Re: CNN Coverage 'Best' on Mining Accident
> CNN turns out to have had the best coverage of the mining
> accident in both good ways and bad. They were the first to
> misreport the miners apparently being found alive (which
> everyone was saying last night) and they were also the first
> to report they were not, thanks to a relationship Anderson
> Cooper established with a local family who dashed from the
> church to report to Cooper that earlier reports were wrong.
> Dr. Sanjay Gupta also made a HUGE difference in the quality
> of medical reporting that nobody else came close to.
>
> MSNBC fell on its face several times last night missing
> important aspects of the story - let Rita "Sucrets" Cosby
> cover the missing white women and people disappearing on
> cruise ships - MSNBC dropped the ball letting her be the
> star of the show. Fox's coverage relied way too much on
> anchor people and an overworked Bill Hemmer. When the
> report came through that the miners were actually not alive,
> Fox was last to cover it.
>
> Fox decided the best thing they could do to make a bad
> situation worse was to deploy Geraldo. Haven't the families
> suffered enough?
>
> After we learned the initial reports were wrong, you could
> watch Anderson Cooper's blood pressure growing as he grew
> increasingly angry over the earlier incorrect reports. It
> wasn't as heated as his Katrina outrage, but came close to
> the level of Frank Reynolds snapping on-air about
> misreporting over James Brady back during the Reagan
> shooting in the early 1980s.
>
> By 4am you were in Spin Cycle as company officials came out
> and gave an obviously carefully constructed line on what
> went wrong (with the CEOs lawyer carefully posed behind
> him). The media had not yet formed the pack attack
> mentality that will likely occur this morning, so a lot of
> the questions asked were softball. The governor seemed
> stunned and forgiving in public appearances, but I have a
> feeling there will be butt covering and behind the scenes
> dagger fights with company officials over the ultimate blame
> for this debacle. The media will blame the company and
> governor for jumping on air with any news tidbit they can
> find instead of considering whether or not it's responsible
> for any of this. Family members were certainly including
> the media in the blame circle.
>
> All of this is simply outrageous for the poor family members
> who were forced to ride this circus emotional roller
> coaster. Heads should roll all over the place.
>
Somebody please correct me if I missed something in the chain of events after the miners were reported alive and for the few hours following. During all the on-site anchor commentary there was only one ambulance shown and talked about as it passed the camera positions and moving toward the mine. My first question to myself was, "Twelve miners obviously needing some sort of medical attention, one ambulance. Why aren't there more?" Then it occurred to me that perhaps the other ambulances, of which there turned out apparently to be none, could have taken another route, although approches to a mine usually aren't served by a complex road or highway system. Perhaps I missed commentary and video on movement of any other ambulances and medical personnel while away from the television for a minute or so every now and then. Or could a lone ambulance going to and leaving the mine been a first clue that something still was seriously wrong? IIRC, none of the reporters mentioned the anomaly, but then maybe I just missed it if they did talk about it.