Quality journalism exists in other countries too:

Pamela Papadopoulos writes: Re. “The quality journalism project: now crossing to Leigh Sales” (yesterday, item 4). The quality journalism project is fantastic and great to see in your publication.

What has been intriguing so far is that many individuals have stayed within the Anglosphere world of sources that they seek out and read.

Why is it that the fourth estate is so narrow?

Are we confined to a Western framework of mind set or maybe too lazy to go beyond that wonderful world outside of our own little English-speaking linguistic parochialism?

Chavez got the votes:

Niall Clugston writes: Re. “New-look Chavez foreshadows change in Venezuela” (yesterday, item 12). I disagree with Charles Richardson’s assessment of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez as “autocratic”.  While you could argue that his regime and his supporters have dictatorial tendencies, he is in power because he was voted in, and he has accepted every vote that has gone against him.  His survival in power is not due to repression but the dysfunction of the opposition, who a few years back resorted to a military coup, but even then couldn’t put forward a credible leader.

Fukushima:

James Eggins writes: Re. “Fukushima disaster exposed: ‘far worse than a nuclear bomb’” (yesterday, item 3). Ben Sandilands obviously knows very little about radiation dose measurement, and judging from his hysterical articles since Fukushima occurred has learnt very little since that event. Surely some “journalistic ethics” should prevail: read the source document, not just the headline, or do those sanctimonious exhortations only apply to the evil Murdochs? What Tepco actually reported is:

“The high dose rate was measured in the last part of the SGTS, very near the foot of the stack, and highlighted on a radiation map of the Daiichi site released by Tepco.

“Comparison to earlier versions of the map showed that Tepco has cleared many of the radiation hotspots caused by rubble spread around by explosions at the height of the accident sequence. Patches of concrete and steel previously recorded at 950, 550 and 170 millisieverts per hour have been cleared, although more work remains regarding areas with readings of 250, 160 and 120 millisieverts per hour.

“In line with this work, as well as the spraying of dust control agents, air sampling at the site border yesterday showed no detection of iodine-131, caesium-134 or caesium-137. This actually shows that airborne radiation at the plant boundary is low enough for normal working practices but Tepco is not expected to lower its precautions for some time to come.”

In plain English, it says: high radiation was measured exactly where it was expected to be at the foot of a stack (the Standby Gas Treatment System — SGTS) which is performing its intended purpose.

This is as unsurprising as saying temperatures were very high close to the fire. The point is that progress is being made on putting the fire out.

The bigger message, ignored by Ben because it is presumably un-newsworthy, is that off-site radiation levels are now very low.

When this saga is resolved, admittedly to no one’s eternal credit, the key point will be that that off-site radiation impacts were negligible. That is not to say that the dislocation of 160,000 people in the exclusion zone is “negligible”, nor that the pointless panic caused by exaggerated radiation contamination stories is to be dismissed as harmless, but in reality the offsite radiation damage is slight. Once this point is accepted, then the playing field starts to level out and someone with a thicker hide than me will point out how many people have died since Fukushima from mining fossil fuels or from the health assaults from fossil fuel burning elsewhere.

I appeal to Ben Sandilands to be at least fair: wait until the investigations are finished and the conclusions are published. In fact, much like an aeroplane crash investigation. Minus the radiation and nuclear melodrama.