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REED IRVINE'S LETTER TO THE NY TIMES
By Reed Irvine
Mr. Bill Keller Dear Bill: Thank you very much for your Aug. 7 letter. It arrived today, just a day after I sent another letter to Arthur asking when I could expect a reply to the letter you have now answered. I am glad to know that some serious thought is being given to how important corrections can be handled. There are not too many possibilities to choose from - (1) an editor's note, (2) a letter to the editor of sufficient length to make the correction meaningful to the reader, (3) an op-ed article by the plaintiff, (4) a news story or column acknowledging the error and correcting it, or (5) an article that would set the record straight but not call attention to the error. My recommendation would be (2) or (3), depending on the importance of the subject and the length required to make the correction. The editor's note suffers from being associated with the Correction Box, which is mainly of interest only to those who have had their names misspelled or their titles given incorrectly. It would be better to locate it on the editorial page or the op-ed page where it would be read by more people. But a boxed letter to the editor would be far better, in my opinion. I cannot agree with your assertion that you have been more than responsive on the Chernobyl correction. That implies that you corrected the error. I have shown that "correction" to a number of people and I have yet to find anyone who thinks it was satisfactory. I had a very brief conversation with Andy Rosenthal and my records show that I discussed the matter with Serge for about 20 minutes on June 26. I called his attention to the UNSCAER report released on June 6 that confirmed that the findings of the 1996 Vienna conference were still valid. I suggested that the Times use that story as a peg for correcting its earlier error. Serge called my attention to the April 1996 article by Yuri Shcherbak in Scientific American which used the Greenpeace Ukraine estimate that the number of deaths caused by Chernobyl was 32,000. It said some estimates were higher and some were lower. How much higher or lower he did not say. He accepted the Greenpeace estimate as "defensible," but he provided no data on the causes of any of those deaths except for those who died of acute radiation sickness in the first three months after the accident. He said that out of 187 who suffered from acute radiation sickness 31 died. His research, if measured by the data reported at the Vienna Conference, was not very thorough. Two of the 31 died from injuries and a third from a heart attack according to the conference report. It put the total who had acute sickness at 237, 28 of whom died within 3 months. Another 14 died later and three children died of thyroid cancer, bringing the total known deaths reported at the Vienna Conference of 1996 to 48. Dr. Shcherbak also suggested that many people had died as a result of psychological stress. The Vienna Conference report suggested that was the most common problem suffered by those who had been resettled. But the good news, never mentioned by Dr Shcherbak, was that there was no elevation in the rate of any cancer, including leukemia, except thyroid cancer in children under the age of 15 at the time of the accident. Only three of those had died. I suggest that the scientific work that went into the Vienna Conference report is far more reliable than the musings of Dr. Shcherbak, who displays in his article similarities to the Unabomber. For example, he says that Chernobyl is the worst "technogenic environmental disaster in history" and that it "demonstrates the ever-growing threat of technology run amok." Obviously he would not want to report that it may have resulted in only 48 deaths. I submit that The New York Times does not serve its readers well by withholding the findings of the Vienna Conference and UNSCEAR. They may not be perfect, but I believe they carry far greater weight than the unsubstantiated guesses of Greenpeace Ukraine and Dr. Shcherbak. The lesson I draw from Chernobyl is not that it "demonstrates the ever-growing threat of technology run amok," but that it demonstrated the great threat posed by a system of government that tolerated the construction of a nuclear power plant that would not be allowed in a democratic country that has to be concerned about the safety of its people. When you fail to make that point clear, you tend to feed irrational fears of a form of electric power generation that has a remarkable safety record, is environmentally friendly and relies on fuel that does not leave us at the mercy of OPEC countries. That irrational fear was responsible for dismantling Shoreham before it ever went on line. The editorial writers of the Times distinguished themselves by opposing that stupidity at that time, but I don't see the Times doing anything to dispel the irrational fear of nuclear power that still lingers on. You missed that opportunity by not reporting the good news from Chernobyl. But it is never too late to set the record straight. Given the reluctance of most people, especially reporters and editors, to admit having made a serious error, I believe that it is much better to rely on letters or articles provided by those who find such errors than to assign that task to those responsible for making or failing to catch them. In an article on Aug. 8 about an error made by ABC's John Stossel the Times proudly took credit for getting ABC News executives to look into the problem and promise to air a correction. If the correction were left up to his producer, the one responsible for the error, Stossel might say something like this: "In a report aired last February that was repeated on July 7, we should have said that the produce we were discussing had not been tested for pesticides." I don't think you would consider that a satisfactory correction, but it is equivalent to the Times' correction of the Chernobyl error. You concluded your letter saying, "If there is fresh and authoritative information we have overlooked, we would be happy to see it, and if it is indeed authoritative then an article may be in order summing up what we do and do not know about Chernobyl." News is interesting and possibly useful facts that people do not already know. Driving home from my office late last night, I heard an interesting interview on a Canadian radio program about the Confederate submarine that had been raised from the ocean floor after 136 years. I learned a lot about that sub. It was news to me. In the AIM Report we have reported facts learned from Soviet archives about FDR's closest adviser, Harry L. Hopkins, that were news to me and to our readers. They might even be news to you and your readers. The fact that they have been hidden for 55 or more years does not make them "old news." The most authoritative information about Chernobyl is the report of the 1996 Vienna Conference. The freshest is the UNSCEAR report issued on June 6. I found the Vienna Conference Report last year when I was checking a statement about Chernobyl made by Andy Rooney in his commentary on 60 Minutes. What I learned from it was astonishing and valuable information. I believe that if you report it, your readers will have a similar reaction because to them, it will be news. You can find it on the Internet. If you don't want to do that, you can use the Op-Ed article that I submitted that was summarily rejected. On July 31, you devoted 16 column inches to an error that John Stossel made on 20/20 on Feb. 4, 2000. That was followed by a 10-column-inch story on Aug. 8. Only two months have passed since you made the Chernobyl mistake. Unless you have vastly different standards for ABC News than for your own paper, it is not too late to make a proper correction. Sincerely yours, Reed Irvine P.S.: (8/11/00) I finished writing this letter late last night. This morning's Washington Post had a boxed Editor's-Note-type correction on the editorial page right next to three letters correcting recent errors in the Post. The Post is to be commended for the clarification and its placement, but the letters are more readable. A copy of all of them is enclosed. enclosures (3) Read how the N.Y. Times responded Read the N.Y. Times article "Media Talk" Read the news story "ABC to Correct Report That Challenged Benefits of Organic Foods" Read how the Washington Post handled a recent correction
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