I agree that some foreign media outlets have sensationalized this story, but at the same time, I agree with those members of the Western media who say the Japanese media have under-reported and, in many cases, merely spewed numbers and reports provided to them by the government.
There is a middle ground: The Japanese media should be more skeptical of the government and of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and do some original fact-finding, while the foreign media should be a bit more realistic.
The real disaster story is the twin-events of a devastating earthquake and tsunami. The next story is more about the allegations that the Japanese government has ignored problems with the Fukushima reactor designs since 1975, and that TEPCO did not perform full inspections for some of its reactors and did not have a plan in place for an event like this despite having built the plant next to the ocean and near an active fault zone.