The Fukushima disaster, in which 23,000 people died, was one of the most consequential events I covered.
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@troed @newsguyusa @David I was there, a scientist working for the US Gov., and on the loop with access to both embassy and military info as it emerged. As you can imagine, the Japanese government wanted to carefully control public information as did TEPCO, and the US respected their wishes. With the US info on one hand and the Japan/Tepco public statements on the other, I’m quite confident in asserting that the situation was considerably more dangerous than was ever revealed. We were given a three day supply of iodine tabs and told to evacuate. So no, I have only my lived experience and information I gained from sources I can’t cite. Not ideal, I understand.
You are the source for the claim that Tepco rounded up homeless people for cleanup work who later died?
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@cstross @newsguyusa Steve has been reporting news for VOA and on the Fediverse for years. I think this is an honest mistake, not intentional bullshit.
@evan I would say this is the kind of mistake a professional journalist should never, ever make. I’d be far more forgiving of a casual commenter but, as he said, he was there.
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
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@evan As a professional journalist @newsguyusa should know the importance of fact checking and source validation.
@cstross @newsguyusa Fair enough.
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@newsguyusa Steve, I think people are getting confused by this post.
The death toll for the tsunami was around 20K with around 2500 still missing presumed dead. The death toll for the nuclear disaster was about 1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami
It might be useful to also tag @newsguyusa and @newsguy.bsky.social
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You are the source for the claim that Tepco rounded up homeless people for cleanup work who later died?
@troed @newsguyusa @David After so many years, I cannot point you towards the original source. Consider my comment as a potential lead for your own research. TEPCO itself would not be the ones doing this. They hired numerous companies to provide workers. At least one of those companies was reported to have “recruited” the homeless. The degree of persuasion involved is unclear.
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@mickevk @pluralistic that's unfair; Steve's a professional journalist who provides great news coverage here. He's mixed up the tsunami deaths and the nuclear plant deaths. It's a subtle mistake but not disinformation.
@evan @mickevk @pluralistic there were no "nuclear plant deaths" in Fukushima. None at all. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident
Therefore, this lead was either very unprofessional of the professional journalist, or it was deliberate manipulation.
