“I thought I was going to get mugged.”-- Mayor Bob Reid, after a Thursday press event (10)
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The world has never known a day quite like today” (1)
Over 200 reporters paced outside the walls of the plant by Wednesday afternoon. The one public payphone became inoperable by lunchtime because it was overfilled with change. (2) The network news was still optimistic in light of Med-Ed’s reports. However, the N.R.C. was starting to doubt the company line and unofficial members spoke of that concern with the press. (3)
Trying to determine if the climax of the story had passed or not, the Philadelphia Inquirer sent the largest crew of 30 to get a good measure of the incident. (4) Throughout the night, teams of reporters continued to pour into Middleton, unaware that the reactor crisis was merely the beginning of the disaster.
Scrambling for a Lead
Met-Ed employees were reluctant to talk about the incident to the press and thought that the reporters were already making more of the mishap than needed. Met-Ed would not release a list of employees to the media, so reporters for the Inquirer wrote down the license number of all cars going into or leaving the plant and got the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to release names and addresses. Inquirer reporters offered anonymity to any worker willing to speak and soon got the inside scoop on the long hours and high exposure to risk that was not being made public. (5)
More so than anything, reporters were upset that there was no network in place for information gathering. NASA had provided experts to explain technicalities, and the N.R.C. was nearly as secretive as Met-Ed. (6)
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WKBO
On Thursday, WKBO aired the viewpoints of Dr. Ernest Sternglass, a professed antinuclear activist, which helped usher residents out of the town overnight. “The reaction of the community should be to stand up and scream. […] I’m particularly concern with the possibility of an increased risk of leukemia and cancer among the very young. The newborn and the infant in the mother’s womb are ten to a hundred times more sensitive than the average adult … pregnant women should very seriously consider leaving.” (7)
WHP
On Friday, Kevin Molloy, a civil defense servant, jumped the gun and announced to the community via the radio station WHP that there would likely be an evacuation. With this tacit confirmation, thousands of local citizens left, cashing out their bank accounts and even buying cars from a salesman with hard currency. More than 137, 00 phone calls were made in Harrisburg, which so jammed up the lines that it took 10 to 15 minutes to even get a dial tone. (8)
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Reaction to Media Coverage
In the aftermath of the accident, no one party has been criticized more than the media. Charged with sensationalizing the disaster out of proportion, crowds of reporters roamed the streets Middleton in search of stories. They found them where they could: they interviewed residents, hounded employees, chased after officials, and even started interviewing each other.
The CBS lead correspondent, Richard Wagner, was critical of the media’s coverage of TMI:
“They gave the impression that Armageddon was at hand. It was Walter’s tone that particularly gave this impression…” (9)
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(1) Mark Stephens, Three Mile Island (New York: Random House, 1980), 4.
(2) Ibid, 87-88.
(3) Ibid, 107-8, 119-20.
(4) Ibid, 103.
(5) Ibid, 145-6.
(6) Ibid, 148.
(7) Ibid, 130.
(8) Ibid, 162.
(9) Ibid, 187.
(10) Ibid, 124.
(11) Mike Gray and Ira Rosen, The Warning: Accident at Three Mile Island (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), 248-9.
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