“Estamos bien en el refugio, los 33” (We are okay in the refuge, the 33) read the crumpled, muddy paper slip taped to the 5-inch thick drill bit that had moments ago been 2,000 feet underground, probing for the 33 trapped miners of the San José mine in Copiapó, Chile. With an yelp and a massive grin, the rescue worker ran to tell his boss. They are alive! After 17 days of searching, the rescue mission had finally found its target. It would take them another 52 days to safely dig a hole wide enough to rescue the miners. In an unprecedented event in made-made disasters, the victims survived 69 days below ground in the Chile Mine Disaster of 2010.
Upon their eventual rescue was an outpouring of support and outreach from the media, companies and countries across the world. They were granted book and movie deals, all expense paid trips to visit their favorite soccer teams, custom brand name clothes and the promise of a swift and devastating lawsuit agains the company that owned the San José mine, the state-owned San Esteban Mining Company. Fast-forward 3 years and the lawsuit concluded that San Esteban was not at fault and that they did not have to pay compensation to the miners. The miners, now no longer in the media spotlight, are currently facing emotional health issues and financial concerns.
Entranced by this I wrote my Writing Seminar research paper on this disaster, focusing on both the media coverage as well as the influence that the San Esteban Mining Company had on the outcome of the disaster. After analyzing over 30 different news sources I attempted to show that the news media was complicit in allowing San Esteban to escape culpability because doing so increased their ratings. It seemed that the news media predominantly decided to report on the rescue efforts to save the miners rather than expose the mine’s owners, the perpetrators of the disaster. I explained why the news media might be complicit in this by showing that the news media gets higher ratings by focusing on more exciting coverage (the rescue efforts) and that creating empathy is one way to increase these sensational reports. The media can elicit empathy when they portray the perpetrator acting as a rescuer, as the media did in this mine disaster as well as in another disaster that I examined. I concluded this aided by research done by other prominent scholars in the fields of both disaster perpetrators and media sensationalism. For further understanding about disaster perpetrators, I would recommend reading the work of McMullan and McClung. For further understanding about media sensationalism I would recommend reading about the concept of the CNN Effect with Steven Livingston, as well as looking into the onset of sensationalism through Karen Slattery, Mark Doremus and Linda Marcus.
Additionally, here is a table of the evidence I compiled about the types of news stories that were coming out of Copiapó.
| News media predominantly about perpetrators | News media predominantly about rescue efforts | Total news media sources | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Published before miners were found to be alive | 71% (5) | 29% (2) | 7 |
| Published after miners were found to be alive | 13% (3) | 87% (20) | 23 |
As shown, after the miners were found to be alive, 87% of articles focused on the rescue efforts instead of the perpetrators of the disaster, while beforehand only 29% focused on the rescue efforts. Before the miners were found to be alive the majority of articles, 71%, were predominantly about the perpetrators of the disaster, while afterwards only 13% were about the perpetrators. This indicates that there was a big shift in the news coverage of the event which further supported my thesis.
One of the hardest parts about writing a research paper is that on find out so many hilarious, fascinating, entertaining things about the topic that one is researching. Some of these things get to go in one’s paper, while others simply are not consistent with the purpose of one’s writing and must be cast away in favor of an appropriate, consistent flow. What I’m really excited about with this website is that I can include many of my other thoughts and feelings about the Chilean Mine Disaster.
Please check out below my website’s pages that were constructed to elaborate and elucidate more about the Chile Mine Disaster.
1. Who’s Who: Mining Ministers, Media Messengers and Mistresses Oh My
2. A Miner’s Life For Me (or not): A Glimpse into Before and After the Tragedy
3. Artistic Representations: Personal and Other
4. Chain Reactions: The World’s Responses
5. Works Cited