Wednesday I wanted to scream out right away, to condemn the media for its ineptitude, but I thought I’d best wait a bit, think a little, and see how the facts played out; would that the journalists employed by major media have done the same. In the rush to best the competition, be first on the scene and lead with the latest breaking news, broadcasters magnified the mining debacle by bringing it to us as it was happening without ever checking the facts. This is nothing new – almost daily you can hear me talking back to my television, berating some twit of a reporter, more often an anchor person, for asking the dumbest questions about events when it is clear to any moron that the answers are unknown as yet. Then, to make matters worse, because there are no answers, the talking heads speculate, project, and guess. Of course those who say “I heard it on the news, it must be true†should shoulder some blame, but only a little. I guess the days of fact-checking and requiring corroborating sources are long gone. I mourn for that as well as for the miners who lost their lives to bring us coal, possibly under unsafe conditions that could have been prevented. When are we going to learn that caring for people is more important than money or ratings?