Fukushima lays bare Japanese media's ties to top

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Fukushima lays bare Japanese media's ties to top
By DAVID MCNEILL
Special to The Japan Times

Is the ongoing crisis surrounding the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant being accurately reported in the Japanese media?

No, says independent journalist Shigeo Abe, who claims the authorities, and many journalists, have done a poor job of informing people about nuclear power in Japan both before and during the crisis — and that the clean-up costs are now being massively underestimated and underreported.

"The government says that as long as the radioactive leak can be dammed from the sides it can be stopped, but that's wrong," Abe insists. "They're going to have to build a huge trench underneath the plant to contain the radiation — a giant diaper. That is a huge-scale construction and will cost a fortune. The government knows that but won't reveal it."

The disaster at the Fukushima plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) again revealed one of the major fault lines of Japanese journalism — that between the mainstream media and the mass-selling weeklies and their ranks of freelancers.

The mainstream media has long ...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120108x3.html

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120108x3.html

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1. More from the article:

"Is the ongoing crisis surrounding the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant being accurately reported in the Japanese media?"
No, says independent journalist Shigeo Abe, who claims the authorities, and many journalists, have done a poor job of informing people about nuclear power in Japan both before and during the crisis — and that the clean-up costs are now being massively underestimated and underreported.

"They're going to have to build a huge trench underneath the plant to contain the radiation — a giant diaper. That is a huge-scale construction and will cost a fortune. The government knows that but won't reveal it."

Says Abe: "The government's whole strategy for bringing the plant under control will have to be revised. The evacuees will never be able to return. They can't clean up the radiation. Will the media report this? I'm waiting for that."