Journalism in the 21st Century

At 8:15 on August 6, 1945 Japanese time, "the largest bomb ever used in the history of warfare" flashed above Hiroshima. When figures were tallied, an estimated one hundred thousand lives would be lost in the name of democracy. Survivors, like Mrs. Nakamura and her three children, would live with the memory of radiation sickness and death through-out their lives. The widow of a tailor killed in the war, Mrs. Nakamura scraped together a life for herself and her family as a seamstress. After the bomb was dropped, she unthinkingly plunged her symbol of livelihood into the receptacle which for weeks had been her symbol of safety - the cement tank of water in front of her house, of the type every household had been ordered to construct against possible fire raid. As the horror of events unravelled, her children - five-year-old Myeko, eight-year-old Yaeko, and ten-year-old Toshio - would ask questions. "Why is it night already?" asked Myeko. "Why d...