It Shouldn't Have Taken the Deaths of Three Rescuers to Get the Media to Focus on Mine Safety

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/it-shouldnt-have-taken-t_b_60894.html

Arianna Huffington

So last night, suddenly, after the tragic second collapse at the Utah mine, there was a dramatic shift in the TV coverage of the story. All at once, faux folksy mining boss Bob Murray, who had been everywhere, was nowhere to be found (even sending in a junior executive to handle this morning's press conference). In his place, at long last, were actual scientists, and experts on mine safety and the workings of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Bush mine safety czar Richard "Recess Appointment" Stickler was also absent last night, and did not appear again until this morning's press conference.

So many questions were finally being asked. Prompting one more: What took so long? Why did it take a tragic second collapse before the Murray and Strickler PR Show was finally replaced by actual journalism?

Why did it take until this morning for CNN to finally run a chyron saying "Safety of Rescue Operation Debated"? For 12 days, there was precious little debate about why the mine had collapsed in the first place, or about the safety of the rescue operation -- which was, by law, in the hands of Stickler, another "heck of a job" Bush special, a coal industry insider who couldn't even win the approval of a GOP-controlled Senate.

Coal miners, we are told, operate under a code similar to the Marines: no one gets left behind. So there is little doubt that the rescuers would have done everything in their power to try to save their fellow miners. But might last night's tragic outcome have been avoided if the media watchdogs had been asking tougher questions from the start?

What if, instead of giving endless airtime to Bob Murray, they had brought on some of the experts we saw last night and asked them questions about the chances of another collapse occurring? What if they had given us Professor Larry Grayson, who was interviewed last night by Dan Abrams on MSNBC, and other experts who could have contradicted once and for all Murray's assertion that the company had not been doing retreat mining where the original collapse had occurred? What if they had gotten Stickler on the record on this, and had him definitely say whether or not Murray was lying when he repeatedly denied the dangerous technique was being used in the Crandall Canyon Mine?

What if they gave as much airtime to the seismologists denying that the collapse was the result of an earthquake as they gave to Murray who kept repeating the bogus (and responsibility-avoiding) claim that it was an earthquake, a natural disaster, an act of god?

FULL story at link.

the MSM could put the Rethuglican spin on the story for the fat cat Rethug Mine Owner...

The one thing that the Rethuglicans can't understand is reality is a bitch when it catches up with you....and as usual Americans have to lose their lives to prove that the Rethuglican governing style is a failure....and big business cares not for the American worker...

and therefore not worth as much as white American lives. Were the rescuers who died American or Mexican? White or Brown?

and the other one running the Bureau of Mine Safety.

How do I know? Because I work in a place covered by that agency.I will say we are a hell of a lot safer than any underground mine. I can tell you that if Murray is found to be responsible for killing those men, he will go to jail possibly for life. The inspectors I have dealt with won't give a damn about Stickler. They will care about men's safety and how to deal with it. But who knows if the Midwest division will have anything to do with the investigation? I will say this though, MSHA.gov has a place on the front page of their website to file anonymous complaints about safety violations at places they cover. I know this because I once filed an anonymous complaint and they were there two days later. And the safety violation was taken care of.

but first they ought to add 2 more to the list of people left in it.