Back peddling = When somebody screws up and has to cover up what they did wrong

Somebody didn't check the brake lines or choke the wheels of a train in Canada and hundreds are killed. In 24 hrs they still aren't giving the number of dead or even an estimate. This is the safe clean burning oil and gas those bright sparkly commercials tout complete with fairy dust. But they provide all those jobs for generations to come or so they tell us. Seem to have forgotten a couple of things like the amount of pollution they add and the environmental damage this industry causes. And don't tell us pipelines are safer. The one in Mayflower still hasn't been cleaned up in spite of Exxons' insistence that it was. The stench of that dirty oil will remain for years to come not to mention what it did to property values.

And now we have the plane crash in San Francisco. The NTSB hasn't even really started the investigation and the CEO of the airline is ruling out pilot error because after all people don't make mistakes right? An incorrectly set altimeter wouldn't have anything to do with it would it? Ah but that's just speculation and we wouldn't want to do that at this time. In an earlier article the CEO ruled out mechanical problems so which is it? Has to be one or the other because there were no bird strikes or missiles to speak of in this case. Maybe it was the gremlin messing with the tail rudder (you remember the Twilight Zone episode). To his credit the CEO Yoon Young-doo apologized to the passengers and families and our people. You'll never hear that out of an oil company executive here. 

Then of course there's the back peddling of the news by about every news source around the world. Within minutes of this accident photos and short blips of news circled the globe and were seen on the front pages in such places as the Irish Times. The number of casualties injuries and passengers went up then down then back up and then down faster than the stock market before christmas. And the talking heads had to speculate about the terror aspects because that's what they get paid to do, keep the public in fear and make the story more juicy least the viewers turn on cartoons which might not have been a bad idea. The ghost of Edward R. Murrow is crying somewhere.