Why Bad Journalism Has Driven Me To Desperate Ends

[Hannah Bell]

I decided to start a wiki Bad Journalism Wall of Shame and invite some of the other people who were frustrated with some of the shoddy, alarmist, and shockingly wrong journalism we’ve seen since last Friday’s Tohoku quake....In the case of this disaster, here is my list:

•Incited a level of panic among people worldwide about Nuclear energy (pro or anti, I don’t care, but let’s talk facts, not histrionics)
•Incited a level of panic among people worldwide regarding OH MY GOD NU-CLEE-AR WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!
•Incited panic among foreign residents in Japan
•Caused significant worry to the families, friends, and loved ones of those of us foreigners living in Japan. Several people I know have left Japan, not because they were concerned about danger, but because their families were so stricken about the perceived danger they felt they had leave in order to comfort them
•Once again mischaracterized the Japanese people to fit their lazy stereotypes...

I leave you with this: life goes on as usual in Yokohama.



March 17th, 2011

http://squeeze-box.ca/?p=785

[Rex]

1. I don't think it is bad journalism that drove you there.

Are you in Yokohama right now?

[Hannah Bell]

2. Not me writing it, but an 8-year & current resident of Japan married to a Japanese.

A lot of friends have offered me places to stay throughout the world should I elect to leave. Many have urged me to leave. This is heart-warming and touching, and I am really grateful for all the truly great, caring, and generous friends I’ve got.

I am staying put in Yokohama.

First and foremost, I am not a tourist. That is to say, when I go to Canada, I visit Canada, I don’t “go home”. I stand in the “Visitors to Canada” line at immigration. When I go “home”, I take the train to 上大岡 station, climb over a large hill, and walk to my flimsy wooden house. When abroad, I get “homesick” for Japan.

I have put down roots. I have permanent resident status; I own a house; I am married and have an extended family of in-laws here. How could I leave my mother-in-law and my grandparents-in-law behind? Grandmother is non-ambulatory and requires around-the-clock care.

http://squeeze-box.ca/?p=782





There are several major areas that journalists particularly suck at:

•Science reporting. I have a degree in fine arts, and I could write better science articles than most science writers could. Any journalist who suggested that Fukushima could be “another Chernobyl” should be made to retake his 9th grade science class and then have his journalist license revoked. Oh wait…

•Reporting on Japan. JAPAN IS SOOO WEIRD! JAPANESE PEOPLE HAVE NO EMOTION! If everything you think you know about Japan was learned from the movies Gung Ho and Mr. Baseball, then maybe you’re not qualified to write an article about Japan. Also, spending a few days, hell, even a month in Japan (probably in a hotel or furnished apartment, or otherwise isolated location) does not make you an expert on the place. Nor does interviewing someone who has lived here for a few months (or even year, if living in one of the many gaijin bubbles).

•Disaster reporting. Two and a half words: Exaggeration and fear-mongering.

http://squeeze-box.ca/?p=785


Bad Journalism Wall of Shame Link here:

http://jpquake.wikispaces.com/Journalist+Wall+of+Shame

A sample:

Virginia Wheeler, 17-3-2011, The Sun

-Using paranoic Tokyo shut-in as sole source; Photo of "crowded" Tokyo airport that could have been taken in Golden Week; implying that face masks are related to radiation and not pollen allergies; obvious fear mongering and misinformation

-"Depicts a woman filled with 'terror' trapped in the 'city in fear of nuclear catastrophe' which is Tokyo. In fact, things are almost back to normal.

-Describes Tokyo as a 'Ghost Town' with 'streets deserted' like the 'zombie movie 28 Days Later', having 'no movement at all.' She, like me, lives in Nerima Ku. So are those people I see outside cardboard cut-outs?

