Ship sinks of South Korea with 462 people on-board - 6 Confirmed Dead, 282 Missing

TeddyTedson wrote: »

I think it was that there was no news rather than neglecting it considering initial reports proved to be wrong.

I think the initial faffing around of the coast guard and the South Korean authorities prevented lots of news organizations from putting it at the top of their agenda.

There was an awful miscommunication of information on that first day, where the coast guard rushed into stating that the 300-odd students and teachers on board were 'all safe' - and that the remaining were probably ship crew involved in the rescue and scattered across the ocean, making them hard to count - only to later back-track and say they had miscalculated and in fact this wasn't true at all.

I work for an international news network and this initial release of information was what preventing us from sending a crew to South Korea for another 24 hours, because we didn't perceive the situation to be as dire as it would transpire to be.

The whole rescue operation has been mired by miscommunication, inaccurate death tolls and rescue tolls, disorganized press conferences, and the general mood at that gymnasium in Jindo where the families are awaiting news is increasingly tense, angry, grim and frustrated - which in turn means the authorities are clamping down on the media presence there. Which further restricts reporting capabilities.