The effect of poor media coverage on opposition to a nuclear referendum

A recent pair of articles that appeared in a major daily national newspaper illustrates a major reason why many South Africans are reluctant to get behind the idea of holding a referendum on nuclear power. Take the first of these articles which are supposed to be about community opposition to public utility Eskom’s plans to construct a nuclear power station at Thyspunt on the Eastern Cape coast, according to the headline at least. Despite this headline, the article appears to spend more time on making the case for nuclear power in general. Curiously too for a story about a local community’s opposition to nuclear power, not a single community member was afforded the opportunity to voice their concerns. In contrast, the reporter managed to contact and interview a national energy expert who also happens to be a keen advocate for the installation of more nuclear power capacity nationally. In fact, the bulk of this report consists of comments she made during her interview where, unsurprisingly, she is on record as repeating standard pro-nuclear talking points such as that renewable energy is not sufficient, nuclear power is a stable source of energy supply etc.

While some readers will be quick to defend the reporter’s approach as an attempt to balance pro and anti-nuclear views, it is difficult not to entertain the view that their decision to devote so much space to explaining the pro-nuclear position is not a display of objectivity but an exhibition of bias on their part in light of the fact that, on the very next day, this reporter penned a follow-up article to this story in which he interviewed a senior Eskom spokesperson. Once again, no community members, anti-nuclear activists or acknowledged energy experts who are recognised as being more objective when it comes to nuclear power were interviewed while the spokesperson was given leeway to repeat the usual pro-nuclear talking points. Once again, this reporter did not challenge the expert being interviewed. Indeed, they appear to have been downright soft on the spokesperson considering that they did not to press them on glaring generalisations and omissions. For example, the reporter did not press the spokesperson on their admission that “No final project scope, technology selection or procurement decision has yet been made”. Yet these sorts of details are crucial for community members when assessing how Eskom’s plans could affect them and can help readers contextualise community opposition thereto; even if one ignores for the moment ethical concerns about the acceptability of Eskom seeing fit to approach communities for public input and consultation about their plans when they themselves are unclear about these plans. These glaring oversights only serve to fuel speculation that the mainstream media is, in the main, pro-nuclear and that individual reporters are deliberately sloppy, or perhaps not as well-read or familiar with the material to probe nuclear supporters properly, when reporting on nuclear issues. In either case, the possibility that the media is heavily biased in favour of nuclear is apt to heighten critics of the idea of subjecting the government’s nuclear plans to a popular referendum’s opposition thereto. This is likely to apply especially to critics who also happen to be anti-nuclear. If the media is unwilling or unable to report their position accurately, or so they would argue, there is likely to be little prospect that they would be given a fair chance to make their case to voters in a nuclear referendum. If so, it would be far more prudent to rely on other avenues that do not require them to enlist mass popular support for their cause (e.g. court challenges and litigation) to try to stop the government from proceeding with its nuclear plans. Although this approach sounds logical, reasonable even, under the circumstances, those nuclear opponents who make it risk sounding like the authoritarians and autocrats they often tend to accuse pro-nuclear supporters of being. Consequently, they risk being labelled ‘hypocrites’ or worse, traitors who are acting on behalf of external actors. As a result, they risk diminishing the merits of their cause.

There are ways to prevent this chain of events from unfolding while still calling upon government to put its nuclear plans to a popular referendum. Foremost of these is by insisting on the development and rollout of publicly-funded mass education and awareness campaigns on nuclear power before the holding of a referendum to ensure that results reflect the outcome of genuine public deliberation on nuclear power. This is something which, to date, government has neglected to do or moved to make any attempts to do so for that matter. This suggests it is seemingly content to treat requirements to engage in public consultation as merely an administrative exercise rather than a genuine attempt to listen to community concerns or address the issues they raised. It must be one of those important details the Eskom spokesperson who was interviewed admitted it had not yet gotten round to finalising. By overlooking this important detail, government and the state utility Eskom make a mockery of their attempts to consult members of the public which sundry spokespersons proudly cite during interviews with forgiving journalists who shy away from challenging them on the substance of these claims.

If you would like journalists and ordinary citizens to be educated about nuclear power and equipped with the knowledge to effectively challenge pro-nuclear supporters and talking heads about their views, then we invite you to join us in calling upon government and nuclear supporters to expend greater efforts on nuclear education activities. In our bid to do a small part to increase public education and awareness about nuclear power, please feel free to contact us at the CRNPSA if you would like to learn more about nuclear power or for us to direct you to online resources where you can receive more information about it. You are welcome too to attend one of our talks or invite one of our members to deliver a talk on the topic to any group or groups to which you belong whose members might be interested in learning more about this topic than they would from the standard script from which nuclear spokespersons read. Drop us an email at citizensipho@gmail.com or leave a message in the comments and we will get back to you shortly. #nuclear #nuclearpower #nuclearreferendum #SouthAfrica