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Posted on 29th January 2023 |
Show only this post Show all posts in this thread (Bad Journalism). |
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This report on the BBC is another example of bad journalism that is probably due to ignorance or laziness by the journalist. The report is about the loss during transport (transportation, to some readers) of a capsule of Caesium-137 i Western Australia, but no information is included about the nature of this radioactive isotope, and thus the nature of the risk it poses, nor about why it is used in mining. The Wikipedia page about Caesium-137 explains that it emits beta radiation, and has a half-life of 30.05 years. In the process, a lot of it decays to barium-137m, which has a emits gamma rays and has a short half-life (153 seconds). Both beta and gamma radiation are highly penetrative, and dangerous at large distance from the source, which might be good to know for anyone who finds the capsule (wearing gloves or using tongs or tweezers to handle it will not protect you). Information on what exactly it is used for in mining is harder to find, but this page on the Santos company web-site briefly mentions that it is used in drilling to measure underground geology. Why couldn't the journalist make the minimal effort to find this information (it took me 3 minutes to find it using Google) and include at least some of it in the article? | |