Fukushima and Japan’s Media Meltdown
10 years later, Japanese media have not shaken off the constraints that prevented meaningful investigative reporting after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
By
March 12, 2021
Members of the media and Tokyo Electric Power Co. employees walk in front of the No. 4 reactor building, rear, crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, at the utility company’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, Saturday, May 26, 2012.
Credit: AP Photo/Tomohiro Ohsumi, Pool
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This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. The ensuring triple disaster – earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi – killed nearly 20,000 people, destroying dozens of towns, rendering thousands of hectares uninhabitable, and spreading contamination that will take decades to remediate.