-The British protagonist is quoted as saying she is hungry and that there is 'no petrol, no water, no food'. What is that I see in all the shops, then? The reference to the only thing being left in the shop being 'three riceballs and some seaweed' also sounds distinctly patronising and prejudiced to me...Claims she doesn't know how long the blackouts are going to last due to the Japanese government not releasing any information, "All they say is, 'It's not a problem. Don't worry'" and this 'terrifies' her even more. While the organization ofthe rolling blackouts leaves much to be desired, it was stated from the start that they would last until the end of April...

http://jpquake.wikispaces.com/Journalist+Wall+of+Shame

[Rex]

3. Oh yeah...I hear that, journalism today is a joke. We need to do

a lot to clean up the field of 'junk reporters' and differentiate between someone that wants to 'make' news and someone that wants to report the news. The bias in reporting is amazing; I grew up in the 80-90s when TVEE news was still kinda raw and stupid. When Bill O' Reilly had a tabloid trash show called Inside Edition and Glenn Beck was a nobody radio DJ in Houston. Before serialized news feeds and commercials on 24/7 junkfood news programs that promises a larger penis or hawking Eli Lillys latest drug. Good for you for not leaving, I doubt anyone will or wants to leave their home much less their homeland. How is Japanese news different then what you see on CNN? I would hope it is not all smoke and mirrors like the M$M.

[Hannah Bell]

4. The Daily Mail article which alleged that a TEPCO official broke down crying as he

"finally admitted" that the radiation leak could "kill people" made it to the Wall of Shame.

The factuality of that sensationalised article from the UK tabloid vigorously defended here at DU.

Reporter David Derbyshire
13-03-2011
Daily Mail (UK)

A mess of quotes taken out of context, scaremongering headlines, inaccurate information and deliberately phrased to be misleading or vague.

Headline: "The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people"


Multiple articles about how the Japanese a) don't know what's happening; b) don't understand how serious things are; c) are incompetent & unskilled (unlike foreign experts)

[Rex]

5. Yes I believe the Daily Mail is the UK equivalent to The National Enquirer here

in America. They are a step above the tabloids that report about Bat Boy and Sasquatch (not by much). Sensationalism always sells during times of panic. I remember reading that on DU, then later when I found out the source was very skeptical afterward.

[Hannah Bell]

6. panic!

[jtuck004]

7. I don't think it is because they are Japanese. I think it is because they are human.

The Americans at Three Mile Island didn't screw up because they were American, and the engineers at Chernobyl didn't screw up because they were Ukranian\Russian.

They screwed up because they are used to working in an atmosphere where rules are routinely violated, perhaps a little bit of hubris as well. It's pretty typical of engineers in an operating plant.

After they took far more control rods than the safety protocol required and blew the 2000 ton top of the Chernobyl reactor through the roof where it fell back through 4 floors and came to rest on its side, and after the scientists working in the control room had been knocked around, had their bodies fried by radiation, and been sent to the hospital, 9 hours after the explosion when firemen had already been sent in (they would all die soon)...

"At 10:00 AM, Bryukhanov, the plant director, was informed that the reactor had been destroyed. Bryukhanov rejected the information, preferring to believe that the reactor was still intact. He informed Moscow that the reactor was intact and radiation was within normal limits." here.

Anyone that thinks such behavior is different in any race just isn't paying attention. That doesn't take away from the fact that the U.S. Navy has more nuclear experts per square foot than any organization in the world, operating reactors in environments most people would never dream of. And they are trained to handle any emergency, while we listen to interviews from people working on the scene that "We were never trained for this".

Those good people, and there are some heroes among them I have no doubt, are either outclassed or no one has the authority to call in whatever it takes to fight this. Or does anyone think that if the same thing happened at 4 reactors in a site outside, say, Atlanta, that we would watch breathlessly while a fire department put in a four hour shift pumping water, only to scramble away when the smoke started rising because they couldn't cool it?

They need more resources. If I didn't know better I would expect them to call for slow-pumping concrete trucks next...

But yes the reporting has been all over the wall.

[bananas]

8. It was scientists, experts in nuclear energy, who said it could be worse than Chernobyl

and they were right. Your blog is by a non-scientist who is clueless about nuclear energy.

[Hannah Bell]

9. k

[Hannah Bell]

10. k

[Blue_Tires]

11. ttt