2005-2014

Two journalists who have been remanded in prison custody since December 23 2005, Klem Ofuokwu and Cleopatra Taiwo, have been released on bail. Judge of a High Court in Port Harcourt, Justice Adolphus Enebeli, who had earlier denied the Rhythm 93.7 F.M staff bail, ordered their release owing to the state government’s readiness to try them summarily. In his ruling on the bail application on Tuesday...

Mohamed Amir Ahmed (Fares Amir) was arrested by police at his home in Male’ yesterday, family sources stated. The reason for the detention is unknown. Family sources said that three men from the ‘Star Force’ unit of the police arrived at Amir’s house on Thursday and ordered him to accompany them to the police headquarters in the capital. Amir’s wife said that the police gave no reason for the...

The imperfections of the newsgathering craft were glaring this week when television viewers and newspaper readers across the country were given a joyously miraculous survival story regarding trapped West Virginia coal miners. Unfortunately, that euphoric good-news story turned out to be wrong and had to be replaced by the tragic reality that only one of the 13 miners was rescued alive. Some in our...

NEW YORK As newspapers conduct damage control after early Wednesday's error, in which most wrongly reported that 12 trapped miners had been rescued in West Virginia, many editors are defending their mistake by saying they were misled by various sources, including the state's governor. Yet, even after extensive follow-up coverage today, serious questions about the sourcing, and its use, remain. "AP...

RELATIVES of miners missing after an underground explosion in West Virginia were told they were alive – only to have their hopes dashed three hours later when it was discovered that only one of 13 men survived. Ben Hatfield, the chief executive of the International Coal Group, the mine's owners, said a "miscommunication" from inside the mine to the command centre was overheard and spread to the...

The owners of a mine in the United States say a "miscommunication" is responsible for families being told 11 dead miners had survived an explosion. The International Coal Group had announced that 12 of 13 missing miners had been found alive but the 13th man had died. However, hours later the company announced that just one miner had survived the explosion at the Sago mine in West Virginia. Ben...

Print journalists weren’t the only ones at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who shifted with the developing story of the West Virginia miners this week. Matthew Kennedy spent the night and early morning running the paper’s online coverage of the tragedy unfolding at Sago. "Our Web site had been reflecting the course of the story," Kennedy said yesterday in a phone interview. "We had been saying that...

SAGO, W.Va. -- The storm kicked up sometime before dawn Monday, sweeping across the scabbed mountains and bare winter woods with enough ferocity to jolt people awake in this Appalachian hamlet. County Commissioner Donnie Tenney felt his blue farmhouse rattle. Thunder, he thought. The phone roused him again. It was his sister. Someone from her prayer chain had told her there had been an explosion...

There have been swift recriminations in the United States after much of the media carried the tragically wrong news that 12 of the 13 coal miners trapped in West Virginia had been found alive. News that the men had in fact died broke early on Wednesday morning, three hours after family members and the West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin had been wrongly told the miners were alive. Several US...

I cringed, along with everyone else, when I saw The Post's above-the-fold headline yesterday: "12 Found Alive in W. Va. Coal Mine." And USA Today's banner: "'Alive!' Miners Beat the Odds." And the Atlanta Journal Constitution: "12 Miners Alive." And Newsday: "Miracle in the Mine." If there's been a more heart-rending and humiliating botch of a story, I can't think of it offhand. Yes, the Chicago...