Silence Not Always Golden

I've waited most of the day to post on this, because I really wanted to sort out what I thought. Most of us watched, all day Monday and Tuesday, as the tragedy unfolded in West Virginia. We hoped, against all hope, there would be survivors.

Sometime around midnight Wednesday morning, family members got a phone call that brought them great joy: they were told 12 miners had been found, all alive. This came just a few hours after one miner was discovered dead. It isn't immediately clear who made the phone call, but what happened after is clear: the families poured out of the Sago Baptist Church, dancing for joy and ringing the church bell and spreading the word to anyone who would listen.

Why didn't the mining company stop them sooner to correct the misinformation? They were left celebrating for three full hours before anyone said otherwise to them.

What's more, because most east coast newspapers go to the press at around three a.m., the mining company's delayed response inadvertantly caused hundreds of newspapers nationwide to print a horrifyingly, sadly wrong headline, proclaiming "They're Alive".

Don't get me wrong, I believe it was irresponsible for many in the media to run with the story unattributed - that is, taking the word of family members as official. At the least, it should have been qualified as unofficial. But I think the real tragedy came at the hands of mining company officials, who not only delayed the heartbreak but magnified it by staying silent.