The aim of the article is to present media manipulations about the reactor explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, which were used by Soviet television and the most popular English-language channels. The author’s attention is focused on television messages describing the catastrophe in the first days after the reactor explosion, and on the socio-economic effects of propaganda manipulations on the Chernobyl disaster – for the inhabitants of the Soviet Union and for citizens of Western Europe.