Here is a transcript of the portion of the ABC News "Primetime Live" show, "Radioactive Road Trip," which focused on Ohio State University's nuclear reactor laboratory. That segment ran 1 minute, 25 seconds long out of the entire one-hour program. Further information qualifying the statements from the program are noted on the right below.

BRIAN ROSS (chief investigative reporter)

(Voice Over) The two students who were finally challenged had begun their road trip in Columbus, Ohio, at Ohio State University.

MELIA PATRIA (student intern)

My name is Melia Patria. And I recently graduated from the Columbia graduate school of journalism.

HSING WEI (student intern)

My name is Hsing Wei. And I will have one more year at the John F. Kennedy school at Harvard University.
The video shows the two students speaking with an man raking leaves outside and quickly moves to him unlocking the reactor building door. This is the result of skillful video editing. In truth, the two interns approached the "gardener," who was, in actuality the retired former associate director of the laboratory who is also a fully licensed reactor operator. He then went inside and conferred with reactor staff to see if they had time for a tour. After a few minutes he emerged and accompanied the two interns inside. But the video seems to make it seem immediate.

MELIA PATRIA

We're doing a self-tour of the campus. And we're very curious about ...

STUDENT

The nuclear reactor lab?

MELIA PATRIA

Yeah.

STUDENT

Well, what do you want to know?

MELIA PATRIA

The interns are brought just inside the door to the receiving point as approved for the facility by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

I don't know. Do you guys give tours?

STUDENT

Sure.
In speaking over the video, Brian Ross obscures the statement made by a reactor staffer inside who immediately tells them that he needs to search their bags and purses. Staffers sign them in and performs the searches.

BRIAN ROSS

(Voice Over) If they were terrorists, they would be dangerous. Hsing and Melia were able to arrive unannounced at Ohio State and gain immediate access through the locked reactor security door.

MELIA PATRIA

This was not a student. Instead it was a senior staffer who is a licensed reactor operator.

No swimming in this area?

STUDENT

It's a joke.

This is a major misrepresentation! The bags were immediately searched.

The door to the facility is perhaps 20 feet from the wall of a holding pool which the program misidentifies as the reactor pool. The holding pool serves as a storage facility but also as a baffle, shielding the reactor pool from the front of the building. The interns only reached the top of the pool 20 minutes later.

Contrary to the inference of the program, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires neither guards nor metal detectors at research reactors.

BRIAN ROSS

(Voice Over) Using their driver's licenses for ID and carrying large tote bags that were not checked until after the students were ten feet from the reactor pool that holds the radioactive fuel. There were no guards, no metal detectors.

HSING WEI

We were literally peering into the pool itself.
In truth, OSU staff were almost immediately suspicious of the two young women and they were watched closely from the time they signed into the facility. The tour was cut short when one of the two tried to steal an "explosive device data card" that was hanging on the wall for recording information in the event of a bomb threat. Conviently, no mention of this was made in the program.

BRIAN ROSS

(Voice Over) Ohio state says its reactor employee became suspicious when they saw the two young women taking these pictures of the parking lot, pictures that show a possible truck bomb scenario. Vehicles can park right next to the reactor building.
There is parking in the front and along the side of the building but the front is protected by a steel barricade at one point and curbing some 15 feet from the building. Parking is not "literally" against the side of the building.

HSING WEI

That was probably the most shocking part. Literally, there's parking spaces right up against the side of the building.

Several key points should be remembered about the allegations raised by this program:

  • The week before the Primetime Live program aired, a team of experts from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commissions visited Ohio State for their biannual inspection of the reactor facilities. Their formal report isn't expected for a while but they reported no substantive problems or issues about the operation, security or safety of OSU's reactor lab;
  • The ABC News program included comments from a so-called security expert, a person who had been involved in security assessments at several national laboratories. This person has never visited the OSU reactor facility, nor to our knowledge any of the other university reactors. He was merely asked to review the edited video from the program -- hardly a valid critique of the reactor operations;
  • One of the primary missions of research and training reactors (RTR), including ours, is to provide public education and public awareness activities to interested groups. Thousands of school kids, cub scouts and members of civic clubs have toured the OSU reactor since it was built and these visits help mute illogical fear of nuclear energy. Members of the news media routinely visit the facility so there was no need for the students to try to sneak in;
  • The Ohio Revised Code says it is illegal for anyone to decieve a public official in the performance of his official duties. Public university staff and faculty are consider public officials in Ohio. Therefore, the student interns were violating Ohio law when they attempted to gain entry to the reactor lab through deception, especially in a "post-9/11" environment.
  • ABC News has said that the interns were directed "not to lie," but in numerous instances, the students gave overt false information to university officials at OSU and elsewhere. The first lie came when the interns introduced themselves saying that they were "doing a self-tour of the campus" and told staff they were interested in graduate school at OSU, both false statements;
  • Ethics guidelines for both the Society of Professional Journalists and Radio and Television News Directors Association recommend that deception be used in "undercover" journalism situations only when the infomation desired can be obtained no other way. The fact that OSU and other universities provide tours of their facilities to members of the public is well-known and approved by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and therefore does not meet the criteria laid down by the SPJ or RTNDA, the two senior professional journalism organizations in the United States.