Rudy

I hear you UUronL and agree with the theory but I don't think it applies in this case. Even if the media was completely removed from this situation, the exact same thing would have happened and those poor families would have ridden the same roller-coaster of emotions.

I think what happened here was a result of a very small, tightly-knit community where just about everyone had each other's cell phone numbers stored as speed dials. All it took was one person from "up on the mountain" (where the rescue was taking place and where there was no media or family members whatsoever) to grab the bad information and call a "cousin" in the church where the families were waiting (again, without any media folks) and the false word spread like wildfire. All the families were looking for this type of news and since it came from "up on the mountain," they probably felt it must have been true. The euphoria was everywhere and spreading when the media simply reported what everyone was saying. At that point, there was nobody doubting the validity of the information. Remember, these days if you're trying to manage a situation like this, it's much more difficult to control the flow of information or stop it from leaking when just about everyone has a cellular phone in their pocket.

If the officials had stopped the misinformation 20 minutes after the word got out -- when they learned the truth themselves, no newspaper headlines would have been printed falsely, etc. and the families, although they would have still been devastated, would not have been celebrating for two hours.

As I said above, having the Governor give the thumbs up and say "miracles do happen" was not the smartest thing for him to do either since he seemed to forget the power he has when he does that type of thing. It's simple for most people to take that as a confirmation that the current information is accurate -- he blew it in the wake of his own euphoria.

Again, I just don't see how the media is really to blame in this case (although usually, they are to blame so I fully understand your opinions!)

Rudy

One more thing, here's a timeline of what happened and when -- notice the lack of any mention of the media in the text of the chronology...