
- Nuclear Expert: Fukushima risk underestimated -- 5% of young girls will get cancer living in 20 milliSv/y for 5 years -- "Actually worse than that" -- Hot particles NOT included & only counts cancers, not other effects (VIDEO)
Published: January 23rd, 2012 at 4:29 pm ET
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Brilliant critique by Gregg Levine. “…cake-or-death…” is really sharp…
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With yellow cake, you can have your cake and die from it too.
Just a thought.
http://nukepimp.blogspot.com/2012/01/primary-containment.html
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pro nuke , through and through.. remember the special “footwear” in the school playground? what a fool!!
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hey i know whats happened !!! the obrian brothers had a cock up with the bbs contract and they sent the wrong obrian!! breaking!!
the boring one had to do the irish programme when follicly challenged 2 went through decontamination.. explains the wellington boots thing too!! it was supposed to be satire!!
cant believe everyone missed that!! oh and repost
http://www.primeperformers.co.uk/after-dinner-speakers/dara-obriain
did you know that o briain is the same as o brian.. the first is plastic paddy gaelic.. only two types of irishmen revert to their gaelic names.. brave pavees on the run and sad celebrities who contract out to the bbc!! lol
obrian? where did i hear that name recently.. both bald too!! folicly challenged, i meant!! wonder if it runs in the post atmospheric testing genes then… lol )
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Unfortunately for Miles O’Brien, anybody that knows anything about Fukushima, the real Fukushima, will beleive much of what he has to say in the future. I tend to give people one chance. If they outright lie, then it’s one and done for them….
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@StPaulScout: I agree with your pragmatic view. It is unfortunate that the general public’s still relying on MSM venues for information. Worse, is when PBS becomes part of the coverup. They once had credibility with me…once…
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I added a comment on Truthout thanking him for his excellent analysis of the misrepresentations in the Frontline reporting on Fukushima. PBS did a serious mis-service to it’s viewers by sugar coating the radiation effects worldwide of Fukushima. Most people watch PBS thinking it is more factual than mainline media. After this whitewash by PBS, I am done watching PBS.
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Dear Ruth: Generally, the world outside the U.S. understands, including in very much NO free speech countries of Central and South America, that the U.S. has NO practice of free speech. There pretty much is no national mainstream or NON-mainstream media that is more uniform than the U.S. media (Saudi or Brunei perhaps?) since the existence of the U.S.S.R. (TAAS, Pravda). We have the same mindless focus on personal interest stories, DIY, and increasingly on folksy white trash “reality” TV of every reconstituted foetid garbage from the bottom of the barrel, instead of big-picture analyses. There is only ever criticism in the U.S., just as in the old U.S.S.R. by our 100% censored state media on intentional scapegoats and puppets in designed stories, rather than EVER on the system and it’s inadequacies. if their are criticisms of our systems as they are and for whom they benefit these are infrequent and have copious quantities of PR to protect and obscure real decision makers, billionaires and their lackeys. The same no-news news topics are generally covered and usually with little or no difference in framing from http://www.pacifica.org to Faux News (Fox). PRI, PBS and NPR are all very definitely NOT middle of the road, but are quite right wing (corporatist and shallow), measured by world standards of media freedom. U.S. public broadcasting came about decades after Western Europe had it and the U.S. “public” broadcasting started out funded at only about 1/100th what it is funded at in Europe with a much less PUBLIC dimension and a, from the beginning, corporate mandate. Somehow we’ve assented to our fascist leaders here actually cutting budgets of the least well funded public broadcasting system of any first-world nation. Otherwise, our media is entirely owned by only five multinational corporations. Oligopoly can produce no free speech and no valid system change or revolution sparking proportionately speaking. Corporations are de facto dictatorships.
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Pallas89Juno: I agree with you. I stopped watching television several years ago, BUT occasionally would watch a nature show by PBS. Maybe because I was not watching PBS all of the time I missed how much they are the same as other channels. I get my news from a variety of online alternative news sites worldwide with Enews being one that I read daily. I am not alone. I know a lot of people who seek out truthful news non polluted by some corporate sponsor.
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Dear Ruth: I’m in the same category of working privately to generate our evolving concepts of the news based on what we can extrapolate comparatively from as many non-MSM (mainstream) sources as possible. This task is actually becoming increasingly difficult in the English language over the past 30 years. For this reason, I began, about six years ago, to learn other languages–in my case: French, Spanish and Arabic. I hope to learn Brazilian Portuguese and Italian, as well. I’m not great or fluent really in any of these despite immersion and a lot of college courses under my belt; but I’m not going to give up. I hate being lied to in any language; but learning other languages coupled with our critical thinking skills is good, though not a perfect, strategy to improve comparative analysis effectiveness and abilities in disentangling distortion/propaganda of varying degrees of intensity that we are daily assaulted and insulted with by the greediest in power. This billionaire ruling clique and their lackeys seem to be working harder than ever to prevent ecologically sensible and justice making revolution, needed now also more than ever.
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@Pallas89juno: hard-hitting stuff! I agree that ‘our’ media is no better in its objectivity, than what was served under the Soviets. I loved your ‘white trash’ zing!
I don’t think increased funding would change the underlying globalist complexion of America’s public broadcasting services. The corporate-elite have long defined what will be the politically correct mind-think for PBS (and NPR). We’re witnessing the same mindset within Europe and the BBC’s become virtually useless as an objective news source. It seems everyone’s gotten their marching orders. I was hoping the French would have retained their elan in standing against the crowd, but they too, seem to have bought into the NWO agenda. The good thing is, as you’ve noted, individuals throughout the world can read through the lies…
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Try and find something said or programming that focuses on things that are not ‘corporate’ friendly.
