Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Time Article on Hiroshima Anniversary

This week's issue of Time has a cover story on the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. I was surprised that the stories were actually fairly "balanced"; you had the obligatory photos and stories of the hibakusha ("bomb affected people"), but overall it was a fairly impartial description of the decision to drop the bomb and the aftermath. One glaring error stood out, though... In the last paragraph of the main story (subscription required) we find this statement:
"There have been some 525 nuclear explosions aboveground since Hiroshima; not one of them has been an act of war." [Emphasis mine]

Now, I know the editors of Time are aware of Nagasaki, which was bombed three days after Hiroshima, so it's clearly an inadvertant error. But still, if you're preparing an important cover story, why not have someone read it first to see if it makes sense? If a lowly sub-blogger can pick this up on his first read-through, it seems like professional editors should be able to do the same...

At this point, I'd normally say something snarky about how the Hiroshima city officials are continually adding thousands of people each year to the list of people killed by the atomic bomb there -- normally 20% of all deaths are caused by cancer anyway, but they apparently add anyone who was in the area at all who died of cancer; clearly not all of these cancers are bomb-related, and at some point you have to expect people who were part of 60 year old history to die anyway-- but that would probably be in bad taste as the anniversary approaches.

Going deep...

3 Comments:

Blogger SkyePuppy said...

Never thought about death counts quite the way Hiroshima does. Add my grandpa to the death count of WWI. He died in 1979 of stomach cancer as a result of being gassed during the Great War (the doctors had told him when he was gassed to expect stomach cancer).

I've long ago given up on Time & Newsweek. Great post.

7/27/2005 6:20 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had the opportunity to go through the Enola Gay prior to her restoration and eventual display. The bomb bay was a spooky place; the hook was a big iron affair, painted yellow, with a little electrically-operated latch that released the weapon over Hiroshima. Anyway, there was a guestbook there for folks to leave comments, and a Japanese man had done so. He said: "Thank you for saving all the rest of us."
And I believe he meant it, too.

7/28/2005 7:45 AM

 
Blogger Alex Nunez said...

I just read that article too, and was actually pleasantly surprised, just as you were, that it was as fair as it was. Maybe the MSM has learned its lesson. Then again, maybe the writer is just a good, old-school journalist who doesn't allow personal baggage to skew the writing. Whatever the case, I was happy with Time's coverage.

The photoessay of of other survivors was interesting as well.

7/29/2005 1:18 PM

 

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