Hyping Up The Science

     Following the recent earthquake and resulting tsunami and then resulting nuclear emergency in Japan these last few days I have noticed quite a bit about how different organizations portray the state of crisis in an emergency. To set the tone of this post, I began watching the BBC live feed about one hour after the earthquake hit, though I was aware of it slightly after the tsunami hit.
     For the most part the BBC did not get very sensationalist about the disaster, and while they sure did love showing the footage of the tsunami rushing over the farmland, so did every other news network. What shocked me was the downplay of the deathtoll. Unlike other networks the BBC clearly stated how many were known to be dead and specifically separated that from the amount missing. Also shocking for me personally as an American viewer was the presence of a science correspondent who directly interacted with the anchor of the news program and informed of the science and geology behind the quake; they were unafraid to wake up a geophysicist here and there and did not restrict their sources to UK based organizations.
     While I did not observe much in the way of CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, I did also keep up with the Al Jazeera feed which was reliable as it moves into the realm of globally respected news networks. From my understanding the American networks did not have as much of the science adequately portrayed and focused more on the shock and the disaster at hand while more estimating a death toll, it was only after a few hours in that the BBC began to ask for estimated deaths and as of 1:07 PM on the 12th, they still have yet to estimate an economic loss.
     The best example of hype has focused more around the Fukushima nuclear facility. It is known that the cooling system failed and the Japanese government was forced to vent gas from the facility to prevent a meltdown. Beyond that different sources put it in varying lights. I personally was woken up this morning to be told that the entire facility had exploded including the containment, though I am unsure of where my personal source had got their fears. I quickly jumped on the web and was regaled with articles stating one of the reactors had experienced meltdown, that Japan was at a true risk of a Chernobyl style disaster, or as it really is, a building had exploded, but mostly everything would turn up alright, less than a Three-Mile Island.
     At this point I am still seeing these sensationalist phrases such as "Japanese Nuclear Reactor Explodes" which have half-truths in them and are baiting everybody. I watched a basic social media post turn into an all out verbal brawl over nuclear power's safety with the person against power citing articles at this point have been deem to solely be sensationalist without a fact around. Even my grand scientific network of BBC has been running sensational claims in the ticker, though the main stories are generally reliable.
     My personal fear about these sensational claims is though they do attract the world to this remarkable disaster, they also polarize people before they can make their decisions themselves. This disaster has happened at an interesting time in the energy community. Nuclear power has begun to regain stride as a possible alternative and it would be unfortunate to see it quelled again. We must remember this plant is mostly under control, it is better than Three-Mile was and not to mention it was an 8.9 earthquake followed immediately by a tsunami. The other plants in the network have been fine, they worked as they were meant to and they still have a strong future ahead of them. Lets not chicken out now.