A 'CLARIFICATION'
Day, Samuel H. Jr.
A "clarification" How Westinghouse helped the AP rewrite a nuclear article Samuel H. Day Jr. The editor's note came right to the point — an alarming point — when a story about a little-known and...
...Wire editors read that the U.S...
...This is old stuff to us...
...Even the revised version was "still anti-nuclear," Nolte said, "but at least it had a modicum of truth...
...While acknowledging company assertions that the technology is safe, the story focused on the concerns which have prompted the Carter Administration to declare it is cutting back development of a national breeder reactor program...
...Thomas Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC): "The only thing one can say on the positive side is that it's been sited on a very large Federal facility in the middle of a desert...
...They have no inbred fear of nuclear power and what it can do...
...Samuel H. Day Jr., managing editor of The Progressive, is a former Associated Press reporter...
...The editor's note came right to the point — an alarming point — when a story about a little-known and controversial new atomic reactor began moving on the wires of the Associated Press to newspaper offices across the country on Tuesday, July 3. The story, filed in advance for publication on Sunday, July 15, dealt with an experimental device called the "fast flux test facility" (FFTF) in the desert of central Washington...
...To make up for these deletions, newspaper readers found a variety of comments by Dr...
...Meanwhile, in Kentucky, author Moore asked that questions about what happened to his story be directed to APN headquarters in New York...
...The story went on to tell about the big facility that Westinghouse Corporation is building in the sagebrush of the Columbia River Basin to pave the way for the nuclear power plants of the future, and about growing debate over whether the project is safe and whether it is worth the taxpayers' money...
...But the readers who opened their newspapers twelve days later found a different story about the FFTF...
...And they've heard enough...
...So we did a memo on the subject — and that was that...
...The trouble with the story, said Nolte, was that it raised unfounded fears about the safety of breeder reactors...
...Confronted by the publisher and Westinghouse, the embattled bureau chief promised to look into the problem...
...Cappon said the author, T.G...
...There is no evidence to suggest that human beings are capable of that meticulous attention to detail over a period of time...
...He offered the Tri-City Herald as a better model for nuclear reporting: "They've lived with this thing for forty years," he said...
...I did go down to the newspaper office to take a look at it, just to satisfy my curiosity," he said...
...Project officials concede that substantial core melting did occur but that no explosion could have occurred...
...Lee, who is a board member of the Tri-City Nuclear Industrial Council, an industry promotion group, as well as publisher of the Herald, agreed that his readers have a sophisticated understanding of nuclear matters...
...Why all the changes...
...Arthur Tamplin, also on the staff of the NRDC: "Look at the FFTF in light of Three Mile Island...
...People do have a right to know all sides, but they have a right to hear it in an unbiased way...
...Wire editors read that the price tag for FFTF, originally estimated at $87 million when the project was begun ten years ago, is now expected to top $1 billion...
...Cappon said it was "an internal matter...
...Cappon said APN didn't learn about the problems in Moore's story until a vigorous complaint arrived from the AP Seattle bureau, which is the normal channel for AP news originating in the state of Washington...
...But that fuel is plutonium, and atomic energy foes see many problems with it...
...Moore was," Lee told me...
...William Klink, managing editor of the Herald, explained to me how this came about...
...Moore, a writer in the AP's Louisville, Kentucky, bureau, had submitted the story to APN in New York after a vacation visit to the Northwest, where he interviewed officials of Westinghouse Hanford...
...Construction of breeder reactors in the United States has been indefinitely postponed because it is considered unnecessary at this time — and hazardous...
...Please eliminate the original version...
...Zerza said he thought no more about the story until a few days later, when he received a call from the Herald office reporting that a new version had just cleared the wire...
...Neither Brewer nor Jack Cappon nor even Westinghouse would show me the detailed company critique that Brewer relayed to APN and that formed the basis of the revisions...
...That wasn't the only difference between what wire editors saw on July 3 and what the public read on July 15...
...There is a more efficient, more economical reactor in the wings, waiting for a summons to center stage...
...Moore, which moved [July 3] for Sunday, July 15, as part of the APN Sunday report...
...Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in its latest report last year, had found that some essential components of the FFTF are not adequately shielded to withstand tornados...
...We tightened things up considerably — some of the arguments were awfully tedious — but we took care that all the major parts were retained...
...The Tri-City Herald, which promotes Hanford not only as a center for breeder development but also as a site for nuclear waste disposal and a twenty-reactor nuclear energy park, has carried stories with such headlines as "Waste Could Be $20-Billion Hanford Business" and "Harrisburg Accident Could Benefit Hanford...
...Further, they say that early safety questions have been dealt with successfully and breeder reactors have outstanding operating records in France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and, since 1963, in Idaho, with the Experimental Breeder Reactor II...
...Cochran and Tamplin, but their critical comments about FFTF safety were tightened from seven paragraphs to three...
...They know all about those birds Cochran and Tamplin," he said...
...Cappon said it was mainly a question of adding "balancing comment" from project officials so that both sides would be represented on matters in dispute...
...I think we erred in not checking it out originally...
