Tragedy in West Virginia. The accident involving the miners resulted in 12 deaths, with only one survivor. This is very sad, made worse by the false hope given to their families.

At 11:45 last night, word got out...somehow...that 12 miners survived. This led to jubilant celebrations by their families. The story was picked up by all the TV stations. It also was carried by the daily newspapers, as they were just going to press at that time. For example, the headline in today's Daily News is "Miracle in West Virginia : ALIVE! : 12 miners rescued after almost 2 days trapped underground - one found dead." Upon opening the paper, we find that our fellow blogger Derek Rose was on assignment in West Virginia and wrote the lead article. We can't blame Derek or any of his colleagues in the press for this snafu because they were reporting what everyone, including the governor of West Virginia, thought was true. The only question is, what was the source? How did this information get out in the first place? How did this rumor spread and why did it take three hours until it was corrected? The most telling line in Derek's article was "Details of the rescue were sketchy last night."

At 2:30 A.M., the families were told "Oops. Disregard that rumor that your loved ones survived. They didn't." For the newspapers, it was too late to retract their stories. But for the families, the anguish and devastation was far more severe.