I would like to present the Nuclear Industry Association of South Africa (NIASA) with the Monty Burns PR Award for outstanding achievement in making the nuclear industry look dishonest, stupid, manipulative, and evil. Well done, fellows.

I know they say “fight fire with fire”, but the latest move by NIASA is just plain dumb. It has brought a complaint before the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) after M-Net’s Carte Blanche screened a programme called Uranium Road

One hopes the BCCSA throws this complaint out with the contempt it deserves.

I didn’t see the programme when it was broadcast in November last year, but would not be surprised if it indeed is a biased piece of work.

A glance at the transcript shows that it raises some important issues, especially around nuclear security, environmental risk, and the economic viability of nuclear energy. It also degenerates into sensationalism, however. At one point, the effects of radioactive waste are described in all their gory detail, as if it goes without saying that this waste will not to be rigorously contained, but will be spread around the local environment to cause cancer and grow cute little mutant kittens.

Throughout, the programme it quotes David Fig, who is identified as an “independent researcher”, but in fact is the chairman of a left-wing lobby group named Biowatch South Africa. That should have been disclosed, especially since the programme refers to “the powerful lobbies that support nuclear energy” — lobbies that remain as anonymous as they sound ominous. Worse, Fig is selling a book, called… you guessed it, Uranium Road. This pecuniary interest in the subject is also never disclosed.

I don’t want to go into the actual arguments presented in the programme, or those presented by the nuclear industry, but a cursory examination of the transcript certainly makes me willing to accept that the programme may have to be taken with a pinch of salt, and that it isn’t impossible that the nuclear industry representatives featured in the story have been selectively quoted to fit the programme’s storyline. After all, if it cribbed the title of Fig’s book, it probably cribbed a lot more from his anti-nuclear, anti-corporate arguments.

But taking Carte Blanche to the BCCSA? Is the NIASA insane?

Environmentalists are supposed to be the petty fascists who invoke the authoritarian fist of government to bar free commerce, silence free speech, and sue anyone who dares offend against their fearful, conservative world-view.

This kind of braindead PR by NIASA certainly doesn’t make the nuclear industry look very honest, or sympathetic towards widely held concerns about nuclear energy, be they valid or otherwise. In fact, it reinforces the fear and distrust with which many people — and especially environmentalists and green fashionistas — view the industry. It is certainly not making it any easier for proponents of nuclear energy to make their case.

NIASA should be ashamed of itself.

Update: As I wrapped up this post, I discovered that the NIASA has withdrawn its complaint, following a “settlement”. Settlement with whom? On what terms? Why? And if it isn’t going to go through with the complaint to score a victory on factual grounds, what does the NIASA think it has achieved with this stunt? It may only have been established in June 2007, but if I were a member, I’d move to fire the executive already. So much for “powerful lobbies”.

William McGurn, George W Bush’s head speechwriter until a couple of weeks ago, has written an editorial that is well worth reading. It’s illuminating to get such a view from the other side of the media fence, even if this piece comes across a little plaintive.

When a man hangs up his byline to write for a president, he gets more than a new job. He gets to see how the press and pundit corps look from the other side of the notepad.

And over three years in the West Wing, you see a few things. You see who’s a straight shooter, and who’s full of snark. You see who’s smart, and whose outrageous behavior would have made its way to Drudge had it involved White House staffers instead of White House correspondents. Most of all, you see how conventional wisdom can keep otherwise talented reporters and commentators on the same stale storyline long after the facts on the ground have changed.

He does make a few very good points. In particular, he notes the irony of the protrayal of Bush as a stubborn, intransigent ideologue, when several examples illustrate the stubborn determination of an editorialising media corps to cling to a story once they’ve made up their minds.

A line in his resignation letter (PDF) reads: “I remember [on 9/11] looking up at the sky and wondering what kind of world my girls would inherit. And I remember saying to [my wife] Julie, ‘Let’s be thankful that George W Bush is president’.”

In this article, he echoes that sentiment. I largely agree with his assessment, and like him, I also admire George W Bush for having the courage and conviction to take necessary decisions, difficult decisions, and as McGurn describes it, to “take the heat” for them.

Still, you can’t help thinking that McGurn is defending not only Bush’s failures to communicate, but his own.