Fukushima: The UK media scores 4/10 so far

It is only a tiny bit cruel to say that so far (16 March 2011) Jon, Krishnan and Anna (to name just the presenting stars of C4 and Sky) have not done well. Neither have the writers of the headlines and the linking material the talent reads. Luckily, some of the specialist reporters (Fergus Walsh, for instance) seem to be doing pretty well. And the experts from all quarters seem to have been well-selected and to pitch in as best they can. The audience has only to disregard the scene-setting and they’ll be pretty well informed. But lord, the scene-setting drips prejudices at once hippie and populist: the appetite for gloom; the wilful ignorance about radiation; the refusal to discuss risk as though it wasn’t always a balance; the endless parading of Three Mile Island like it had hurt people; the assumption that Chernobyl was a huge killer (even George Monbiot has got beyond that canard). It’s sad and bad.