I still lay most of the blame sqaurely on the media. From what I have read, it seems that the media seemed satisfied using "an unnamed source" to report that 12 people who were presumed dead were actually alive. Sure, you can use "unnamed sources" when reporting less important news...but not when reporting living vs. dying!
As I read more about it, it seems like the mining company made some terrible mistakes. The head of the company supposedly knew that the information about people living was false 20 minutes afer the first report came through. Yet he waited for almost 3 hours to break the news. Here is what he said this morning...
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At a news conference today, Mr. Hatfield said that he waited to correct the false impression even after a second call from the rescuers made it clear that the first call had been misunderstood. He said he waited because it was not clear then whether all 12 were dead or just some of them.
"Let's put this in perspective," he said, explaining his state of mind at the time. "Who do I tell not to celebrate?"
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Here is what you tell people:
"People, it seems like the first report we got was incorrect. We misunderstood what was told to us by the rescuers. We aren't sure about how many are alive and how many are dead. We will let you all know for sure as soon as we possibly can."
In short, you tell EVERYONE not to celebrate. You tell them that you are unsure of what the real story is and that the situation will be cleared up as soon as possible.
By doing this, you take away some of the anguish of the families and friends (though not much!) as well as stop the news media from filing stories with misinformation...thus taking the egg off the face of such credible news sources as the New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today ;).
If everyone would have waited for an OFFICIAL word, this mess could have been avoided.
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