Took over 2 months after it occurred for newspapers and TV here to begin using the word "meltdown"

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/life/tell-me-about-it/david-mcneill-whos-telling-truth-fukushima-448215

Missing words

But although Japanese newspapers and TV reporters mostly kept their heads, they also concealed or delayed releasing information about what was going on inside the Fukushima plant.

One of the more striking aspects of the local media coverage of Fukushima was the missing word -- “meltdown.” It seemed reasonable to speculate, from March 11-15, that this is precisely what happened. One reason was the repeated news of cesium dispersed in the atmosphere on March 12.

Haruki Madarame, the Chair of the Nuclear Safety Commission now says he concluded very early on that meltdown had happened, and informed the government. Former Washington TBS Bureau Chief Toyohiro Akiyama, who has a farm in Fukushima, made a similar assessment and fled in his car to Gunma.

“There was a blackout in the media of the word,” he says in an interview this month with the Foreign Correspondents’ Club magazine, “No.1 Shimbun.” In April the head of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, Takashi Sawada, also said that fuel rods in reactors 1 and 3 had melted. Yet, it took over two months for newspapers and TV here to begin using the word. Why?

[HopeHoops]

1. Oh. I thought this was about the GOP field of clowns.

[Eagle Mall]

2. Why? Because the Nuclear Industry values job security over human lives.

[hedgehog]

3. They were holding the word in reserve in case Weiner collapsed in sobs.

Get your priorities straight!

[AndyTiedye]

4. The Media of the World Has been in Full "Damage Control" Mode for the Nuke Industry

[madokie]

5. That is exactly what is going on

[boppers]

6. Because the word is variously defined?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown

Add in the problem of language translation, and it gets even more complex. Is "core damage caused by heat" a "meltdown"? A "partial meltdown"? What are the japanese words currently being used?