Wednesday, January 04, 2006

BLAMING THE MESSENGER

For two-and-a-half hours overnight there was no fingerpointing except toward the sky, in thanks to God for saving the coal miners.

Flipping through the cables you could watch Geraldo interviewing a survivor's relative and giving the bearded man a hug at the end of their chat. Anderson Cooper on CNN stuttered as his eyes got shiny. People screamed with joy. Then their joy fled and the screams were all that remained.

A dozen survivors became a dozen fatalities.

People will naturally blame the media for reporting a miracle that turned out to be a mirage. It's always the media's fault. Never mind that they were only reporting the moment -- a peal of church bells, a sea of smiling faces. If reporters had ignored the celebration they would have been accused of being atheists who don't believe in miracles.

Doomed and damned, either way.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

An honest mistake is unfortunate but inevitable. Lord forbid that the Media, just once, tried to report on the brighter side of life - about the good in the world that reaffirms faith, instead of the torrential flood of negative press in an increasingly beleaguered world.

Often the press/media has deserved the kicks in the teeth they’ve received. Getting raked over the coals on this one (and we know there will be people who do) is just bad form. No one was trying to exploit those people. They just wanted for the families to be able to be whole and for a dozen humans to pull through against all odds.

We’re human, we’re flawed. You can hardly fault us for at least wanting to believe.

My heart goes to those who've lost the loved ones they so desperately wanted to come home.

Anonymous said...

It's ironic that the cable broadcast media outlets who were the first to break the "story" of the dozen miners rescue are now holding up the incorrect newspaper headlines and making fun of their poor, antiquated print brethren for getting the story so wrong.