Before Riverkeeper needed a new campaign in 2001, to announce the arrival of RFK junior and Alex Matthiessen, and the departure of founder Robert Boyle, very few people cared about Indian Point..... not even NYPA or Con Ed.
Kennedy & Matthiessen more than doubled the size of Riverkeeper by using nuclear hysteria as a new theme for the old sewage-hunting agency, and now R-Keeper ranks with Sierra Club, or the United Way, as a major 501(c) 3 tax-free charitable collections agency. Good going , guys!
But what has that to do with you or me? Not a damn thing. If you are not a Riverkeeper worker, or an Indian Point worker, not much has come from the 6 year public relations blitz, except headlines, blog posts, and a regular tempest in a thimble.
Each morning I check..... Are my lights on? Does my furnace work? Can I pay my electric bill? If the answer comes back "Yes, yes, & yes", Indian Point has exhausted its excitement for me, and I go on about my business.
But I'm not a press agent, a reporter, a politician, or an unemployed actor needing a cause.
Yes, for PR types, media types, politikoes, and celebractivists, Indian Point is the essence of excitement. But that's just in the virtual world of hype.Long ago, on the old Lohud forum I saw a blog link stating that the papier mache Indian Point was blotting out the actual Indian Point. This is actually true..... for those few groups I mentioned above. For everyone else, it is not.
The Journal News did a lousy job of reporting the Manhattanviille poll about Indian Point, where 67% of the people expressed no concern over the plant, and only 33% said they wanted it closed.This was reported as "Public still concerned" and angry letter writers accused TJN of whitewashing..... a charge with much basis in fact.
Why would a newspaper skew the issue, presenting it as more of a concern than people at large thought it really was? We can only surmise. One time I wrote reporter Bruce Golding, and asked him his personal view on Indian Point. His answer? He said " It makes great stories". That clue is telling, to me.
No news is a black hole to journalists. Peace, harmony, satisfaction, or contentment all make really bad news. You have to misname it "Apathy" to get a good investigative piece going.And the word "Apathy" is a loaded phrase, meaning simply that people have other concerns.
Unlike newspapers, people can't hold on to each and every issue thread every day. They have to concentrate on what matters to them, and having a clean dependable service from trustworthy local neighbors trumps hysterical revolutionary concern, in most households. That's not apathy. It's satisfaction, and building a base for a decent life. We can't have Mao Tse Tung's eternal revolution. He tried it, and it flopped.
So..... "good stories" or no good stories..... Indian Point is only that to at least 67% of us.... a decent neighbor, a good dependable service, a corporation eager to join in and contribute locally in any way they can.
When we hear exaggerated or even neurotically obsessive rave-ups about Indian Point, we ought to remember that our civization around here depends on IPEC, for its existence. We ought to think to ourselves " What does all that hype really mean to me?" Unless we love a good phony cause, or picking a fight for no reason, the conclusion will be clear to all. "Cheap, dependable local power".
That is not a good news story. It is not a good rave up. Nor is it a riveting revolutionary cause. It is real life, though.
And as far as danger?
Did you break the speed limit this week?
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