...The lingering argument over nuclear power continues with its own themes and variations," a new editor's note began...
...When we got the advance we gave it to our science writer and had him check it out with Westinghouse," he said...
...Readers of the revised story learned only that the reactor "has consumed $621 million...
...Missing from the published version of the story were ten paragraphs critical of FFTF safety features, including this one from Dr...
...Restoring "balance" to the story also gave APN an opportunity to do some shortening, Cappon explained...
...There were factual errors in it in various ways, and certain things were in dispute which we had stated as facts, mainly in technical aspects," Cappon said...
...Moore has written previously for the AP and others on nuclear topics — see "The Fateful Choice in Uranium Enrichment" in the August issue of The Progressive...
...He also said knowledgeable people appreciate that breeder reactors are essential to the solution of the nation's energy problems...
...Among those retained were Drs...
...Newspaper readers learned only that company officials are satisfied that all safety concerns of the NRC have been met...
...We wanted to know who this guy T.G...
...Glenn Lee, who publishes the Herald and has long been active in community development, carried the matter a step further by taking it up with John Brewer, the Seattle AP bureau chief, who happened to be visiting the Hanford area that day...
...We'd never heard of him before...
...There must have been at least ten errors...
...We stated as facts what turned out to be contested...
...And this one from Dr...
...The Associated Press explained it this way in an advisory note to managing editors and Sunday editors filed on July 9 — six days after the story went out over the wires: "Upcoming shortly on this circuit is a substitute for the Fast Breeder reactor story by T.G...
...There was one thing that neither wire editors nor newspaper readers knew: AP's report on the problems of Westinghouse's FFTF had been reviewed, rewritten, and re-edited with the help of the Westinghouse Corporation...
...On the whole," he said, "I think the AP tried to respond to matters that had been brought to its attention...
...Also missing was the author's assertion that "if enough of the plutonium melts into a so-called supercritical mass, a small nuclear explosion could result, possibly blowing open the containment building and contaminating a wide area of the Pacific Northwest...
...Design features to prevent core meltdown are not unproven, but are in fact engineered using established principles and tested components," Dr...
...When AP indicated the latter, Westinghouse took the story, bracketed the parts to which it had objections, and offered its own version of the facts...
...We called up the AP and asked them if this was someone new on their staff...
...They're constantly asking questions...
...The sub corrects several mistakes, clarifies some ambiguous points and expands on comments from project officials concerning disputed areas...
...Not only is the potential for nuclear explosion remote, if not actually impossible, but the potential energy...
...The story was revised in New York in consultation with the Seattle bureau, which forwarded a detailed critique by Westinghouse...
...John Yasinsky, president of Westinghouse Hanford (prime contractor for the FFTF) and other unnamed project officials...
...We asked the AP if they wanted to go out with an inaccurate story, or whether they would prefer to do it over," Nolte said...
...We've got Hanford right here in our backyard," said Klink...
...But a test facility — for research only — is gearing up for a trial run later this year...
...If it were located anywhere else I would say it would be a real disaster in terms of safety...
...Even history acquired a substantially new look in the revised version...
...would be within the containment capability of FFTF...
...A nuclear breeder reactor does just that — it 'breeds' or produces atomic fuel, namely, plutonium, potentially the most lethal of all," the editor's note began...
...Called a fast breeder, it produces more fuel than it uses...
...Wire editors read on July 3 that "the government's Experimental Breeder Reactor I at Idaho Falls, Idaho, had a core meltdown in 1955 and came within a half-second of exploding before a backup fast-shutdown system was used," although "the accident posed little danger to the public...
...The local paper is close to the situation here," said Fred Zerza, public relations manager for Westinghouse Hanford...
...The name was a new one to Brewer, too, as was the story itself...
...Yasinsky was quoted as saying in the revised version of the story...
...But Robert Nolte, vice-president of Westinghouse Hanford, gave me the flavor of the company's reaction to the story: "It was totally inaccurate," he said, "and when we pointed this out to them they agreed...
...Cappon credited the alertness of an Associated Press member newspaper — the Tri-City Herald, published at Pasco, Washington, near the Westinghouse site — with enabling the AP to offer a more "balanced" story...
...You have to bounce conflicting opinions off against each,other, and we hadn't done that...
...The advisory note didn't specify the mistakes and ambiguities and disputed areas requiring expanded comments 'We did a memo on the subject — and that was that' from project officials, so I sought clarification from Jack Cappon, AP general news editor in charge of AP Newsfeatures (APN), which edited the story and put it on the wire...
...It was totally slanted as a horror type of story...
...They questioned this AP story and asked us to take a look at it...
...The technology needed for controlling breeder reactors is many times more sophisticated than for light-water reactors...
...It was a good job...
...Critics point to the near core meltdown of Experimental Breeder Reactor I at Idaho Falls, Idaho, in 1955...
...There were a lot of glaring mistakes in the story...
...Newspaper readers on July 15 found this instead: "Nuclear critics and project officials differ greatly on the record of breeder reactors...
...Also, the story lacked balance...
Vol. 43 • September 1979 • No. 9
