Some of those reports of the behaviour of media are awful and I really do hope they prove to just have been more rumours. I have to say I’ve been reasonably impressed by some of the local media. Going to get a haircut this evening I had to walk between Peter Williams and Jack Tame with crew setting up their broadcast on the main drag and later on Gerry Brownlee was being interviewed. They were about as unobtrusive as they could have been I think.

Thanks Paul but I can't really claim to be directly affected, at least no more than anyone else from Greymouth. I was just surprised by the intensity of some of the speculation.

I’m amazed at the strength of critical opinions here from certain people who freely admit to knowing little of the situation. I’ve been to the mine itself, went to school with some of those trapped and have a good friend who was working outside the mine when the explosion happened and I still don’t feel qualified to offer any personal insights or second-guess the experts.

I’m not sure where the $170 million figure is from exactly, but the lifetime of the mine was 20+ years, even more if they were allowed to enter the Brunner seam. I don’t think the Hobbit is quite in the same league.

I believe (though not for sure) that the samples were being flown to Rapahoe for testing by gas chromatography, I don’t think individual mines could be expected to have that sort of instrumentation on-site or staff qualified to run and analyse them when more simple gas analysis is normally sufficient. Anyway, I’m not arguing that these questions need to be asked, just saying there are often completely reasonable explanations when the facts are examined.

Nice to see some acknowledgement here of the completely redundant live crosses. Peter Williams bouncing back and forth between reporters stationed along Tainui street was just distracting to me.

One thing I’ve found interesting is the report that Allan Dixon rang his wife from in the mine, after the explosion. I initially saw it in a stuff.co.nz article, from which it was soon removed. This morning the herald was quoting it almost word for word at the bottom of an article and has also since removed it. I never heard it amongst any of the local rumours so I don’t know where it came from. I would have thought any competent writer would have realised the significance and that maybe a little fact-checking might have been required.

I'm just a lowly lurker but felt like posting just to thank everyone for their contribution to this place. The system really seems to be functioning well and has restored my faith in the whole "blogging with discussion" type of site. Merry Christmas.

Great work guys, I've been hoping for a long time that some kind of discussion with other Public Address readers would be possible.
I'm pretty optimistic for the success of moderation on here, considering how other places seem to manage.