{"id":54,"date":"2020-11-05T09:26:13","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T14:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-wbuschin\/?page_id=54"},"modified":"2020-12-22T02:01:04","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T07:01:04","slug":"your-choosing-ii","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-wbuschin\/your-choosing-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"TMI in Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nuclear technology first entered the world in a shroud of secrecy and uncertainty.\u00a0 Impetus for the creation of the first atomic bomb was as much scientific as it was the result of rampant speculation that the Nazis were developing atomic capability of their own.\u00a0 The United States\u2019 first major nuclear effort, the Manhattan project, was likewise highly confidential.\u00a0 And when the Cold War fomented public apprehension about nuclear technology on a national scale, the public fantasy around nuclear energy grew even more lurid (Wills 2006, 120).<\/p>\n

The secrecy surrounding \u201cnuclear energy\u201d \u2013 whatever that was \u2013 ensured that media portrayals of the technology would have an outsize ability to frame public attitudes and expectations around it (Wills 2006, 109).\u00a0 When the public raced to grasp the ramifications of the TMI disaster in its messy, ambiguous aftermath, then, the media they consumed had a large effect on their understanding of the disaster.<\/p>\n

A Blockbuster Coincidence<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Cover art for The China Syndrome. (2)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A mere twelve days before the TMI-2 reactor suffered a partial meltdown, Hollywood thriller The China Syndrome<\/em> landed in theaters nationwide.\u00a0 The film, starring Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas, portrays a television reporter\u2019s intrepid investigation of a fictional nuclear power plant in California.\u00a0 Everything that can go wrong at the plant does, and Fonda\u2019s character is left to witness a harrowing nuclear disaster in the making.\u00a0 Producers of the highly dramatized movie drew on documented instances of corruption and misfortune at real-life US nuclear facilities, and the film\u2019s portrayal of these facilities was not kind \u2013 energy utilities were framed as mischievous tricksters that valued profit over safety, and nuclear employees were made out to be grossly negligent in maintaining order at the California plant.\u00a0 Federal authorities, too, were cast in an unflattering light, depicted as bumbling and inept in\u00a0responding to nuclear crisis (Wills 2006, 111-12).<\/p>\n

The China Syndrome<\/em> was already poised to take advantage of growing public distrust of nuclear energy in the 70s, but when TMI-2 melted down mere days after the movie\u2019s release, the film enjoyed the brightest spotlight imaginable.\u00a0 As much of the American public attempted to make sense of the accident, the version of nuclear power the movie portrayed proved vivid in the collective imagination.\u00a0 Those uncertain of how to respond to the TMI accident looked to The China Syndrome<\/em> as a frame of reference for unfamiliar technology (Wills 2006, 114).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Whole F*cking Thing was Produced by Jane Fonda!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The national news media was not immune to the allure of The China Syndrome<\/em>.\u00a0 The movie provided accessible and palatable information to a press corps no likelier to possess nuclear expertise than the American public writ large.\u00a0 Reporters were known to attend showings of the film near Middletown, touting it as their \u201cinside view\u201d of the disaster (Wills 2006, 116).<\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise, then, that the media tended to conflate Hollywood with reality.\u00a0 Time<\/em> and Newsweek<\/em> both drew explicit parallels to The China Syndrome<\/em> in their reporting, and media outlets did not successfully distinguish the response of the movie\u2019s fictional energy company, California Gas and Electric, from that of Met Ed (Mazur 1984, 60).\u00a0 The media reporting on the accident transposed much of CGE\u2019s malice and manipulation onto Met Ed \u2013 and while Met Ed did have some issues with transparency and availability, its shortcomings were nowhere near Hollywood\u2019s portrayal (Wills 2006, 116).\u00a0 In a similar manner, federal authorities like the NRC struggled to shed the bumbling and inept image the media had saddled them with (Wills 2006, 117).<\/p>\n

All too easily, public reactions to the accident veered toward alarmism and panic as The China<\/em> Syndrome set public expectations for the disaster\u2019s mitigation efforts.\u00a0 The film proved so popular that an executive at the Atomic Industrial Forum, while referring to the drama surrounding TMI, quipped that \u201cthis whole f*cking thing was produced by Jane Fonda!\u201d (Wills 2006, 117)<\/p>\n

The News Media Struggles<\/strong><\/p>\n

The missteps taken by the national news media did not end with its overwrought focus on The China Syndrome<\/em>.\u00a0 The media\u2019s responsibility was immense: coverage of the TMI accident consumed nearly 40% of evening news during the first week as the public frantically searched for accurate information about the disaster (Mazur 1984, 45).\u00a0 And in some key ways, the media failed to meet its responsibility.<\/p>\n