In other words, see how many things are on air that benefit ordinary people, communities, and bottoms up control of politics, business, community, economics, etc.
My prediction is that you will find less than 1-5% of all programming and air time is spent on things that are not corporate viewpoint, corporate friendly or corporate controlled.
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OY! Can’t agree with
…
…bolding mine…
Calling Pacifica of “little or no difference” from Fox, is absurd, my dear Pallas.
I gave up on NPR in the 1980s. Pacifica has it’s problems,
but I cannot include them in the same bathwater as Fox & NPR.
The main problem with NPR is that they parade themselves as progressive and enoightened. NPR is bad, bad, bad, and has been for decades.
Like you, I have turned to watching (mostly) foreign news, RT, AJ, DW. –but I take some of this with low salt diet also.
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Typo:
enointenedsould be enlightened.Report Comment
typo of the typo…”should”
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Don’t you hate when the typos keep increasing! If I make a typo I don’t sweat it. I try to fix them if I think someone who is not a native speaker of English would be confused. I figure everybody is trying their best to communicate well given their skills in English, typing and time constraints. If someone’s spelling is terrible I figure it is their second, or third language.
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Yep. First Language. No excuse!
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Good Op-Ed piece, well worth reading the whole thing. I notice a couple of Enenews regulars have put interesting comments on the Op-Ed site itself also. Good stuff!
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Gundersen is talking about EXTERNAL radionuclide contamination. To his credit, this time; at least he’s saying repeatedly, “It’s worse than that” and he does, again to his credit, acknowledge an additional threat to residents of Fukushima of internalizing through breathing and eating, additional contaminating radiologic substances. Surely someone as connected as he was/is has access to bioaccumulation data.
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Antidote to PBS whitewash, no embed code, but try this:
GRTV.
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Okay…Try this < http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2012/01/surviving-japan-critical-look-nuclear-c…>
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Still not, so GRTV
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4th try. Nothing fancy. Not even an html code. Just go to global reseasrch dot ca and look for < http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2012/01/surviving-japan-critical-look-nuclear-c…> for an excellent antidote to P Bull Shit.
It’s good enuff to deserve 4 attempts to post!
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hi dharynsyd
couldnt find your link but found this.. lol
Media Censorship as a badge of honor? Britain bans Iran’s Press TV
by Afshin Rattansi
Global Research, January 21, 2012
“For the first time, British government censors have banned a 24-hour news channel from British viewers. As of the afternoon, UK-time, 20th January 2012, viewers of Press TV, an avowedly anti-imperialist TV channel headquartered in Tehran and featuring many of the voices found in CounterPunch, saw the words “Channel Unavailable” when tapping their clicker.
And so the war on Iran by Britain, Israel and the US continues using propaganda, proxy militants and asymmetric warfare.
Unlike the US, whose authorities have so often had to get around the first amendment to ban media from Americans, the UK has no law against the abridging of freedom of speech or against “infringing on the freedom of the press”. The decision was made by Ed Richards, previously Senior Policy Advisor to Tony Blair and a Controller of Corporate Strategy at the BBC. He now runs OFCOM, a regulatory agency charged with judging what news Britons are able to view.
One of the broadcast regulator’s central arguments about Press TV is that it is not convinced that editorial control is based in Britain. I’ve worked for numerous foreign channels that are allowed to broadcast in the UK, so I know this discrepancy will come as a surprise to my former employers at the London offices of CNN International, Bloomberg and Al Jazeera, all of which ultimately answer, editorially, to bosses in Atlanta, New York and Doha.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28782
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Primary Containment is mother earth, just a thought.
http://nukepimp.blogspot.com/2012/01/primary-containment.html
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The media is now mostly corporate speak… Why? First, most of the mass media is OWNED by huge corporations. A corporation has a built in culture of top down control of all aspects of it’s own organization, including all mass media outlet programming.
I have read stories about how Faux News outlets were instructed on WHAT to say, which words to use, and how often to report it, on a DAILY basis.
Even if less controlled than this, if a corporation owns mass media outlets and manufactures nuclear plants, equipment and medical devices, it would be natural for it to NOT allow any opposing views, or competing products. It would also be ‘natural’ for such a business to not allow ‘bad’ news about anything around nuclear subjects. At most, a minimal report giving no details might be ‘allowed’ to give the appearance of a free press.
Even advertisers have huge influence over programming. If an advertiser does not like what they see on air, they can yank that person or program in mid sentence, literally.
I have watched hugely popular people get pulled off the air for political reasons, just because the person was opposed to their viewpoint who happened to be President. There is a huge pressure for pro war views on TV, while anyone making the case for peaceful non violent methods is kicked off the air.
Politically, the equal time rule was gotten rid of by Republicans many years ago, and no one seems to care to bring it back.
Ownership of media outlets is concentrating in fewer hands. The agency that is supposed to govern media outlets seems to be the lapdog of the huge corporations buying up all media.
Further, the diversity of media is atrocious in the US, compared to other countries. As one example, why is there not ONE German speaking station in the US on any channel? Why is there no ability to tune into foreign nations media stations?
If this nation is truly for freedom and diversity, we should have access to all countries media.
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Good stuff…
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