the Sago 12 "might have survived if government had lived up to its responsibilities." Other commentators, including Scott Shields, a blogger for MyDD, Kevin Drum, a blogger for The Washington Monthly, and Andrew Sullivan also linked the presence of Republican-appointed coal mining executives in the MSHA to the tragedy. Jack Spadaro, a former director of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy who was fired after participating as a whistleblower in a prior case involving the MSHA, made similar statements, referring to the current Bush administration's "reluctance to take the strong enforcement action that's sometimes necessary" in an appearance on the show Hannity & Colmes. Spadaro was criticized as "extreme left-wing" for his statements by host Sean Hannity. The MSHA, on a "Questions and Answers" page regarding the incident, has strongly disputed many of these criticisms. In particular, the administration noted that the Sago mine was not an "accident waiting to happen" as the MSHA had never cited the mine for violations that would lead to "immediate risk of injury." It noted also that it had exercised its right to shut down various parts of the mine, eighteen times in 2005, until safety problems were corrected. Most relevant to the criticisms discussed in this section, the MSHA explicitly disputed the suggestion that "MSHA has grown 'too soft' on mine operators and has not been aggressive enough in enforcing the Mine Act." It noted that between 2000 and 2005, the number of citations it had issued had increased by 4%, and the number of coal-mine specific citations had increased by 18%. Dennis O'Dell, of the United Mine Workers of America union, disputed this response, suggesting that the fines MSHA handed to companies for these violations were too small to force action. A Knight Ridder "investigative report", published on January 7 and containing reference to the official MSHA response, concluded that "Since the Bush administration took office in 2001, it has been more lenient toward mining companies facing serious safety violations, issuing fewer and smaller major fines and collecting less than half of the money that violators owed." Evaluation of media coverage West Virginia University On February 13, 2006, The West Virginia University Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism convened a panel of six journalists for a forum titled “Searching for a Miracle: Media Coverage of the Sago Mine Disaster.” According to the School's website, the forum covered the "challenges faced by