To the editor,
One significant role of news reporters in reporting about people in power, such as politicians and industrial proponents, is to hold their feet to the fire. Journalism has the moral responsibility to communicate all perspectives on controversial issues as well as to raise questions of inquiry about statements communicated by people in positions of authority, instead of simply repeating them at face value, as fact.
Through several years, regional newspapers have failed miserably at informing the public on the fuller story of the deep geological repository (DGR) for high-level radioactive waste (used fuel bundles) proposed by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO).
News reporters reduce themselves to being nothing more than public relations flacks for the nuclear industry, rather than professional journalists who are morally obliged to dig for the deeper truths, when they limit themselves to merely reciting the promotional material and oral presentations from the NWMO.
The description of the February meeting of the South Bruce Community Liaison Committee in this newspaper’s Feb. 9 edition is the most recent example. Simply parroting the NWMO presenter is not good enough. The result of a long pattern of communicating such one-sided information is that your readers – who have not been properly informed on the dangers of this (experimental) project and the continuing major information gaps – accept your published information as the truth, if and when they trust that journalists are doing their job.
Please know that I speak with tough love, as a former veteran journalist (published prior to the digital era), who considers Midwestern Newspapers to be the best among various regional newspapers. I applaud you for winning various community newspaper awards, which you have deserved. I applaud the intelligence so profoundly evident in news coverage on other topics.
The issue, therefore, is not a lack of intelligence but a lack of will to do much better reporting on what I believe is the most important environmental story of this region. The harm and potential loss of farmland will go beyond South Bruce, as will the potential contamination across watersheds through time. Food security and safe water is much more important, and essential to safeguard now, for future generations, before it’s too late
Dr. Sandy Greer
Blyth
