Our lead headline and story on the front page Wednesday were wrong, and we regret it.
The headline, which varied in our three Triangle editions, and The Associated Press story said 12 coal miners in West Virginia had survived being trapped after a mine explosion. By the time the papers hit driveways, officials from International Coal Group Inc. had emerged to say the miners were dead.
Newspapers don't aim to publish inaccurate stories. In this case, our reports were based on credible, on-the-record sources and the best information available at press time. Quoted sources included West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and Joe Thornton, a senior public safety official for that state.
Here's what happened:
Our first edition, which goes to press at midnight, carried a Washington Post story and headline focused on the discovery of one miner's body.
About midnight, many wire reports said 12 miners were alive. We ran with the Associated Press story for our later editions.
Over the next couple of hours, the AP sent a series of updates. Families were rejoicing; one relative said, "Miracles happen in West Virginia," which ended up in our final edition headline.
Just after 2 a.m., The N&O's presses started for the final edition. At 2:57 a.m., the AP moved an alert saying the miners were reported dead. Eleven minutes later, the last paper rolled off our press.
Our staff worked hard to get the latest news in the paper, but the timing couldn't have been worse for the print edition. Our Web site carried updates, and I posted an explanation of our coverage in my online column, or blog, Wednesday morning (blogs.newsobserver.com/editor).
None of that erases the fact that our front page turned out to be wrong. We're sorry for that.
