How Screwed Up Is The Media?

[Rocky Raab]

I would prefer to think (and I do believe) that mine management didn't withhold information deliberately.

What probably happened is that the media went ahead and started broadcasting their report as if it were truth.

Mine management, meanwhile, are trying to find out what the REAL truth is. Rather than say that the rumors are true OR false, they wanted to be sure. With communications as tough as they were, and in accord with written protocols, they would not release ANY medical information until it was confirmed by doctors. That took time, because they don't send doctors down into the disaster site, they bring rescued people out to the doctors.

The time that takes might SEEM like deliberate cruelty on the part of management, but if the insanely rabid media hadn't broadcast the rumor, the families might have been spared the reversal of the story.

Repeat: I think mine management were going by their written protocols, did not want to make any statements until they knew FOR SURE what had happened, and it is the medias sole fault that the story got screwed up.