In the case of the mine disaster, desperate people well tend to hear what they want to hear. And a casual comment by a well meaning person lead to a storm of positive speculation.

I know Mr. Hatfield and he is no moron. We went to college together. In fact he is one of the brightest and most kind hearted men that I know working in a very tough business. They had just purchased that mine and were in the process of fixing it. The errors in communication were not his fault and I suspect that any delays on his part in correcting the story were caused by his desire to get the truth rather than replace one speculative story with another.

Your jump to the conclusion that Ben is a “Moron” was just as calloused and just as inaccurate as the media’s jump to conclusions and was based on poor understanding of the subject matter and the people involved. You got it wrong this time.

First, I don’t think ‘callously’ is appropriate here; their decision to withhold information seems to have been based on a (misguided) attempt to do the right thing by the families, and not because they were indifferent to the suffering of others.

Next, hindsight is wonderful, isn’t it? It is possible that the coal company had established procedures for mounting a rescue effort, but were less practiced and skilled at the communications aspect. Perhaps they should have spent more time rehearsing making statements under a number of different outcomes. Of course, had word got out that company spokesmen were practicing a “your loved one survived, yours didn’t'… well, that might have come across as a bit callous.

Btw, doesn’t a ‘moron’ lack the mental acuity needed for them to realize their actions are callous in nature?

And I don’t know that the company told anyone to celebrate. My understanding is that word got out unofficially from someone who was trying to be helpful (some help, I know, but again, in hindsight).

So the question is what ‘official’ statement the company should have issued once they learned that things were not as first reported. Given that the families were already off celebrating, my guess is that if had only taken another 5-10 minutes to get confirmation, then it would have been fine to wait to make the official announcement that they ended up making. But, for whatever reason, it took them a lot longer to figure things out… making it (again, in hindsight) seem like the right thing to do would have been to make a preliminary “hold on a minute” announcement.

So, in hindsight, would I have chosen a different course? Sure. But that doesn’t mean the mine executives were either morons or callous. Just wrong.

And, Caltechgirl, sorry to rain on your prediction, but I’m guessing the company is going to be around for a while to come. Mine accidents are (unfortunately) not rare. Companies have insurance. The mines are profitable and the workers have nowhere else to go. So unless the explosion damaged the mine to the point where it is not worth the investment to re-open it, the mine will likely re-open and the workers will return.

Furthermore, NO ONE should have told the families that their loved ones were en route to the church when there wasn’t even confirmation that they were alive (several folks were on TV today saying they were told that the rescued miners were coming by reps of ICG).

Oh well. This guy’s company is toast.