Nuclear Energy after the

Fukushima impact

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Fukushima impactA Media Snapshot*

1 March – 15 April 2011 *English Media only

The future of Nuclear on the top of the agenda

With the Fukushima accident, the nuclear energy

debate is back in the mainstream media. Before March

11, the “nuclear renaissance” and nuclear power as a

source of clean energy have only been a peripheral

topic. Wind, solar and hydropower were clearly topping

the agenda in the main news outlets.

The coverage on the accident peaked on 15/16 March,

then declined rapidly. Since the beginning of April, the

future of nuclear energy is being discussed alongside

other options, like renewable energy. The question if

nuclear power could have a future is now broadly

debated by politicians and in the media worldwide.

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debated by politicians and in the media worldwide.

“Fukushima has made me start to doubt,” declared EU Energy Commissioner Günther

Oettinger on 4 April in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel.

“Time to get back to basics on energy use,” commented Business Times Singapore on 7

April, expressing a common opinion. “Time for renewable energy,” claimed Spain’s El

País (29 March).

Disaster, crisis, catastrophe, fear – a negativity-stuffed vocabulary is haunting the

nuclear power industry since March 11. Bloomberg Businessweek exposed “Japan’s

shameful record on nuclear safety” (15 March). “Japan’s farmers battle nuclear scare,”

reported the Korea Herald on 30 March. At least in the near future, PR professionals

will have a hard job to get the positive messages out.

The Chernobyl angst is back

“Invisible death. Sterile children. Cancer with no

appeal.” (The Independent) The atomic disaster is

spreading fear worldwide. Chernobyl has been a

synonym for this and was the most with ‘nuclear energy’

associated discovery topic after the Fukushima accident.

It has now become a benchmark.

“No signs yet of a Chernobyl-type catastrophe,” wrote

The Japan Times on 14 March. “Almost as bad as

Chernobyl,” read the headline exactly one month later.

After upgrading the severity of the crisis to the highest

level on April 12, Chernobyl dominated the headlines. It

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level on April 12, Chernobyl dominated the headlines. It

was the only atomic catastrophe that has been classified

as high before.

California is the third most related concept and the connection is most often made in

the media of the region. “Earthquake study urged for reactors,” wrote the Los Angeles

Times (22 March). San Jose Mercury News pointed out that California's two plants,

Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo and San Onofre in Southern California, sit in active

earthquake zones (15 March).

The most affected companies are the manufacturers of nuclear reactors, where the

number of negative stories has passed the two third mark. General Electric, who

formed a joint venture with Hitachi, was building the three now destroyed reactors at

Fukushima Daiichi. “Billions of dollars in reactor sales are now potentially at risk, and

billions more in vendor contracts to service them,” informed the Wall Street Journal on

April 7.

Newswires are the main source of information

Newswires have been the most reliable original

source during Japan’s nuclear crisis and the leading

media outlets were benefiting from it. (Please note

that wires have been excluded for this analysis, but not

re-published wire news in newspapers or web sites).

The Wall Street Journal Online is the most cited

source, mainly thanks to the intensive coverage of

Dow Jones Newswires. Bloomberg Businessweek is

also relying greatly on its own wire, while Malaysian

newspaper The Star has been a top distributor of

Reuters News. The Fresno Bee in fouth place covers

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Reuters News. The Fresno Bee in fouth place covers

Japan’s nuclear crisis with AP stories.

There is still a certain positive bias in the list of media with the most favorable

coverage, especially in countries where nuclear energy is still on the political

agenda. At the top, two UAE publications stick out – WAM, the news portal of the

Emirates News Agency and Khaleej Times. “The proposed nuclear power plants in

the country will have the highest standards of safety using proven technology,”

wrote the paper on 17 March.

China, with the People’s Daily and China Daily, as well as India - The Hindu and

NetIndia 123.com - are further populating the list. China has currently 25 nuclear

reactors under construction, many of them in the Eastern coastal areas. The

government has suspended new approvals for the use of marine space in nuclear

projects, informed China Daily on 7 April.

The Tepco case – Jeopardizing Japan’s food industry

As far as Tokyo Electric Power is concerned,

mainstream media are paying most attention,

although there are also many discussions taking

place in blogs and message boards. H5N1, EX-SKF

and Zerohedge are the most prolific bloggers.

Top blogger Zerohedge criticized Tepco’s corporate

communications saying “While a few weeks back

TEPCO scrambled to lie to the public that a reading

10 million times higher than normal was really just

100,000 times above threshold, today TEPCO,

whose stock hit an all time low in overnight trading,

finally admitted the truth that radioactive Iodine

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finally admitted the truth that radioactive Iodine

131 readings taken from seawater near the water

intake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant's No. 2

reactor reached 7.5 million times the legal limit.”

“This means Godzilla is most likely very close to hatching,” zerohedge continued,

adding that “Tepco announced Monday it would start releasing radioactive water into

the sea, and experts fear the contamination may spread well beyond Japan's shores

to affect seafood overseas.” (5 April)

The disaster-ridden news coverage about Tepco has been categorized as almost

entirely negative by the Dow Jones Insight sentiment tools (graph on the right).

Bloomberg Businessweek, The West Australian and Nikkei Report have been Tepco’s

top sources during the crisis.

Food industry issues on the rise

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Food safety issues are on the rise in the coverage

of the Fukushima accident. While the containment

of the nuclear meltdown has been dominant

immediately after the earthquake and tsunami, food

safety concerns are slowly appearing on the agenda.

Methodology

The findings in this report summarize the results of a Dow Jones Insight text mining platform and manual

Internet-based research across a range of traditional and social media sources.

Media Set – Dow Jones Insight

Our system gathers relevant content from more than 8,000 global premium media publications, 22,000

handpicked websites and social media, including blogs and boards.

Press releases, premium research reports, as well as routine general news and republished news were

excluded to ensure a high relevancy of the underlying data set. English language only.

Search Construction

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Search Construction

Term search strings were constructed using free text in combination with Dow Jones Factiva’s

predetermined codes and filters.

Contact

The Dow Jones Insight Media Lab is on hand to provide further analysis on issues that are contained in

this report or ad hoc questions.

Media Lab Team Leader: Georg Ackermann georg.ackermann@dowjones.com