Salon Gets The Energy Collective Wrong

Peter Herbst said:

Either Siemens is a benevolent corporate group with no ulterior motives, only interested in presenting unmitigated facts about energy, even though one of their main business areas is building nuclear power plants. Or you're a bunch of whiny bastards, that can't spell "conflict of interest".

David Lewis said:

My reading of part of the Energy Collective attitude is in line with one of Mark's points, i.e. TEC "published that post not because of its rosy perspective, but in spite of it".  The "in spite of" suggests a bias in favour of believing hell was indeed upon us, or at least upon Japan, which was in line with the general attitude displayed by most if not all media in North America.  

Look at what that Salon article argues:  Oehmen was wrong about what he thought, and because he thought that radiation exposure due to excaped fission products from Fukushima would prove to cause no one any more harm than an airplane flight, he and whoever hosted his piece must be evil ignorant industry shills.  Mark Lazen of TEC stikes back saying well we hosted that article "in spite of" the fact it contained, presumably, this opinion, so there, we aren't evil whatever you said we were.

The fact that something very much like this opinion, i.e. that fears of what could happen at Fukushima were very much overblown, was widespread among those knowledgeable about nuclear power, is ignored.  

I might have written, in TEC's defense, that TEC has never advertised that it even so much as attempts to verfiy the facts that opinions expressed in what it posts are based on, how could it or why should it, as it is a site where differing opinions that TEC thinks are of interest to its readers are presented.  The "comments" section is available for those in disagreement, and TEC prominently advertises seeking new opinions to post.  Eg:

In this unusual case because of the high level of interest, the attack by Salon etc., misgivings felt by TEC editors, a note could have been attached to the piece saying TEC editors suggest the critique of this piece done by MIT's Nuclear Science Department should also be read by those not familiar with what goes on normally at TEC.  

That opinion of Oehmen's, although proven to be mistaken, proved to be less far off the mark than the opinions of those who feared a catastrophe of the order of magnitude of Chernobyl or worse, which is apparent now that the dust is settling: 

Dr. Robert Gale, who directed the medical effort at Chernobyl, who just returned from Japan after advising the Japanese Cabinet on what to do at Fukushima, is saying it looks at this point as if the evacuated population will suffer no detectable ill effects, and even the plant workers, except for the few acute cases who burned the skin around their ankles in radioactive water which he states is not serious, will not have detectable effects.  Dr. Gale works at Imperial College in London, one of the world's great insitutions when it comes to studying radiation.  

I argue in a post submitted but not yet posted by TEC "New York Times Coverage of Fukushima", citing the wild speculation that ignored or downplayed what genuine expert opinion was which the NYT published at the height of the crisis, that it is time this knee jerk attitude that favours reporting that confirms prejudice rather than reports on what the actual situation is or what the relevant experts think about it should change.  

The idea of "balance", which I have seen for decades as climate science was reported, where the views of most of the genuine experts in the world are treated simply as one pole in a debate with really fringe characters who don't actually do current state of the art climate research featured as the other pole, leaving the net story as "scientists disagree" about what the state of present knowledge in climate science is, which at least presents the views of the actual expert climate scientists, is thrown out the window when it comes to nuclear power.  

Expert opinion is suspect unless it is that of an "expert" who works for an anti nuclear organization.  Eg:  I submitted this post to TEC at the height of the crisis which consisted entirely of the views of Ted Rockwell which were written by him in the light of Fukushima and saw the post rejected.  Ted's credentials are unique and impeccable:  he was the technical director of the program that built the world's first commercial nuclear reactor.  I found this astonishing.  

The Energy Collective behaved unusually during the height of the Fukushima crisis, and the reason was the kitchen was getting hot.  TEC was getting noticed.  The Oehmen post in its first incarnation remains the most read item TEC has ever hosted. 

Alyson Stone said:

Owning up to errors is a best practice. There are countless examples of the benefits of authentic, sincere responses to (and apologies for) mistakes. It's one thing to be able to defend your organization in public; it's quite another to have that acknowledged by the organization that erred. I hope Salon has the common sense and moral good judgment to do so.

Marc Gunther said:

Well said, Mark. Both the Salon story and now your response are part of the self-correcting character of the blogosphere. Those of us who participate here believe that in the marketplace of ideas, the best (and most accurate) ideas will eventually rise to the top!

Dragos Ilinca said:

There have been countless examples where this scenario has happened. In our ADD society, you discover a veine of an idea and you go out shouting to the whole village that you've discovered the biggest gold deposit ever.

It takes time to start digging and follow the veine to figure out whether there's really something there. And you miss the short window of opportunity to capitalize on the virality of the initial article. iaThat's why journalism these days has decreased in quality so much.