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<DIV>Western media’s coverage has been mostly unintentionally hilarious,
especially early on. From Fox News locating a nuclear plant in Shibuya to
Anderson Cooper clearly nervous about being anywhere near a reactor. More on
them in a moment, but first . . . <IMG
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<DIV>My wife happened to be on Skype with her mother in Hadano when the quake
hit. Instead of checking the news or web sites I went straight to social media
(twitter, etc). Even though I do work in mainstream press (less so recently but
am about to be back in the game) I wouldn’t trust them to break a big
international story properly. You really have to wait for one of the big papers
to contextualize things to get a proper story, though even the big papers over
here in the states really screwed the pooch early on. Part of the problem, given
the nuclear energy angle, was that reporters has to rely on others a great deal
more to adequately understand what is really happening. Great thing about Web
and social media is that there are plenty of experts out there to offer an
opinion and either consensus will push the better ones to the front or you can
sort it out for yourself if you’ve the time.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Even when the print reporter does the story, the tendency may be to go with
the best quote and/or MOST ALARMING HEADLINE POSSIBLE.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>For sometime, I thought the tsunami victims and heroes were given short
shrift. I think that has improved now.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The local paper relies on AP for international stories and AP has been all
over the place. They have however focused on local efforts to raise money for
the victims and today a picture from a vigil held at a local university was
above the fold front page. Over the past week such stories were in the B
section, while IMPENDING NUCLEAR DOOM stories held sway in Section A.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>IMO National Public Radio, target of scorn and derision, has done the best
job of context, presenting a clear picture. Still, it’s not what you can get on
the web on your own with a little bit of work.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I’ve been most interested in the public reaction. I’ve noticed a lot of
people going with the “divine retribution” angle around here. I’m on a public
affairs talk show a couple of times a month, last week we had a caller that
blamed the disaster on Japan’s lax environmental policy, and so the Earth was
taking revenge. What?</DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=kalin@vassar.edu
href="mailto:kalin@vassar.edu">Jesse Kalin</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:13 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
href="mailto:KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu">KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: Media coverage of the quake and tsunami in
Japan</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">Readers
on this list might be interested in the following criticism/analysis of American
TV coverage published recently in the San Francisco Chronicle; it makes many of
the same points Roger does:
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/18/DDFN1ICTA0.DTL">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/18/DDFN1ICTA0.DTL</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The print coverage has been considerably better. The following
graphic made by the NY Times provides an indelible visualization of the the
tsunami's devastation, in case you missed it (the graphic superimposes before
and after satellite images with a slider to show the change):</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html?hp">http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html?hp</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Jesse Kalin, New York</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>On Mar 19, 2011, at 8:45 AM, Roger Macy wrote:</DIV><BR
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<H1 style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 6pt"><U><FONT size=5>Media coverage of the quake
and tsunami in Japan</FONT></U></H1>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Dear KineJapaners,</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN>I was also glad to have
the silence on this list broken and to hear from friends.<SPAN> <SPAN
class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN></SPAN>I sincerely hope that those I
have not yet heard from are safe and do not have friends or relatives
afflicted by these tragedies.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>There have been direct and
indirect references to media coverage of the disaster on the threads
‘Fundraising Screening of CALF …’ and ‘the eerie silence on KineJapan …’
[which we have well-and-truly broken!].<SPAN> <SPAN
class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN></SPAN>But I would like to hear of
members’ takes on the coverage when they are ready.<SPAN> <SPAN
class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN></SPAN>My own contribution is a
little long, so feel free to file or
delete.</P></FONT></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>