Reporters Face Exposure To Radiation Danger

Journalists used to wading into natural disasters and war zones faced an unusual menace in Japan this week: exposure to radiation

As radiation levels rose and fell around the crippled nuclear power plant near Sendai , Japanese officials added to the uncertainty by giving sometimes vague and conflicting information about the dangers that followed a series of explosions.

According to Paul Farhi at The Washington Post that left Western news organizations pondering how to cover the unfolding story. The hazards of exposure raised an implicit ethical question rarely pondered in the news business: Is getting the story worth risking an invisible but lethal dose of radiation?

News organizations, including The Washington Post, said they were advising their journalists not to take any unnecessary risks. But with information flowing so haphazardly, news managers acknowledged it was hard to know what an unnecessary risk might be.

“We’re completely transparent with our folks in the field,” said David Verdi, vice president of worldwide newsgathering for NBC. “They know everything that we know. . . . We give people in the field the chance to say they want to stay. We may override them, but unless there’s an overwhelming reason to do so, we let them make the final decision.”

NBC is one of five American TV networks that conferred late Monday night in a conference call about the safety of their employees in Japan. The networks — CBS, ABC, Fox News and CNN were the other participants — shared whatever data they had about logistics and security. NBC organized this loose association in 2003 to share information about the dangers of covering the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

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