Someone in Germany pointed out that on their TV coverage of Fukushima they had German Nuclear Scientists who were correctly describing based on 3rd party observations what was happening while official spokespeople were claiming there was no issue and downplaying risks. That's a killer blow to credibility, doubly so if you have a high respect for Japanese industry.

If they're lying/mistaken about stuff obvious to scientists half a globe away then who can you trust with nuclear?

edit to add some sources to back up this third hand anecdote:

https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/communicating-science/

> The government was telling us nothing. TEPCO [Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the plant] was telling us nothing. We had very little input from the scientific community in Japan. Here we are trying to figure this out, and we had first one, then two, then three explosions.”

Fackler had to talk with scientists overseas to learn that what he had witnessed were likely hydrogen explosions, which probably meant partial meltdowns of the affected reactors. “But when we reported this, we had so much criticism from the Japanese side for using the word ‘meltdown,’ ” he said.