Yomiuri: Foreign Tabloids Fanning the Fear of Fukushima Nuclear Accident

Here comes the Ministry of Truth. Or precursor of it. Because for now, it's the big media doing it under the guidance from the government.

Yomiuri Shinbun (in Japanese; 12:26PM JST 4/7/2011) is indignant that the foreign tabloid newspapers like UK's Sun, Daily Mail (which by the way has just spectacular photos of the earthquake/tsunami/nuke accident), and Germany's Bild are exaggerating the danger of radiation from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant beyond the "reality", and fanning the fear among their readers.

Yomiuri didn't like The Sun's March 15 headline (March 15??) , "thousands escaping Tokyo for fear of radiation leak". It didn't like Daily Mail's March 16 headline either that said "Japan caught in a nuclear panic", "Japan's nuclear crisis uncontrollable". It didn't like Bild for asking "is Japan going to pollute the entire Pacific Ocean?" (Headlines are not what actually appeared in these papers; they are my translation from the Japanese.)

People did escape Tokyo in numbers, particularly foreign workers who live and work in Tokyo at that early stage in the crisis. Daily Mail's assessment that Japan's nuclear crisis is uncontrollable seems just about right. You can't blame Bild for asking whether Japan is going to pollute the entire Pacific Ocean when a private company was allowed to dump the contaminated water with only a nod from its regulatory agency, and the government really doesn't have a plan on what to do with the highly contaminated water, 60,000 tons and increasing daily.

Japanese people over 80 years old would know exactly what their government is doing. It is a déjà vu for them. It happened before and during the World War II, when losing was portrayed as winning.

Just like the US government has been doing, not just on its endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Lybia, Ivory Coast joining, maybe). Oh look, economy is improving, because the stock market is rising! Don't worry we have GE's Immelt (who has exported so many jobs abroad) to run the commission for jobs and competitiveness! Everything will be alright as long as we save our Wall Street Banks so that they can continue to pick your pockets, or we have to declare a martial law!

Never waste a good crisis, and the Japanese government is simply doing just that. Too bad the crisis had to be this big.

Tweet