West Virginia mining accident and reporting

[katiesue]

Originally Posted by Fab

Maybe people should stop pointing fingers and instead do something to help the families of the victims with all that pent-up energy. If they're the dependents of coal miners, they can't have it too great in the first place, and now that support is gone.

The mining company has already set up a fund for the family's and made an initial $2 million donation.

A fund to provide financial support to the miners' families has been established by ICG with an initial contribution of $2 million, company Chairman Wilbur L. Ross said Wednesday.

"No amount of money can take the place of a loved one," he said in a statement, "but the families do have financial needs as well."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/05/min....ap/index.html

I watched this all happen live on three channels CNN, Fox and MSNBC and I have to say the Media is at least partially responsible for propagating the rumors. They were reporting as facts things that weren't verified. They started out reporting that it was "rumored" 12 were alive and after about 20 minutes the rumor part was out and they were reporting it as fact. And quoting another unconfirmed report from another news source isn't verification of anything.

It's all horrible but the media presence all standing around live for 4 hours with nothing really to say didn't help at all. When the one ambulance came out and then nothing for hours you knew something was horribly wrong. And some of the "facts" they were reporting like the survivors would be taken to the church simply made no sense, in these kinds of situations they always take people to the hospital to check them out first. It was just one gigantic mess.