Often it is good to wait for an entire report to nail down the facts before the witch hunt should begin, is there something in this case that means this isn't the best idea?
One of the undercurrent themes of this story is that, according to the herald, the construction company and FIU officials are well-connected politically. Possibly related to this is the fact that the Herald is suing the state for records related to the bridge [0]. These records were determined to be public but have so far been withheld from public release.
[0] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/article212489364.html
It certainly doesn't look good from this quoted paragraph...
"Public records made and received by the Department from February 20 until the bridge collapsed on March 15 obviously were not obtained by the Department during an investigation because there had been no accident, much less an investigation into an accident,'' he wrote in a response to the FDOT motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
"Florida law is clear that if an agency’s record is a public record at the time it is made or received, then that document does not lose its character as a public record if the document is later given to an investigative agency in the course of a subsequently initiated investigation."
Still could be to prevent a public outcry before the facts are in, but that does seem mighty fishy...
I'd suggest that it's not an issue of bad faith regarding the NTSB, but rather that the NTSB doesn't (and shouldn't!) care about the political fallout from this, whereas a newspaper very much has an interest in uncovering the political side of this.
To be clear, I fully trust the NTSB. It’s more that I want to make sure that there are checks and balances — even when a just agency is doing the reporting. It adds another protection layer to the system.
People are often very forgiving when they know what actually happened. But being shut out of the information flow is a problem.
I'm not saying we need to find the guilty and punish them, but there are people that have a real stake in finding out the story.
Beyond them, there are a large number of potential officials that could have leaned on / been leaned on or through nepotism or laziness been a part (or not part) of the planning, design, implementation etc of the bridge that are partly or largely responsible for design/funding choices to this bridge.
There are countless examples of people receiving undue flak before being conclusively proven as guilt free, it is often prudent to wait before leveling accusations - that is what the NTSB does in it's processes - often to a fault.
I think it is unnecessary snark to ask me if the bridge collapsed, please don't be crude.