Zbigniew Jaworowski (Professor Emeritus of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw Poland) has written an excellent column titled Chernobyl: The Fear of the Unknown?
It was commissioned by a group that received the draft from Dr. Jaworowski in February, 2006 and then took so long to review it that they missed the deadlines imposed by traditional media outlets for publication during the “attention period” surrounding the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Though it may no longer qualify as “news” because it was a bit late, the information contained in the article is important, useful and interesting. It is worth reading and understanding even if the anniversary is over.
One of the great things about new media publications is that they are not considered to be “fish wrap” just because the day is past when they are “news”. I love the “long tail” concept that not only means that there are lots of people interested in more than headlines, but also means that there is a long time interval in which a collection of written words can remain useful. When you add in great search engines so that the documents can be found, you can begin to understand why some of us think that new media is changing the world!
