Self-flagellation

This piece is typical of the media's attacks on themselves over the story that 12 miners lived but then, alas, did not. The Tribune ran a piece, that I could not locate online, wherein the Executive Editor Elaine Kulhanek lamented the Tribune's inaccurate front-page story to the effect that the miners survived and then, as noted in the piece cited above, tried to "explain unforgiving production deadlines or printing and delivery schedules," and how they made it hard to get the story right.

I think we need to give our friends at the Tribune, as well as media in general, a pass on this one. And we need to give a pass to the mine company, the government, and of course the desperate family members as well.

These things do not occur without context. Imagine the scene: frenzied family members, hopeful officials, tired reporters, and others all jammed into a small community waiting the slightest word. Then it comes, one or two people at first, "there's one alive." And as it rushes through the town like a Central Montana wind, it grows, "They're Alive!" Everyone wanted it to be true, wanted to believe it. So we have a mistake.

It happened. I'm sure it was horrific for the family members, but the survivors' wishful thinking no doubt also provided fuel for the spread of the 'good' news. The family members can and should be forgiven for their bitterness toward those involved, but the rest of the players should just shut up, recognize what it was, a mistake, and move on. I saw a news conference where the very reporters who put this story on the wire were attacking the poor mine company officials in a way that was, without a doubt, one of the more shameful attempts to lay blame I have ever witnessed.

All this finger pointing now is unseemly. Some people made mistakes. Apologize and move on.

Speaking of unseemly finger pointing, a certain someone in our town might take a lesson from a dying miner in how to write a farewell piece. Note the concern for his loved one and friends, as well as the conspicuous absence of vitriol or blame.