I understand what you're saying and I agree that it works that way "at that level", but to me, in this case, it was time to forget about protocol and do the right thing, no matter what title is attached to your name.
Agreed. But is the right thing talking about it immediately? Obviously the first "right thing" is making sure the victim is ok. In this case he was in far better care than if he'd been out hunting with someone Fortune 1000 senior CEO or COO at that person wouldn't regularly travel with a medic and with a local ambulance at the scene as a matter of course.
Since I noticed this thread earlier I did some homework to see what the story actually was. The hunting was being done on the property of a woman who was the former Director of the State fish and wildlife agency. An experienced hunter and property manager. Someone who it might be expected could handle "press" and "story" on a hunting accident.
There was no member of the VP's press staff on the trip. Not uncommon on a private trip. The hunting party itself were three old friends; Cheney, the victim, and a woman who is also reported as an experienced hunter and who is also a former US Ambassador. So these are all folks (including the property owner) in the loop on the kinds of information handling they are used to.
The best press accounts I've read all seem to suggest that information was in fact released. The VP asked the property owner (the former director of the Texas state agency that handles hunters and hunting) to handle the information release. Since there was no press staff on the trip the woman contacted the local newspaper. And in 24-36 hours time the story was around the world. Including
www.cvoharley.com . So where was any real delay or coverup?
One last thing, there seems to be a suggestion here that because it was the US VP there was somehow less information than more. Bull. We wouldn't know about it at all if most Fortune 1000 or Fortune 500 COOs or CFOs had a private accident on private land with private friends.
Might the VP have grabbed an agent's cell phone and called Rupert Murdoch to say "hey Rup old boy, I just shot one, I need to walk over and see if he's dead before I can give you the whole story." Yeah, sure, they could've released info (if they had staff on hand) with greater effect than going through the local small town newspaper. The great difference in the grand scheme of things would have 18 hours difference before before it made it to all the wires. Big frigging deal.