When a mine collapse happens somewhere else in the world, the mention in the mainstream media is incredibly abbreviated - one of the three international events given 20 seconds in "Around The World In A Minute", carefully sandwiched between Panda births in China and a tribal festival you've never heard of in Peru (you know, to provide context). The segment itself, incidentally, is often preceded by the weather and followed by a commercial/someone cooking something. 'We mustn't try to hold the audience's moment for more than sixty seconds if the event in question occured outside our borders.' This is their attitude.
It's a business - giving a shit doesn't make money on television. I get that. But I never thought I'd see the day that the MSM swept an American tragedy under the rug.
In the wee hours of Monday, August 6th of last year, the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah collapsed with the force of a 4.0 magnitude earthquake. Further aftershocks (still powerful enough to register on seismographs) were recorded in the following days. Six workers were trapped inside, and the rescue efforts began immediately, with a bore hole drilled over a quarter mile into the debris completed on August 9th.
At that point, we have our first CNN story about the collapse, a profile of one of the trapped miners, Manuel Sanchez. However, the coverage quickly peters out - in stark contrast to the Sago Mine disaster (which occured the day after New Year's in 2006 in West Virginia), during which the lone survivor (and his twelve fallen brothers) were reached within 48 hours of the story breaking, the first bore hole was unable to detect any signs of the miners, and prospects for their survival were daunting. The MSM, having briefly sniffed at the story, moved on.
On August 16th, a fresh round of tragedy would bring CNN back around for another go. A secondary collapse (measuring 1.8) had exploded one of the tunnel walls outwards, killing three rescue workers and injuring six others. This halted the rescue efforts, with the Governor of Utah lamenting that the mine disaster had gone "from a tragedy to a catastrophe."
Well, surely, we'll now see wall-to-wall coverage of the calamity. Intimate portraits, tear-jerking testimonials to the fallen - candles and piano music, for Christ's sake. Heroin for the MSM.
But here's the weird thing - that's not where the dog started sniffing. Indeed, it's almost as if there was collusion that Americans were burned out on tragedy and that they gave more of a shit about gadgets. Particularly, a robot camera that was snaked into the bore holes along with tubes to gain atmospheric readings.
So did we get the eulogizing predicted above?
No, instead, of the 21 stories on CNN's topic page on Crandall Canyon (and a full 100% for the last week of August), we are treated to six fucking Goddamn robotic camera stories (some of the links are broken - that's why I included the link to the topic page so you can see what I mean.)
Here's why their past coverage is important. Just yesterday, the federal government hit Genwal Resources, the company that operated the mine, with its largest penalty - $1.85 million. The bulk of the fines ($1.34 million) result from, and I quote,
...for violations that directly contributed to the deaths of six miners last year. [Emphasis mine]
Now, I know Obama's speech was a big deal. I also know that John McCain is almost irresistably desperate these days - you just want to keep a camera on him all day and wait for it to seep out, because he can't fake it 24/7 (like a Republican candidate has to be able to).
But this is a quintessential story for us to tell this election cycle, for all kinds of reasons.
It's a story about the inherent danger of coal mining, yet another reason to get behind a source of energy that does not dwindle and is not buried under millions of tons of rock.
It's a story about deregulation - and how allowing industries to police themselves is a road map to neglect, corner-cutting and tragedy.
It's a story about why government - and, by extension, having smart, honest, passionate people in government - matters.
And the MSM isn't fucking telling it. How... expected.
We'll have to carry this one - to ensure it never happens again.
Let's get to work.