Throughout all of this, the scientific community, aided by the SMCs, provided a voice of reason. Through dozens of “rapid reactions” featuring scientists from all over the world, online and physical briefings, backgrounders on radiation and Q&As answering journalists’ technical questions, they started cutting through the hysteria.
Scientists quoted by the SMCs were accused by some of downplaying the situation at Fukushima, but time and numerous peer reviewed studies have shown that these experts provided a good steer on the science, doing the best they could with limited information and a lot of uncertainty.
The lesson from Fukushima is that, in the midst of crisis, we need scientists to step up and interpret the facts for the media to cut through hysteria. The SMCs provide a platform for scientists to do exactly this and the public is the ultimate beneficiary.
Kate Kelland, opening statement:
Japan’s March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and the devastating tsunami that followed it were shocking in their scale and impact. Yet almost as shocking was the speed with which global media shifted its focus away from the human tragedies to concentrate so intently on a possible nuclear meltdown.
Within a day or two of the tsunami, which killed thousands of people and swept away whole towns, stories about this death and destruction were rapidly being wiped out by reports of looming nuclear crisis at Fukushima. Rumors about global radiation risks spread, a European Commissioner predicted an “apocalypse” and several countries said they were delaying or cancelling their nuclear power programs.
This shift was disconcerting, but it also made some sense given human nature—and more particularly, the nature of newsrooms. There are few things more newsworthy than a potential nuclear disaster. And since the radiation risks were largely unknown and the fear of radiation is so heightened by its invisibility, those with a nose for news were naturally keen to find out more.
So it was that it became a daily event for me to call round British and European expert scientists, or meet them at the Science Media Centre’s briefing room, to talk through what was happening, and what might happen next.
The SMCs factsheets and background briefings became invaluable. The likes of Jim Smith of the University of Portmouth (who was often speaking on a mobile from Chernobyl when I called), Paddy Regan at Surrey University, and Malcolm Sperrin at the Royal Berkshire Hospital quickly became people I could call again and again with more and more questions.
I’d been on the health and science beat at Reuters for just over a year, and was beginning to get to grips with the complexities of cancer drugs, flu vaccines and malaria. But nuclear crises are few and far between, so this was the first time I’d used the words millisievert or radioisotope in any copy.
I knew, however, that what we needed was to be able to put scores of sometimes simple, sometimes tricky questions to experts who could give us genuine, honest answers about the risks. We also needed to be able to quiz those experts about their credentials. Who were they working for? What was their experience on nuclear disasters? Did they have any connections with the nuclear industry? Where were they getting their information from?
I remember some despairing looks when one scientist at an SMC Fukushima briefing answered this last question with breathtaking honesty, saying that for the moment at least, Sky News was one of his main sources.
Yet his answer underscored some important points about the Fukushima crisis—that data from the plant itself, as well as from the Japanese government, was scarce and patchy; that scientists, as well as journalists, were desperately keen to get more, and more accurate, information; and that the best that reporters stuck in London, New York, or other far-away cities could do was ensure the scientists we talked to were the best kind of experts giving their best judgment on the best levels of information they could get hold of at the time.
