I just took a brief break from work to have a quick lunch. As I often do, I tried to catch up on the news. I was foiled in this endeavor because CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all spent at least ten minutes each with extensive reporting on the mysterious disappearance of “Today” host Savannah Guthrie’s mother.
This is an unethical waste of journalism resources and breach of the duty for the news organizations not to at least try to report events that citizens need to know to be informed, safe, competent citizens.
600,000 Americans go missing every year, and about 90,000 of them, on average, are never found. If I were a member of the family of one of those Americans, I would be angry and disgusted at the disproportionate attention and resources being devoted to this one woman, Nancy Guthrie, whom I had never heard of before this week. And why should I have? She is not a crucial figure to the nation or society. Her greatest accomplishment is that she is the mother of a celebrity, and one who makes $8,000,000 a year.
The “Today” star has the resources to pay for a private investigation. We can empathize with her, but no more so than with anyone beset with a family crisis.
Absurdly, President Trump posted on Truth Social that he was ordering federal law enforcement to”deploy all resources” to find Nancy Guthrie. Good Lord, why? She is not essential to national security. The nation will not suffer one bit if she has vanished like Judge Crater, Jimmy Hoffa, Ambrose Bierce or Amelia Earhart.
Sure, it would be tragic for the Guthrie family. I could list the important stories that the news media is burying, hiding or ignoring now but it would take up too much of my time or yours. It is true that other disappearances from high profile families became media feeding frenzies: the kidnappings of the Lindbergh baby and J.Paul Getty’s grandson were hysterically over-covered too. But at least they were both children.
The entire spectacle just rubs ordinary Americans’ faces in the ugly truth that they just don’t matter as much as the welfare of the rich, famous and beautiful.
Ethics Alarms 
“Absurdly, President Trump posted on Truth Social that he was ordering federal law enforcement to ”deploy all resources” to find Nancy Guthrie.”
Until a motive is determined, I’m not too concerned about this. This could be a standard crime of opportunity. It could be a planned kidnapping/ransom which would warrant the use of the FBI. It could be a terrorist plot. It could be criminals hoping to target Savannah Guthrie and/or NBC directly. And it could be idiots who are retaliating for some perceived grievance regarding Guthrie’s news reports.
But, you are correct in that our news stations spend a ridiculous amount of time on stupid stories. In fact, just this morning, Mr. Golden and I caught a segment on our local Fox affiliate morning news about how “The National Anthem is hard to sing!” They even had an expert – you know, an expert (some music professor from a college) – to talk about it. 1. Duh. We all know the anthem is hard to sing. 2. But it’s not impossible to sing. 3. Why is this news?
I’d rather have seen more about poor Mrs. Guthrie.
But at least they didn’t have updates every hour about how the National Anthem was STILL hard to sing…
This is true. And I do understand that, in the grand scheme of things, Mrs. Guthrie’s fate will not cause governments to collapse or galaxies to explode, but we do give an oversized weight to our celebrities (whether rightly or wrongly) and, at least, an elderly kidnapped woman in need of her medication is actually news.
This 24-hour news cycle where everything is “breaking” even when there’s nothing new to say is a product of our own culture’s inability to demand better.
This probably goes at least as far back as the Lindbergh baby thing. It’s a shiny object that’s easy to report on. And add in the fact that these morning show hosts attempt to ingratiate themselves into their viewers’ lives to the point they become like family in the minds of their viewers. So, I’m sure many of the Today Show viewers think of Savanah Guthrie as a daughter or sister and the network news departments are right next door to the entertainment departments.
I have been intentionally ignoring this. I didn’t know who Savannah Guthrie was until this post. I assumed that she would be some minor celebrity that would make the amount of news coverage aggravating.