Explaining the Nuclear Power Plant Coverage

From BoingBoing:

This morning, I got an email from a BoingBoing reader, who is one of the many people worried about the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima, Japan. In one sentence, he managed to get right to heart of a big problem lurking behind the headlines today: "The extent of my knowledge on nuclear power plants is pretty much limited to what I've seen on The Simpsons".

To make matters worse, the knowledge of the rest of us about breaking news is limited by reporters with a similar degree of expertise.