Many people feel that the mass media's coverage of radiation, particularly relating to nuclear power, fans public fears. It does so, critics say, by paying too much attention to radiation, by using inflammatory language such as "deadly radiation, "by implying that radiation is poorly understood by science, and by failing to put its risks in perspective.
While communication and risk researchers cannot be sure of the influence of mass media coverage on the public's fear of radiation, we can look for various clues in how radiation has been reported over the years.
In 1979, the Task Force on the Public's Right to Information of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island called the radiation coverage of the accident "abysmally inadequate. "It found that the reporters covering TMI had made improper comparisons and factually impossible statements and provided insufficient background information.
A study done in 1982 by Dunwoody, Tankard and Ryan of selected newspaper and magazine coverage of the Ginna nuclear plant accident in New York also found problems with the radiation reporting such as not mentioning how radiation levels were measured around the plant or how the "safe" levels for radiation had been determined.
In 1985, a study my students and I did of press coverage of radioactive radon seeping into homes in the Lehigh Valley region in Pennsylvania, found that terms critical for understanding radiation doses and exposure levels were rarely mentioned by the three local newspapers or two major metropolitan newspapers studied.
In 1986, the Chernobyl accident provided the opportunity to evaluate whether the media had improved their coverage of radiation during a major accident when people would be most fearful. A content analysis of radiation coverage of Chernobyl in five major newspapers and on the three major television networks done by Carole Gorney, Brenda Egolf and I showed that they did not provide enough radiation information. However, what radiation information they did provide was appropriate, even-handed and not sensational.
Since this study makes a number of important points about radiation coverage, I will go into it in more detail. In the coverage, information about how much radiation was escaping and whether it posed a health hazard was infrequent and very general.
No more than 35 percent of the 184 articles with radiation information and 50 percent of the 43 television newscasts contained some form of radiation reading. And for most of these readings, the media avoided using numerical values for radiation levels and used instead generalizations about the readings, calling them high or low or safe or dangerous. In doing so, they deprived people of information they could have used to evaluate risks for themselves. Instead, readers and viewers had to depend on an interviewee's estimate that everything was safe. What "safe" actually meant was unclear since the media rarely explained how that was being evaluated.
Beyond numbers, there was only a limited effort to explain radiation information. Use of various translation aids such as analogies and comparisons was quite low. Efforts to explain the health and environmental effects of radiation were almost nonexistent. Yet, this information was critical for providing perspective to readers and viewers and helping them understand more about radiation and its risks.
Among important topics covered infrequently were:
Despite not providing some important information, the media did not appear to sensationalize. In fact, they were conservative in their use of risk assessments and of worst case scenarios.
Radiation coverage in the mass media can improve if reporters learn more about this complicated subject. The first thing they need to know is that there are eight elements required for a good radiation reading:
Rather than saying, "the nuclear accident has spawned a radioactive cloud that was detected up to 16 miles from the plant," reporters need to provide more precise information, if available. They should write, for example, "a reading of 50 millirems per hour was made at the plant gate about an hour ago. The emission is thought to include radioactive iodine which can be absorbed by the thyroid. It is being released continuously."
Reporters also should be familiar with radiation measurement categories, which are based on four different factors. There are two systems of measurement and they use different terms. Curie, roentgen, rad and rem are the common American measurement terms, while becquerel, coulomb/kilogram, gray and sievert are from the international measurement system.
Beyond measurement terms, there are different types of radiation--X-rays, gamma, alpha and beta rays--that penetrate objects to different degrees and therefore have different effects on people and the environment. Reporters should be aware that there is scientific disagreement about radiation effects. While most scientists agree on how radiation affects humans at high doses, they disagree when the doses fall to low levels. Some scientists feel that radiation at any level has a harmful cumulative effect. Others argue that there is a threshold below which no harm comes to people, even if there is continuous, long-term, low-dose exposure. Depending on which theory an expert believes, he or she will evaluate the danger of low-level radiation exposure differently. There are many other factors for journalists to consider that I do not have time to cover. To learn more about radiation, get a copy of The Journalist's Guide to Nuclear Energy by Edward Edelson, which is published by the U.S. Council on Energy Aware- ness and available free to reporters. Also attend an emergency drill at a nearby nuclear power plant not to cover the story, but to participate in the drill itself. This will allow you to get information you need and ask all the questions you have always wanted to ask during a non-stressful, non-deadline situation.
Above all, remember that fear of radiation is now part of our culture--for better or worse. You can help your readers and viewers deal with that fear and evaluate their risk by explaining radiation information clearly, fully and in perspective.
This article appeared in Environmental Risk Reporting: The Science and the Coverage, proceedings of a workshop, eds Sharon M. Friedman and Carol L. Rogers (1991), Department of Journalism and Communication, University Center 29, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa 18015.