Interesting NPR segment regarding race, Katrina, and the Sago mine disaster

[Wycoff]

How Race Could Have Colored Sago Disaster

Here's an interesting take on what might have happened had the Sago miners had been black.

[Dr Strangelove]

The morning after the rescue teams broke through into the area of the mine where the 12 miners were located my local newspaper ran a front page headline proclaiming that the 12 miners had been rescued alive. Only when I booted up my computer and got on the 'net did I learn that 11 of the 12 were found dead. There was indeed a protest that the miner's families had been misled into believing that the 12 were still alive, but nothing came of the protest. It turns out that officials at the scene had never claimed that the miners were found alive, but instead had merely announced that they had been found. The officials declined to comment on the status of the miners because they were already attempting to contact the victim's families before releasing the names of the dead to the public. This is standard procedure in ther US. Releasing the names of the dead to the press before informing the proper family members could result in a lawsuit.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
The morning after the rescue teams broke through into the area of the mine where the 12 miners were located my local newspaper ran a front page headline proclaiming that the 12 miners had been rescued alive. Only when I booted up my computer and got on the 'net did I learn that 11 of the 12 were found dead. There was indeed a protest that the miner's families had been misled into believing that the 12 were still alive, but nothing came of the protest. It turns out that officials at the scene had never claimed that the miners were found alive, but instead had merely announced that they had been found. The officials declined to comment on the status of the miners because they were already attempting to contact the victim's families before releasing the names of the dead to the public. This is standard procedure in ther US. Releasing the names of the dead to the press before informing the proper family members could result in a lawsuit.

Who cares about lawsuits ? It's common decency to inform the relatives before the press.

Here, if journalists were trying to get the names before relatives, they would in some polite language be told where to stick their heads.