[Tsuwabuki]

This kind of behavior is common in most countries. Mainstream media, printed, radio, or television is very slow to react to certain stories based on definitions of "credibility." Investigative journalism has been on life support for years now.

If you're a news source, you'll probably report what the governor or CEO or degreed expert has to say on a subject, because given their positions and/or education, they have "credibility." You probably won't report what one person or a few people on the street have to say, especially if all their neighbors think they're looney tunes. In the past, reporters had enough time to actually dig deeper. Maybe the governor, the CEO, and the nuclear engineer all have funny aspects to their stories- maybe the mother's children really do have geiger-counter detectable radiation issues. However, this requires investigative journalism, and witht he 24 hour news cycle, facebook, and twitter, many journalists are required to pump out bulletins constantly without the ability to properly background and research their stories.

This really has nothing to do with Japan, except that Japan is one of the most newspaper friendly countries in the world.

I've written for three newspapers and two magazines in Texas, and I recently contributed to a feature in the Japan Times. My BA is English, but many of my upper divisions were journalism. I currently write at least once a week for a paper back in Texas now.