CTV’s W-Five drops the bomb on Port Hope (2)
Posted on 15 November 2008 by Jack
The town of Port Hope, Ontario– the birthplace of Canada’s Eldorado nuclear refinery — just got some bad news. The company that now operates the refinery, Cameco Corp., said Thursday it may have to shut down production due to a dispute over supplies of hydrofluoric acid, used to make nuclear fuel. Grim as the shutdown may seem to the people of Port Hope, it may be less of a blow than the one they experienced recently at the hands of CTV’s W-Five.
An ageing “investigative journalism” warhorse, W-Five is now relegated to 7 pm Saturday night, where it digs into the usual: chiropractors, cyber-bullying, date rape on cruise ships. Last Saturday, the W-Five crew aired a piece titled “What Lies Beneath,” purporting to reveal the deep dark health secrets of Port Hope’s nuclear legacy. It was, to say the least, a shoddy piece of under-reported hyper-sensational junk science.
Back in the days when the late Eric Malling ran the place, W-Five brought a rakish skepticism to science and health claims. If the Port Hope episode is any indication, W-Five is now operating under the rules of the Martin Mittelstaedt School of Science Journalism: Let no fact get in the way of a health scare, and let no science contradict the teeniest hypothetical link between an environmental chemical and disease.
The Port Hope episode began with CTV news veteran Lloyd Robertson lending his credibility to the affair with an ominous introduction. The people of Port Hope, he said, are living in a “town divided” over nuclear waste that is “making them sick.” Then the reporter for the episode, Paula Todd, took over. She announced, in ponderous tones, that behind the picturesque community of 16,000 people on Lake Ontario, about 100 kilometres east of Toronto, “there is a darker side.”
Related: Health Canada Specialist Refutes Port Hope Community Contamination Claims
Note: I know…I’m boring. But that’s what the news is these days. Other than the huge fire now burning in California there isn’t much.
5:13 pm and gone.
Goodnight.
Popularity: 20% [?]
November 15th, 2008 at 10:44 am
It appears that the TV arm (Leg?, body?, ass end? ) of Globe Media has morphed into a slipshod medium with a built in bias replicating the publicly financed CBC.
Gravitas in the MSM is down the toilet.
National Post may be emerging from the murky sludge, that is Canadian MSM.
November 15th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Slip-shod reporting indeed! While there were over 100 nuclear test shots in Nevada, both above and below ground, the first atomic explosion was at the Trinity Site at White Sands, New Mexico. It wasn’t clear from the article whether this was a quote from W-5 or the National Post. But errors like this throw the entire article into question.
Ohio
Albuquerque