The news--dramatic reality TV?

Reading 'Decisions' posted by Cyrus Ordoobadi in the American School in Japan, I further question how television displays natural disasters, conspiracies, and the daily hubub of the world we inhabit. We morph into our potato coach dopelgangers as we absorb the news presented to us, without even questioning what is to be procesed as purely factual. Of course, there's the video that can be regarded as 'evidence,' but what if that tells only half of the story? 

In Ordoobadi's blog post, his mother decided to move the family to France while they waited for the turmoil in Japan to clear. News media report that the nuclear radiation can be traced in the air, water, and food of Japan, an after effect of the earthquake damaging the plant in Fukushima Daiichi. The hazard of radiated air is that it can cause cancer; the probable source of Odoobadi's mother's fears of staying in their Tokyo home. The crisis in Japan is similar to the dangers the people of Hiroshima faced during World War II--the mother might have been avoiding the posibility of becoming the 21st century victims of an attack from the Mother Nature who knows no sympathy. Even so, she was concerned for the welfare of the family, which Ordoobadi thought was needless. His main priority was not his safety, it seems, but his education. "My AP exams and the ACT test looming closer," he states in his blog post. Perhaps he assumes that what the news report is accurate--the research conducted that there are radiation waves, but so slight that it wouldn't pose as a health risk.

Her mother faught back his persuasion by pulling an example from the nuclear crisis of Chernobyl. "They said the same thing after Chernobyl," she argued, refusing to believe what media news informs the public. 

Should news sources be relied on enough to dictate our actions?