Immediately following the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, the situation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant deteriorated rapidly.
Immediately following the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, the situation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant deteriorated rapidly.
In response to reporting that consisted of transmitting announcements made by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator, criticism arose from the public that likened the reporting to what occurred during World War II when media organizations followed the instructions of the Imperial Japanese Army headquarters and only transmitted information that was not deemed negative.
The following is a summary of what reporters at The Asahi Shimbun faced over the four months since the quake and tsunami.
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An article from the March 13 edition pointed to an explosion at the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 plant as well as the possibility of a core meltdown after cooling functions were lost. The article was partly based on interviews with experts.
However, TEPCO and the central government refused to acknowledge that a core meltdown had occurred, saying that information from within the core was unavailable.
It was only in late May, more than two months after the nuclear accident, that TEPCO finally admitted to the possibility of a core meltdown based on data retrieved from the central control room at the nuclear plant.
Due to doubts about the reliability of the announcements made by TEPCO officials, Asahi reporters continued to contact current and retired TEPCO employees in the nuclear energy sector to get a better picture of the story.
What emerged from those interviews were questions about the safety design of the Fukushima No. 1 plant. That led to concerns about problems with the equipment at the plant as well as to the possibility that a lax forecast about what could occur during emergencies led to an expansion of the damage to the plant from the quake and tsunami.
For example, it was learned that emergency diesel generators at the Fukushima No. 1 plant were not installed in the reactor building that was highly watertight. Pumps to inject seawater into the reactor core were also not kept within the building.
The Asahi reported that TEPCO documents indicated that a major reason for the loss of power sources when the tsunami hit was the manner in which equipment was installed.
Further interviews with officials of other electric power companies led to the discovery that many similar examples could be found in other nuclear plants.
Undisclosed internal TEPCO documents obtained by reporters also included detailed, minute-by-minute records of the measures employed to deal with the nuclear accident.
An analysis of those documents showed that from March 13, high radiation levels were detected in the No. 3 reactor building. On the following day, a hydrogen explosion occurred at that reactor.
However, TEPCO officials never revealed the data about high radiation levels.
When the Asahi ran an article about the failure to disclose such data, a TEPCO executive said, "We should have informed the public earlier about data that showed how dangerous the situation was."
The Asahi also made efforts to report about workers trying to restore operations at the Fukushima No. 1 plant while working amid very dangerous conditions of high radiation.
There were many workers who commuted to the nuclear plant from evacuation centers who were reluctant to talk because they did not want to get on the bad side of TEPCO.
However, some workers did agree to talk, and interviews were held late at night in cars parked outside when others were fast asleep.
In those interviews, the workers described the terrible working conditions they faced and their concerns about internal exposure to radiation because of the insufficient monitoring system.
There are still many questions that have not been answered about the nuclear accident because it involves a very complicated system. Difficulty in reporting will continue because of the large amount of time needed to comprehend the significance of the huge volume of data found in documents related to the accident.
A major barrier to reporting about the nuclear accident was the inability of reporters to approach the crippled nuclear plant.
An investigative team from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in late May.
Mike Weightman, the chief nuclear inspector in Britain who served as the head of the IAEA delegation, said that actually going to the site allowed the inspectors to understand the circumstances which TEPCO employees and workers faced while dealing with the accident.
However, with TEPCO providing the only source of video images from the Fukushima plant, media organizations are unable to directly grasp the details of the damage.
Besides TEPCO officials, Cabinet ministers and officials with the government panel investigating the nuclear accident have visited the Fukushima plant and spoken with Masao Yoshida, the plant head who is in charge of restoring operations at the plant, and other officials.
However, the central government and TEPCO have so far refused to allow any interviews with Yoshida and others at the Fukushima plant on the grounds that the accident has not yet been brought under control.
While repeated requests for interviews have been submitted, no specific replies have yet been received.
At TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo, news conferences have been held daily since the nuclear accident.
In an attempt to unify the information being presented, a joint news conference involving TEPCO and the central government began on April 25.
