Transcript
January 9, 2004
BOB GARFIELD: Sometimes the administration circumvents citizen nervousness. Sometimes the administration cultivates it. The orange alert over the holidays rattled the world, but only afterward did we learn the nature of the threat -- concern that a dirty bomb might be detonated in a major city, spewing radiation in the air -- an alarming prospect, but how alarming, exactly? Though panic would no doubt ensue, loss of life and property damage would likely be quite limited. So why has the White House done so little to educate the public about dirty bombs, and for that matter, any potential terrorist threat? And why has the press neither challenged government officials on this lapse nor tried to fill in the gaps themselves? On the Media's John Solomon explains.
ANNOUNCER: 8:31. [NEWS BRIEF MUSIC]
MAN: This just in to the WTOP newsroom. [IMPORTANT NEWS MUSIC]
MAN:We are getting reports of an explosion near the Van Ness Metro Station. The Connecticut Avenue entrance reportedly is caved in. Now we have a reporter heading to the scene now, and we will give you more details as they become...
JOHN SOLOMON: The bad news -- the explosion turned out to be a terrorist bomb laced with plutonium. The good news? This was an excerpt from a mock radio-cast produced for a National Academy of Engineering Workshop to see how government officials and journalists would handle a dirty bomb attack. The most important news is what they found out from the exercise.
RANDY ATKINS: I think that we're ill-prepared.
JOHN SOLOMON: National Academy official Randy Atkins organized the simulation.
RANDY ATKINS: It was pretty clear that there was a lot of confusion about, for example, simple buzz words that are probably going to create panic in the public -- nuclear - radiological -what's potassium iodide? - plutonium.
JOHN SOLOMON: Atkins says that many of those engaged in the exercise had trouble explaining the difference between a dirty bomb and a full-scale nuclear device. A local weatherman there mistakenly warned that a plume of radiation would spread, imperiling the whole region.
MAN: These are all things that are going to cause people near the incident to panic. It's going to cause traffic jams, it's going to cause delays in getting first responders to the scene. It's going to cause people to pull back from victims that really need help. It's going to cause people to run when perhaps they should stay in place.
JOHN SOLOMON: The Bush administration has long understood the need to address this scenario with the public and the media. In March of 2002, the Center for Strategic and International Studies held a similar exercise. This time the dirty bomb exploded on the Washington Mall with top U.S. Homeland Security officials in attendance. As one later told Steve Brill for his book, After: How America Confronted the September 12th Era -- "We know we have to deal with this sooner or later." Almost two years later they still haven't, even though Brill says officials told him that they would be surprised if that type of attack doesn't happen here in the near future.
STEVEN BRILL:I don't think they've treated it like the urgent threat that it is. The whole idea ought to be to just take that weapon out of the arsenal of the terrorists, and this is one I-- situation where you can take the weapon away without spending money, without, you know, shooting people, and without two years of planning. If I were Tom Ridge and George Bush, I'd ask for a half-hour of network time to hold a teach-in about dirty bombs. The time to give that speech is now -- not two hours after someone sets off one of these bombs and everybody's panicked, because it's not going to work then.
JOHN SOLOMON: In the more than two years since the September 11th attacks, President Bush has never addressed the country on dirty bombs, nor for that matter, any civil defense issue. Veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Cynthia Crossen, author of Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America, suggests there may be a political motive.
CYNTHIA CROSSEN:They like the idea that they can say the words "dirty bomb" and send people into a panic --that there's a certain kind of power. If you have people fearful about their lives and the possibility of an attack, it makes it easier to advance an agenda, a political agenda which is less privacy and more government control and observation of its citizens.
JOHN SOLOMON: Steven Brill attributes better, if short-sighted, intentions to the government.
STEVEN BRILL: I suspect that the thinking in the White House is, "Well, gee -- we don't want to scare people." And there's something to that. But the fact is that the cost of scaring people a little bit today compared to the cost of people being, you know, ignorant and panicked when something happens -- that's an easy decision.
JOHN SOLOMON: But this "less is more" approach may be mis-judging the public. A recent Carnegie-Mellon University study found that 8 of 10 Americans want the government to provide them honest, accurate information about terrorism -- even if it is worrisome. Brill says the press isn't serving the public well either.
STEVEN BRILL:We can blame the government for this, but everyone in the media should blame themselves. I mean there's nothing stopping, you know, NBC from doing a special on how to deal with this stuff -- except the fact that they won't get the same ratings as they get from, you know, [LAUGHS] a show ironically called Fear Factor.
JOHN SOLOMON: Cynthia Crossen is puzzled by the lack of coverage. Maybe, she surmises, it's just the sheer magnitude and mystery of the possibilities.
CYNTHIA CROSSEN:Nobody has ever hijacked planes and flown them into big buildings before. That was beyond our imagination. And now I think there's some sense, too, that whatever is going to come next -- it's not something that we're even thinking about. So it does put both the government and the media in a bind to try to go through -- okay, here's what to do with a dirty bomb. Here's what to do with-- while all the while knowing that that is a little bit of grasping straws.
JOHN SOLOMON: The National Academy's Randy Atkins organized the workshop in large part to help the media understand and communicate these complex and unfamiliar topics.
RANDY ATKINS:We need to challenge journalists to find ways of making this material interesting. It is science. It is engineering. I think that it sometimes is difficult to get the public engaged in it. I think it's almost more difficult sometimes to get journalists engaged in it. I, I see journalists for-- as people that to a large extent probably went to journalism school to do things other than science and engineering [LAUGHS], and they're certainly not going to go out of their way to report on these sort of issues now.
JOHN SOLOMON: Since this story first aired, one journalist has announced plans to try to engage the public and the press on these issues. At the request of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, author Steven Brill announced last month the formation of a new group -- the America Prepared Campaign -- to galvanize the private sector -- particularly the media and the entertainment industries -- to assist in improving public preparedness. For On the Media, this is John Solomon.
BOB GARFIELD:Coming up, cracks in China's press freedom promises, the liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh, and journalism ethics 101. This is On the Media, from NPR.
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