Stifling Debate: Canadian Newspapers and Nuclear Power

Dean Tudor is a professor of journalism at Ryerson University and the
author of Finding Answers: The Essential Guide to Gathering Information
in Canada.

This meticulously documented study focuses on what journalists choose to
write, and not to write, about nuclear energy. As a case study, it
compares those political and social groups whose views are regularly
presented as serious opinion with those whose views are more or less
neglected. In examining articles written between 1973 and 1984 in
Ontario and New Brunswick newspapers, Clow found a conservative,
pro-business slant, with coverage largely devoted to reproducing the
press releases of nuclear-power promoters. Stifling Debate would have
benefited from an examination of radio and television, where the
emotionalism of protest is rendered more accessible.