As a west virginian whose heart is broken with the rest of my family back home I ask the question:
What the fuck happened to accurate reporting? This evening I saw Anderson Cooper consult an emotionally distraught relative of one of the miners for confirmation about whether or not 12 survivors had indeed been found. That was his source! You can Blame the Governor, Blame the Company spokesman, but who went out and told the whole goddamn world, without any word from an official source that there were 12 miners alive!? Whose job is it to make sure that is true? Hasnt anyone ever heard of confirmation bias? Don't they teach that in Journalism School?
The ICG rep has got to be flogged for initially confirming to the family in the church that 12 miners were indeed alive. After that, Im glad governor manchin and the company rep. kept his mouth shut about the accuracy of the report, they waited until they got the facts about the situation, which was unfortunately 3 hours later. But why did CNN, MSNBC and all the other go along with information that was never confirmed by anyone except for the poor emotional members of the miners family?
Governor Manchin had better get at least 2 investigations going, One dealing with the accident itself, and another investigation dealing with the other disaster: the miscommunication. I feel sorry for him, he is realiving a tragic event which profoundly affected his life, ONCE AGAIN! Its tragic, ironic, whatever...
The governor is right though, it is a miracle even one miner survived. West Virginians are tough we will make it through this. Randall McCloy Jr will make it through this.(And as Bigbay pointed out "the 11 dead miners won't make it through this. They're dead."
When we are done grieving, we will have answers to this bullshit.