Newspaper biased in favor of uranium?

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 9:17 AM EDT

It seems odd to me that practically every article written the local Danville, VA paper about uranium mining at Coles Hill inevitably ends up being biased in favor of that mining.

Six lines into the article titled "Uranium Debate Hits Richmond" he included a derisive comment from Virginia Uranium Inc.'s mouthpiece, Patrick Wales.

Apparently, Wales didn't believe last week's uranium mining symposium in Richmond was "balanced" enough.

If that is the case, then he and the Coles and Bowen families can host their own symposium and put forth their own factual evidence regarding uranium mining.

Thus far they have not been able to do that, only repeating the same old mantras about jobs, revenue, and prosperity for Pittsylvania County.

And those claims could in fact become reality someday, but at what cost to the public, the environment, and the future of Pittsylvania County and all of Virginia?

The only real public debate VUI has hosted turned nasty for them because they found they could not satisfy the public's questions about the safety of uranium mining.

In their propaganda shows, they talk primarily about nuclear power plants and how they are "clean energy" producers.

But nuclear power plants have as little to do with uranium mining as an oil well has to do with fuel-efficient vehicles.

There really is no connection, but Wales and VUI have no real arguments to put forth concerning what they want to do, so they talk about something vaguely related in hopes of winning the hearts and minds of the public to their greedy aspirations.

We who would dare question the long-term logic of uranium mining in Pittsylvania County are portrayed as "tree hugging nutcakes."

Well I for one would rather be derided now than to be dying of cancer sometime in the future because VUI was allowed to use us as their lab rats, which is exactly what we would all become.

We "nutcakes" have repeatedly asked VUI for evidence of even ONE uranium mine anywhere in the world that has not ruined the local environment and caused cancer rates and birth defects to spike in the local populations.

They have yet to cite that one mine and its record of safe operation because it does not exist.

That should be enough to end this debate, but now they have everyone fooled with their promise that the study will answer everyone's questions about uranium mining.

And as Katie Whitehead pointed out in her opinion piece, that study will not put an end to the debate.

It will be an opinion, formed by people who have nothing to lose if uranium is mined here, people who know very well who is funding their study.

John Crane ends his "reportage" of the Richmond symposium by quoting David Heacock, another pro nuclear, pro mining employee of Dominion Virginia Power, who dismissed the information put forth at the symposium as not "accurate."

And so we have one more article in the Register & Bee that is not balanced or accurate, but is simply an attempt to downplay the real and growing concerns of the citizens of our commonwealth regarding the safety of uranium mining.

VUI couldn't buy advertising space that would be more effective for them.

If the Register & Bee wants to be seen as a legitimate newspaper they would do well to assign a real journalist to cover the uranium issue in the future.

Jesse Pyrant Andrews
Halifax, VA

http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2010/03/18/chatham/opinion/opinion03.txt#blogcomments