Anyone with access to a news outlet in America has probably been saturated with reports about this girl’s return to her parents. Ok, hooray for the family. Now why is this thing headline news all over the country?
I actually have no idea what you’re talking about (then again, my radio got stolen from my car last month and that’s where I get most of my news).
no, that’s where you got most of your news.
Because it’s a happy ending that was expected by pretty much no one.
I seriously don’t get why people have a problem with this.
It’s not so much the happy ending, IMHO, it’s the fact that there are so many children who are missing who don’t get the media blitz.
Well, whatayagonnado?
This one is getting covered. Good.
What is the solution, ignore all of these stories until all of them get covered?
All right, please no one come in and kill me for this one, but what I’ve heard speculated here is that the reason she’s getting so much coverage is because she comes from such an affluent family.
Please read the forum descriptions before posting.
It serves those missing children right, Mr. Blue Sky, for not being pretty, blonde, and middle-class. How dare they.
Because nothing new is happening in the Iraq thing?
Crist Almighty, I thought I was cynical.
It’s a good story. That’s why it’s being covered. It would be great if every missing child got this sort of media attention, but that just isn’t possible.
Yeah, it has all the ear marks of a Hallmark movie of the week – pretty white girl, affluent family, drifter as perp, etc – it doesn’t take away from the fact that a girl who pretty much anyone who followed the story thought was dead … isn’t.
Ergo, it’s a good story to cover.
Because we NEED some good news, dammit?
Sure, its a feel-good story, but the news coverage fars outweighs the newsworthiness of this event. Every news show wants to keep me “updated” on the latest happenings surrounding this story, yet I don’t feel one compelling reason to find it interesting.
Because most bona fide “newsworthy” stories aren’t of any real interest to most people and the tv/radio stations don’t want you flipping the station so they give people what they want.
What stories are more newsworthy? “News” meaning something new? It certainly is getting less press than the Superbowl.
It is not that she is white, pretty, and affluent. (Not middle class, affluent.) Do you remember that Hispanic boy who escaped after something close to 10 years as a pedophiliac sex hostage? That got lots of press too. You think someone is dead, and they aren’t - and they are found 15 miles from her home. That is “news”.
IANA parent, but I believe it is every parent’s worst nightmare to have a child abducted. And then for that child, assumed by most to have met an untimely demise, to return to her family alive, well, that is one heck of a happy ending which, as already stated, has been in very short supply lately.
It’s not just a huge story because she’s been found, it was huge on the news the day after she was kidnapped. Most kidnapped children don’t get that sort of press.
Most kidnapped children aren’t kidnapped by strangers out of their own homes in front of their little sister. But, in fact, most do get a lot of press. I admit I don’t watch much TV, but I recall several kidnappings that got a lot of press. I mentioned that CA Hispanic boy. The whole Amber alert thing would not be so big if that kidnapping had not made big news. There really are very few kidnappings of this sort that do not make big news. Of course, I really mean, I never heard of any …
Can you tell me of one that didn’t?
Yeah, I really think the fact that she was taken from her own house with her parents asleep nearby is the element that really gives it a sort of nightmare quality that grabs a parent’s attention. The fact that the family is middle-class might come into play more just because, hey, they lived in a well made house in a safe, affluent neighborhood.
If their own home wasn’t safe, how could mine be?
How about Alexis Patterson, the 7 year old Milwaukee girl who disappeared in the half block between where her step father left her (after walking her to school) and the school entrance. She’s been missing since May?
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