west virginia

Wow. I went to bed last night around 1:30am, and the last thing I heard Anderson Cooper report was that 12 of the 13 minters trapped were alive. Everyone was happy, family members were smiling and jumping up and down as an ambulance went by (not really sure why someone would jump up and down because an ambulance was going by, but whatever). This morning I wake up and find out that there was a mistake. 12 of the 13 are actually dead.

Sometimes I hate 24 hour news channels.

This isn't a knock against Cooper. They all do it, in all situations, because they all have to be live from the scene and get the news before their competitors do. I have no idea why the stations reported with such conviction and enthusiasm that the miners were alive,whether it was bad reporting or a mistake by WV authorities (the governor was going to make a speech about the miners being alive). One guest on CNN this morning said that the info that they were alive was made by one person who didn't know what he was talking about, so did the news channels just base their "breaking news" proclamation on this one person, this "kinda rumor" that was beginning to spread at the scene? Shouldn't they have gotten confirmation from another official source (and why did the officials take so long to correct what the news stations were reporting when they knew it wasn't true?)

CNN is using the title "Tragedy at Sago Mine" in their coverage, which sounds like the title for the inevitable TV movie. May I suggest "Bad Judgement" instead?