Putting Things in Perspective
Friday January 6, 2006
In almost all news outlets, including this blog, the West Virginia mining accident has been getting top billing for almost three days. Here in Pittsburgh it is still the lead story on the local news and on the front page of the local papers. It wasn't until late yesterday that other headlines, such as the devastating stroke suffered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the landslides on Java Island started getting top billing in most major news outlets across the nation. There were 136 people killed in Iraq on Thursday, including 11 Americans, but that isn't generating nearly the same amount of coverage. What is it about the miners' story that generates this type of interest?
I can understand, perhaps, the great local interest in this ongoing story. Southwestern Pennsylvania is coal mining country, afterall, much like West Virginia. Everyone here still remembers staying up late into the night watching the rescue in 2002 of nine miners trapped in the Quecreek Mine. Randal McCloy, the sole survivor pulled from the Sago mine, is being treated in a Pittsburgh hospital. Yet, as much as I hurt for those miners and their families, I'm not sure that even they appreciate having so much media attention focused on them - their very private pain being explored in such a public forum. Poor Anna McCloy, wife of Randal, can't even go to Walmart to buy a Metallica CD to play for her husband without having every reporter in Pittsburgh asking her questions about it. And the coverage hasn't yet died down that much throughout the rest of the nation either. Even now, as of 9:00pm Friday evening, the mine tragedy is still the feature story on CNN's home page.
I can't help but wonder if we, as journalists, should re-examine our coverage of the drama at Sago Mine. Did we fall prey to the classic story of "trapped miners" and get carried away with the intensive news coverage? Did we have so much invested in the story that we didn't take time to verify facts before proclaiming that twelve miners survived...because we so much wanted to believe that it was true? What is it about this story that captures the nation's interest in such a big way?
I can understand, perhaps, the great local interest in this ongoing story. Southwestern Pennsylvania is coal mining country, afterall, much like West Virginia. Everyone here still remembers staying up late into the night watching the rescue in 2002 of nine miners trapped in the Quecreek Mine. Randal McCloy, the sole survivor pulled from the Sago mine, is being treated in a Pittsburgh hospital. Yet, as much as I hurt for those miners and their families, I'm not sure that even they appreciate having so much media attention focused on them - their very private pain being explored in such a public forum. Poor Anna McCloy, wife of Randal, can't even go to Walmart to buy a Metallica CD to play for her husband without having every reporter in Pittsburgh asking her questions about it. And the coverage hasn't yet died down that much throughout the rest of the nation either. Even now, as of 9:00pm Friday evening, the mine tragedy is still the feature story on CNN's home page.
I can't help but wonder if we, as journalists, should re-examine our coverage of the drama at Sago Mine. Did we fall prey to the classic story of "trapped miners" and get carried away with the intensive news coverage? Did we have so much invested in the story that we didn't take time to verify facts before proclaiming that twelve miners survived...because we so much wanted to believe that it was true? What is it about this story that captures the nation's interest in such a big way?
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