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The debate about how much blame the media deserves for the "miscommunication" in West Virginia continues in earnest today, with a number of new outlets trying to explain their behavior.



Len Downie, executive editor of the The Washington Post, was defiant: "Our story was a reflection of what was being said at the time," he said. "I don't regard it as our error, but as an error by the people in charge of the rescue." CNN's Jonathan Klein also defended his outlet, saying the story was tied to "two pretty good sources" – West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and and West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito. (Nightline executive producer James Goldston said something similar.) John Robinson, editor of the News & Record of Greensboro, North Carolina, wrote that "we regret" that "the story on the front page was tragically, tragically wrong," but he took issue with Greg Mitchell's characterization of the media's performance as "disturbing and disgraceful." (Mitchell later deleted the word "disgraceful" from the piece.)

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As we noted earlier, the criticism is already pouring in for the media’s collective handling of the West Virginia mine tragedy. How, many are surely wondering, could the cable networks, wire services and Web sites have been so misinformed? How could they report, even on the front pages of this morning’s newspapers, that twelve miners had been rescued when, in fact, only one survived?



Instead of asking those questions, ask yourself this: How would you, as a reporter, producer or editor have handled the situation? This wasn’t simply going with information from sources that went unchecked, this was covering a breaking news situation, which included covering hours of public celebration by family members who claimed they had been told of a miraculous rescue. Here’s a rough timeline of how the story unfolded late last night and early this morning:

Just before midnight eastern time, according to Editor & Publisher, "newspaper reporters and anchors such as Rita Crosby [MSNBC] interviewed euphoric loved ones and helped spread the news about the miracle rescue [of 12 of 13 trapped coal miners in West Virginia]. Newspaper Web sites announced the happy news and many put it into print for Wednesday right at late deadlines." Most of these reports did not point out that the mine company had not confirmed these reports.

Those reports continued until about 2:45, when a West Virginia woman interrupted Anderson Cooper's broadcast on CNN to say that the miners were dead. "Cooper initially seemed skeptical of her comments, and nervous about repeating them on-air," writes TV Newser. "But as he heard screaming from the church, and he saw other family members crying down the road, he realized it was true." MSNBC followed the report a few minutes later, and Fox News a few minutes after that, with the grim news.

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Perhaps not since “Dewey Defeats Truman” has the nation awoken to newspaper headlines so wrong. “Alive! Miners beat odds” screams the USA Today, reporting that twelve West Virginia miners trapped by an explosion had been rescued after 41 hours. Many other papers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times carried similar information. And it was the news many cable news watchers drifted off to sleep to as well, as happy family members told of their joy and relief.



We now know that news turned dramatically in the wee hours of the morning, after several hours of celebration, the families and the press learned that all but one of those miners were dead. What has followed this morning has been a lot of confusion, not to mention plenty of anger directed at officials in charge of the rescue operation and the media. Exactly how the misinformation got out and became so widely accepted is not yet clear. What is evident though is we’re in for a day of examination. PE will get back to this story with more a little later, but we leave you with this opening shot at the press from Editor & Publisher’s Greg Mitchell:

“In one of the most disturbing and disgraceful media performances of this type in recent years, television and newspapers carried the tragically wrong news late Tuesday and early Wednesday that 12 of 13 trapped coal miners in West Virginia had been found alive and safe. Hours later they had to reverse course, often blaming the mix-up on ‘miscommunication.’”

What do you think?

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