Japan Press Weekly

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2011 July 13 - 19 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Gov’t spying on media and blog over nuclear energy

The government has been monitoring and collecting “inappropriate” articles in newspapers or on the Internet regarding nuclear power generation.

The spying was conducted by the Resources and Energy Agency affiliated to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), as part of a project for the promotion of constructing nuclear power plants.

In FY 2010, the Institute of Applied Energy (IAE), an incorporated foundation, received the Agency’s order for information collection at a cost of 9.76 million yen.

The IAE has been instructed to collect articles about nuclear energy appearing in 30 papers, including major newspapers like Asahi and Yomiuri, specialized papers like “Nikkan Kogyo,” and some local papers in prefectures hosting nuclear power plants. The IAE is asked to report to the Agency if the articles are found to be “inappropriate or incorrect.”

However, the person in charge at the IAE commented that the Agency’s instruction does not make sense as it fails to explain what kind of content should be reported as “inappropriate.”

The Agency instructed the IAE to use its expertise to analyze public opinion concerning the government nuclear energy policy and the pluthermal (use of mixture of plutonium and uranium as fuel) program.

The IAE person in charge said that based on the instruction given, he was monitoring blogs of scholars and engineers opposing the promotion of nuclear power generation.

The Agency’s official in charge explained, “Nuclear energy is surrounded by a lot of misunderstanding. The project is necessary for us to offer effective information.”

The IAE has Shirato Ryoichi, former vice president of The Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), as a director.