Natalee Holloway: Who Cares?

In an odd way, I'm proud to say that I have no idea who Natalee Holloway is. I mean, I've heard the name mentioned in passing a few times, usually as a variation of "some gal who's gone missing," but I haven't spent any time following her disappearance. While I'm sure her family and friends are deeply concerned about her, I just can't grasp why I -- as someone in the 98% of the population who aren't part of her social circle -- should be following this tragedy.

Which is why I boggled at this CNN article:

In other words, CNN spent 1,300+ words to say "A year has passed, Natalee's still missing, and we still don't know what happened."

At the risk of sounding callous (or, more accurately, even more callous than how I already sound), who the fuck cares? What makes the Matalee Holloway case any more newsworthy than the thousands of other kids who've gone missing or been abducted? And does the Holloway family really want nosy reporters to keep poking in their private affairs, even when nothing is happening?

The Natalee Holloway obsession is why I've mostly written off mainstream "news", because it wastes my time on unimportant, superficial fluff while ignoring important issues. Never mind that we're on the brink of another misguided war, never mind that the government is eavesdropping and wiretapping and doing Primus-knows-what-else on all Americans -- no, the big issue, the one that requires a year of non-stop coverage to report that nothing has changed, is that some girl has disappeared.

Again, I fully understand that her family and friends are deeply concerned about the matter, as they should be. But nothing in this case warrants a year of coverage, especially when it's all "Nope, still nuthin'."

(And really, am I the only person who thinks that the only reason Natalee has gotten so much coverage is because she's an attractive blonde girl? The cynic in me thinks the entire case would have fallen off the "news radar" inside of a week if the missing person had looked like this.)

The real tragedy here is how far journalism has fallen. We used to get real reporters who dared to challenge the powerful and point the harsh light of truth into the shadows. Now our choices are either bloviating assholes who offer their feces as "truth", or vapid bubbleheads whose only "journalistic" skill is the ability to keep smiling while reading off a teleprompter.

Unless and until we have a genuine breakthrough in the case, Natalee Holloway should be verbotten from the airwaves.