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Table 1
Practical advice for mass media communication.
| Challenge | Practical advice for mass media communication |
|---|---|
| Coordination of public information | Only limited coordination of public information can be achieved in the early stages of a nuclear accident: be prepared. |
| Information source dispersion needs to be taken into consideration in nuclear emergency planning at all levels. | |
| Communicators have to respond to requests for information not only related to emergency but simultaneously also other non-emergency topics (such as energy shortage and supply, nuclear technologies, nuclear waste). | |
| Balanced and socio-technical communication | Personalized information will have a greater chance of being published in the media than objective, technical information. |
| Present complete information: media need two sided information (risks-benefits, pro-contra…) | |
| Media attention | The newsworthiness of public information (publish-ability) will change through time. |
| The nuclear −emergency information is the most newsworthy for the media at the beginning of the accident. At a later stage, media re-orientate the attention to other topics. | |
| Recovery and evaluation is more newsworthy in countries without nuclear energy installations than in countries with NPP. | |
| Communicate about water consumption issues, followed by farming products already during an early event although not contaminated. Food predicts and food chain are of great media interest.. | |
| Public communication is one of the most followed aspects of a nuclear emergency management. | |
| Evacuation has to be communicated intensively not only to evacuees but also to a global public worldwide. Media are interested in evacuation since it can be presented as an event. | |
| Long-duration sheltering of the population, measurement of people's contamination, especially of iodine in thyroid of children, and the use of iodine tablets as a prophylactic measure, are also topics in a media interest. | |
| Communicating radioactivity | Use comparisons with different exposures to radiation and not only the measurement units itself. |
| Where possible, put units into context with legal limits, these provide journalists with a benchmark to frame their story with. | |
| Be consistent with units (e.g., mSv or roentgen) and understand that numeracy related to risk and safety is meaningful only to a limited number of journalists and people. | |
| Be very clear about the reference points used for comparison of the doses and exposure, one can't expect journalists to know which limits doses were compared to. | |
| Do not communicate exposure rates only; include an explanation of the possible health risks associates with exposures. | |
| Develop and make available visual material in advance; this should cover an explanation of radiation doses and effects, and in perspective of other exposures and risks. | |
| When appropriate, compare radiological risks of of the present accident with radiological risks of previous nuclear accidents. Take specifics of the country where you communicate in to account. | |
| Communicating country specifics | Each country has its own communication and interest specifics during an emergency. Communicators have to be aware of them. |
| Communicate contextual information such as evacuation plans, stress tests results, similar NPP, basic knowledge (e.g., difference between contamination and irradiation) not only radiological risks. | |
| Know your public: attitudes, risk perceptions, historical memory and address these characteristics in your communication. |
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