>What should the news flash say? "Run from the nearest banana, person, airplane, or mountain." //
The news story should say "slightly elevated background radiation levels detected across Europe" and have an spokesman from the nuclear industry and a doctor quoted saying it's about as harmful as walking past a banana.
The fact we can't trust the media to report on something without inciting chaos is pretty awful.
Your position appears to be: we can't let the press report on interesting environmental anomalies because it could cause a panic. Meh.
I think the way the information was published was appropriate. The OP was openly criticizing the fact that the information went through through the normal review and publishing process instead of some urgent channel that would have given some non-negligible number of members of the general public the opportunity to take potassium iodide tablets.
My position is that it's detrimental to society to pressure the media into prominently covering non-issues that sound scary on the surface, without first taking the tiniest amount of effort to attempt to asses the level of danger. Such people should expect to be called out.
People are generally over-concerned about scary-sounding things of little to no danger, and vastly vastly under-concerned about mundane lifestyle issues that statistically pose the greatest threat to their health and lives. Those who openly criticize the media for lack of urgency in coverage without first checking if there's any actual danger of note should be made aware that they're contributing to the problem.
The news story should say "slightly elevated background radiation levels detected across Europe" and have an spokesman from the nuclear industry and a doctor quoted saying it's about as harmful as walking past a banana.
The fact we can't trust the media to report on something without inciting chaos is pretty awful.
Your position appears to be: we can't let the press report on interesting environmental anomalies because it could cause a panic. Meh.