Breaking plates complicate breaking news situation
By Mike Riley, The Roanoke Times
Because you received Wednesday's newspaper late, an explanation is in order. But first let me apologize for the inconvenience, and then let me ask you to keep reading to find out the back story about our front page package on the horrific coal mine tragedy in West Virginia.
Late Tuesday night, we ran into problems with the aluminum alloy plates that go on our press and with the equipment that bends them into shape. It turns out that some plates were defective, and one of our plate-bending machines was having problems, too.
So when the press began to run at high speeds, the plates actually began to split apart, which is the first time our press operators have encountered that problem.
Now, on a normal night, that would simply have meant some late newspapers. But complicating matters was a breaking news story about 13 miners trapped in the Sago Mine about 100 miles northeast of Charleston, which created an odd confluence of events.
Our first edition headline captured the story as it stood just before midnight: "Outlook bleak; body found."
Then, minutes later, the Associated Press reported in a one-line bulletin that 12 of the miners were, in fact, alive.
Because we were having plate problems, our night news desk was able to remake the front page, update the story, and incorporate this breaking news about 1 a.m. with the headline, "12 miners found alive." That's when we'd normally publish our second and final edition, and that night we decided to go with a single edition.
The press started up, and then the plates began to split, and our press crew began some careful troubleshooting to identify and isolate that problem.
About 3 a.m., the mine disaster story suddenly changed. The wonderful early news was wrong. It turned out that 12 of 13 miners had actually died. A statement had apparently been misinterpreted or miscommunicated, and that sparked the celebration of a miracle at the mine.
This abrupt reversal left many East Coast newspapers publishing incorrect headlines similar to our "12 miners found alive."
Meanwhile, we were still trying to fix our problems. About 3:30 a.m., Press Operations Manager Grace Abbott called me at home and told me we had a whopper of a wrong headline on the front page. The night news desk had long since departed, and we faced the choice of publishing the wrong headline or returning to the earlier first edition headline -- "Outlook bleak; body found" -- which was correct, though certainly not up-to-date.
I decided to go with the earlier headline and article, knowing that the story would play out more fully Wednesday, and that we'd have a chance to capture the dramatic swings of joy and despair in today's newspaper.
As it turns out, only 1,500 newspapers went out with the incorrect headline, mostly to our mail subscribers and readers around New Castle.
In this 24/7 world of Internet and cable news dispatches, it's amazing how fast news can travel, even when it's wrong. And it's worth remembering that a printed newspaper captures stories like snapshots, as completely as we know them at a given point in time, most often while you sleep. Sometimes that works better than at other times.
Our hearts go out to the dead miners' friends and families, whose despair must only be deepened by that brief glimmer of joy.
This most unfortunate experience should remind us all how important it is to first get the facts right, especially when the stakes are so high.