Word: coal
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Good reporting is seldom easy or comfortable. But for correspondent Ted Gup, getting to the bottom of this week's BUSINESS story about life and hard times in a West Virginia coal community was especially unsettling. "The first time I entered a low-seam coal mine was one of the most claustrophobic experiences of my life," says Gup. "You lie on your back on a metal sled, and the distance between the floor and ceiling is never greater than 40 inches. You're in utter darkness -- except for the light on your hard hat. You eat your lunch on your...
...investigative reporter with a taste for hands-on journalism, there was no question that to write about coal miners he would have to go into the mines. Two years ago, he logged 35,000 miles following the trail of illicit ivory for a cover story about the endangered elephant. Last year he spent 10 days with loggers in the forests of Oregon to cover the battle over the spotted owl. "If a story is worth doing, it's worth doing thoroughly," he says. "I find that whatever truth there is emerges not in the second or third interview, but well...
...work and out of luck, the coal miners of Logan County, W. Va., come to the Big Eagle Gun and Pawn Shop to offer up the last thing they have of any worth: their simple gold wedding bands. The rings, buffed free of inscriptions, fill a black velvet tray. Dozens more crowd a shelf in the vault. Over the past five years, more than 1,000 miners and their wives have come here to slip off their rings and slide them silently across the narrow glass counter. They walk away with a $15 loan and a claim stub. In time...
...disaster. Actors were recruited to play the gladiators and were directed to adopt fake personalities. The costumes were tacky, and the overall style was uncomfortably close to the campiness of pro wrestling. "It was a schlock job," says Ferraro. "Out of a diamond, they gave you a piece of coal...
...book published in 1987, Reynolds argued that the cost to national economy of unions in 1984 was at least $80 billion, or 2 percent of GNP. He cites the example of the coal industry, whose workers have become increasingly hostile to unions as their working conditions have improved. Although unionized mines have basically the same working conditions as non-union mines, they have a lower productivity rate...