I wonder if Executive Creative Director Don Schneider, of BBDO, (my nominee for the award for Stupidest, Most Offensive, Most Hideously Insensitive, and Most Disgusting Human Being) is still able to picture coal miners singing the song 16 Tons "without any negative feelings"? Would he, do you think, recommend airing his Sexy Coal Miners ad in the Tallmansville viewing area? Would he interpret the notes left by the dying miners as evidence that they didn't have any negative feelings? Perhaps he would recommend updating the ad - you know, show the sexy model miners putting on their self-contained breathing apparatus. Or stringing up brattice cloth to try to keep out carbon monoxide.
Michael Weiss has a round-up of what bloggers are saying about the early false report that 12 of the miners in the Sago Mine disaster had survived.
False Hope in Appalachia. The latest chatter in cyberspace. By Michael Weiss. [Slate Magazine]
Many people seem to be upset with the "mainstream" media for getting the story wrong, not checking facts. Personally, I don't give a damn about the media reporting the false news - what does it hurt me to have believed, for a few hours, that more men had survived than actually did? Hell, doesn't anybody remember "Dewey Defeats Truman"? It's not like this is the first time that early reports turned out to be incorrect. And it's not like they stuck to the initial story once they found out it was wrong.
What is really horrible is that the families of those men were allowed to believe for so long that their men had survived. It's as if they lost them twice. All that crap from the mine officials about "being cautious" in waiting to tell the families that the report wasn't true is bunkum. They could have at least told the families that the initial report wasn't correct, but they didn't have firm details yet. Anything like that would have been preferable to letting those poor souls go on celebrating for three fricking hours. No wonder those people wanted to wreak violence upon the mine officials.
6:39:15 PM 
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