22 journalitsts for every trapped miner

More than 750 journalists have received permission to watch Wednesday as rescuers begin to raise 33 trapped Chilean miners out of the collapsed mine, the Associated Press reports.

That's 22 journalists for every trapped miner. Rounding down.

If they'd given them all shovels when the mine collapsed, the miners would probably have been freed already.

From AP:

...there are so many journalists on the story that the trapped men's relatives largely stay away except for on weekends. The few families that have zealously maintained a vigil at the mine since the Aug. 5 collapse are swarmed by the swelling media here.

An eye on Chile

Journalist Marc Cooper has written a number of posts about the Chilean earthquake and its aftermath. Cooper has a long history with the country:

Since the moment the monster quake hit in Chile I sort of self-appointed myself as a translator/aggregator for Chile-related Twitter activity. You can find my long list of tweets here. I'm a former translator to Chilean president Salvador Allende and have been married into a Chilean family for 36 years so it's a place I know something about.

I won't link to all of the individuals posts, but his website is here.