Wow. Thanks to some cold medicine I’m taking to try and knock out this damn head cold, I’m up late. I noticed Drudge had the siren out and his screamer headline was that only one miner made it out of that West Virginia mine alive and the other 12 are dead. Not the other way around, which was what’s been on all the cable channels and new sites.
Yipes. Did this get misreported and spread across the wires a la Katrina coverage? I know the cable channels are broadcasting live from the site, eerily reminiscent of the Anderson Cooper - Shepard Smith broadcasts from the overpasses in New Orleans. If the Reuters reports are true and indeed only one miner is alive, who screwed up here? How many sources were saying 12 miners were alive? Was it one source and the story got reinforced by being carried simultaneously by all networks, creating, therefore, a kind of circular form of veracity?
The Command Post ran their story at 12:34 a.m., only two hours ago. Wizbang ran one at 1:25 a.m. The first commentor came about an hour and a half later with the one alive, 12 dead report.
If the MSM got it wrong, at least this time it won’t have the time to perpetuate the falshoods like they did in the Katrina coverage. It will be somewhat difficult with that many deceased right there in front of their eyes.
Update: Per a BBC story, it looks like it was rumor run amok. No official statement was ever made about there being 12 survivors, says the mining company:
Mr Hatfield said: “What happened is that through stray cellphone conversations it appears that this miscommunication from the rescue team underground to the command centre was picked up by various people… was relayed through cellphone communications without our ever having made a release.
“International Coal Group never made any release about all 12 of the miners being alive and well, we simply couldn’t confirm that at that point.
“But that information spread like wildfire because it had come from the command centre but it was a bad information.”
Who overheard the conversations? If it was a reporter, he or she is in for it. In the race for the “scoop” you can lose sight of the truth. As Drudge says, “Developing…”
More: Oh man, Miles O’Brien has a distraught family on TV live right now and it’s heartbreaking. They don’t appear to be direct relatives of the deceased, and they’re appearing to blame the mining officials for lying to them. A pretty good quote from them would be, “We was lied to.” This is Katrina coverage redux. Emoting the news instead of reporting it, but pretending to be unbiased and honest.
What I’m reading in the press reports is that no source was given for the story that 12 survived. The first account I can find via Google News is from the Washington Post and it’s an Associated Press story uncredited and dated 11:59 p.m.. There are more from the AP found here and here which seem to be dated about an hour later. Another AP story was written by Allen G. Breed and was carried here and here. Bloomberg ran one here that credits CNN for the report of 12 miners found alive.
Look for reports in the MSM on who is to blame. Look for the MSM to totally except themselves entirely.
More: Found this screencap of CNN”s page earlier this morning on a discussion board:
More: Pajamas Media has a thorough roundup of bloggers’ coverage. Newsdesigner.com has a look at several newspapers’ front pages.
1 response so far ↓
1 Earth Sentinel // Jan 4, 2006 at
This is incredibly macabre news. There seems to have been quite a few underlying problems, with this mine and the industry as a whole that caused this incident.
The greater tragedy is that we still rely on an incredibly dirty fossil fuel to power our lives, when nuclear is both safer and renewable if used properly.
You can find all my reasons for preferring nuclear, as well as commentary about the Chinese coal situation (6500 deaths per year) at Earth Sentinel where you will also find peak oil, renewable energy, and climate change news.
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