Do you remember Tchernobyl 1986? When you lived in Europe at that time, you know about the accident in the Ukranian nuclear power plant - the worst one in history. It had far reaching effects, not only for the region,but the nuclear fallout affected also northern and central Europe - up to the present day. In those days we wanted and needed information, which we got from TV and radio. Reliable, factual information, so I felt. I remember that I was worried, but not in panic (and that this nourished my suspicion against nuclear power plants, but that is a different topic).
In those days we had mainly the public broadcasting services for information and they did a good job.
When the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan, we had already lived in the age of commercial TV for more than 20 years. Due to Internet and advanced technologies we were flooded with pictures of the disaster immediately. Media were competing for the most terrible disaster scenario .
And then nuclear power plants in Japan were affected, there was an explosion - and, naturally, we worry. All TV channels brim with activity. Special news programmes. Everybody who knows how to spell "nuclear power" is called in as a specialist and interviewed. They cannot say much, of course, facts are hard to come by. So they say what they think. In between some "human interest stories" - and one journalist remarked that the Japanese were taking all this with amazingly little panic. Yeah, what a pity, would have made great pictures for the evening news, wouldn't it?
In fact, I am fed up with the "news coverage" of this. It does not help anybody, least of all the people in Japan and neighbouring countries . I want to know if my friends in that part of the world are ok, but I don't learn that on TV. I want facts and information. But what I don't want is sensationalist reports, pictures of crying children (I can imagine myself that the Japanese are not exactly having a party there) and a disaster simply used for selling advertising time.
And least of all do I need worried discussions about the question what the nuclear fallout could do to Germany. I feel it is necessary we dicuss our own nuclear power plants.
As to Japan, I feel deeply with the people there.All I can do is donate to relief agencies and pray for them - and ignore those who want to make money out of a terrible catastrophe.
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