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"Any minute now we could get word that rescuers have managed to drill through into the chamber where the six miners are trapped," CBS' John Blackstone announced breathlessly. He was referring to a two-inch bore hole being drilled vertically towards the chamber created by the cave-in. Blackstone had different sources than NBC's Jennifer London. She warned that it will be "at least tomorrow morning" before contact is made with the chamber. The drill is making slower progress than expected, London explained, because of a heavy sandstone formation in the mountain. The mine granted access to television cameras to show the horizontal tunnel being dug simultaneously through the caved-in rubble. ABC's Neal Karlinsky found himself "surrounded by darkness, jagged walls and a low ceiling. It is an other-wordly environment." CBS' Blackstone called the tunnel "cramped, claustrophobic."
CBS abandoned the norms of detached reporting to reveal a rooting expectation that the miners are still alive. Blackstone, who introduced the six miners by name with head-and-shoulder shots and thumbnail biographies, narrated a CBS News Animation computer graphic showing the drill bit descending and the sextet standing around underground waiting to receive it. Neither CBS' animators nor anyone else had any knowledge on which to base that depiction. Journalism that conveys wishful thinking as graphic information is not true journalism but fantasy peddling.
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