At that time, Goshi Hosono, who was special adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan in dealing with the Fukushima nuclear accident and who is now the state minister overseeing the accident, explained that the news conferences would be held daily to heighten transparency.
However, the joint news conferences were suspended on the fifth day and there have been days when the conferences were not held at all because of scheduling conflicts that required some officials to appear before the Diet to respond to questions or to make overseas business trips.
For those reasons, TEPCO and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency continue to hold separate news conferences.
Two news conferences a day are held at TEPCO headquarters, with a joint conference involving government officials often held in the afternoon.
The news conferences last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours and cover a wide range of questions, including the situation at the reactor cores as well as the effects on the political situation.
A wide variety of reporters attend the news conferences, representing newspapers, TV and Internet media outlets, as well as freelance reporters.
The news conferences are broadcast live over the Internet and documents distributed at the conferences have also been transmitted.
That allows anyone to view the news conferences to observe the attitudes of those responding as well as the quality of the questions being asked.
Meanwhile, at the Prime Minister's Official Residence, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano held news conferences around the clock at intervals of several hours in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear accident.
However, from early April, about a month after the disasters, Edano reverted to a normal routine of holding news conferences in the morning and afternoon.
The nine municipalities that lie within a 20-kilometer radius of the Fukushima No. 1 plant have been designated as a no-entry zone by the central government. Because no one, including residents and reporters, are permitted to enter the zone, there are very few opportunities to report on what is happening in that area.
The first time Asahi reporters were able to enter the no-entry zone was on April 25. Reporters from media organizations were allowed to accompany the commissioner-general of the National Police Agency as he paid a visit to police officers searching for residents reported as missing.
A reporter wearing protective gear against radioactive materials, goggles and a face mask entered the Nakano neighborhood of Futaba, about 4.5 kilometers north of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The tsunami had swept in logs that skewered houses as well as washed up fishing boats.
The reporter dictated notes of what the police officers conducting the search were doing into a tiny recorder held within the protective gear. Notebooks were not used because they could have become contaminated with radiation.
On May 10 when residents were allowed to temporarily return to their homes within the no-entry zone, one reporter from each media organization was allowed to accompany the residents.
In Kawauchi, daffodils were in full bloom and bush warblers were chirping. Mountains of rubble as well as damaged homes and roads remained untouched.
Wearing protective gear, the returning residents only had two hours to spend at home. Some cleaned their homes, while others brought out summer clothing. Articles by Asahi reporters described in detail what the residents did.
The temporary return home of the residents were conducted in order, according to municipality.
Some residents were allowed to return even though they may have lost their homes as well as family members to the tsunami. Those residents were given the opportunity to pray for their loved ones and place flowers and incense.
Reporters were allowed to accompany such residents, and the return to Tomioka on July 6 was the fifth such occasion.
Meanwhile, experts said media organizations should attempt more independent reporting activities.
Tatsuru Uchida, a professor emeritus of modern French philosophy at Kobe College, said, "I subscribe to four major national newspapers, but I cannot tell which newspaper I am reading in relation to articles about the nuclear accident. Not only is there no attempt to bring out a unique angle, there is also a sense of fear at reporting something different from the other papers and the feeling of security from running the same articles. That has led to anger among readers who see a repeat of what happened during World War II."
Uchida added, "The media should conduct independent analysis within a time frame of 100 years and within the context of international relations of the various issues that have emerged due to the accident, including issues with TEPCO and the Prime Minister's Official Residence as well as with the national system of Japan."
Toru Takeda, a professor of media studies at Keisen University, said it was unavoidable that media organizations had to depend on announcements by the central government and TEPCO for information about what was happening in nuclear facilities where radiation levels were high.
"However, media organizations should have prepared beforehand because it was obvious that electric power companies would control information regarding nuclear power plants during emergencies," Takeda said. "There was a need to independently measure radiation levels and construct a reporting network. In addition to transmitting in an understandable way what is certain and what is uncertain about reports on radiation, the media should also present guidelines for how residents should respond on those elements that are uncertain."