The Story of the Miners' Story
MSMBS strikes again: “We make simple tragedy more dynamic!"
quote from a Michelle Malkin reader [scroll to bottom]:
“I have 10 years of experience working in the TV news business, and I can tell you that almost without fail, the smaller the municipality, the less access the media has to “officials” during a crisis. ...Many of them have an actively hostile attitude towards anyone with a microphone.
When this happens, you get the situation we saw last night. CNN and the rest of them were basically reduced to relying on a freakin’ town crier. From there, it becomes the “telephone game,” where false information spreads and then becomes distorted.
...Bottom line is that this was almost bound to happen. It’s unfortunate, but when you don’t allow the purveyors of information access to said information, it’s a recipe for disaster."
So, really, it is all the fault of the citizens—who have learned through long experience that the media rarely reports what people on the scene experienced*—for not trusting the media. gotcha.
I’m thinking more along the lines of Lawrence Simon: Welcome to the Age of the Global Misinformation Sausage Factory. [Though I’m not quite in sync with his PJM optimism, given that they can’t even get their logo right...]
*[and who, like the drive-thru, will f^@% you every time]
The big problem is not so much that the media got the story wrong. (It’s the “rush to print” syndrome.) The big problem is mine safety.
That mine had a hundred or so health and safety violations against it. So why the heck was it open?
Partly, I guess, because people are cheap, people are expendable, but the coal has to keep moving. (Remember Tennesee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons”?)
Posted by Mike Z on 01/09/06 at 10:50 AM
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