Uncle!

Okay FOX, you win. It worked. I won't kidnap any young, blonde, blue-eyed, upper class, teenage, all-American girls. Your round the clock mega-hyped coverage of this tragic but nonetheless non-story is working. It's a brilliant deterrent. Who in their right mind would think suffering through incessant, overblown, 24/7, E! True Suburb Tragedy was worth it? You are making America safe for white rich girls. Pat yourselves on the back.

UPDATE: Welcome fellow Instapundit fans! Take a look around. The Vixen and I hope to see you again. And thanks Glenn.

Comments

[Steve]

Damn you Rupert Murdhock!!!!!!!

[Twillis]

If that were your daughter or sister, you wouldn't be such a flippant asshole, I suspect.

[Jaibones]

You are proof positive that even the GOP has its share of self-centered, jaded, assholes who think the world revolves around their need for ... whatever.

[Nick Kritikos]

This is nasty.

[AK]

If you don't like Fox's coverage, don't watch. There are a couple hundred other channels, plus pay per view, plus DVDs. God, get a life.

[Foster]

CALM DOWN!

CALM DOWN!

CALM DOWN!

Just because the man criticised ONE aspect of Fox doesn't mean he's an asshole, or a communist, or ANYTHING. He didn't say he was GLAD she was kidnapped, he was critizing the way it was covered.

Turn down your persecution-o-meter, ok?

Besides, it is a 100%, bonified, absoloute, complete NON-STORY. People get kidnapped every day in this country, but see if Greta Van Sustern flies to the crime-scene when it's a middle aged woman and it happens in Iowa.

[Copano_Texian]

It's a sure thing if FOX had not gone after it, the government of Aruba would have covered it up. If FOX didn't keep hammering on it the two black guards would have swung I suspect. If this is what it takes, so be it. See if the other little tourist trap spots around the our hemisphere don't try to keep this from happening to themselves in the future by investigating crimes against Americans, not getting out the broom and sweeping trouble towards the closest rug. I'm sick of seeing the girls Mom everyday because I'm human and her suffering grows in front of our eyes, but lets face it, if it were your loved one, you would thank FOX. I will note you post makes you sound like a jerkoff.

[Cableguy]

Fox lives by ratings, and you can't argue with its success. Ratings are up big time, especially for Greta:

http://whatshappeningatcnn.blogspot.com/

Total day: FNC: 1,012,000 / CNN: 330,000 / MSNBC: 153,000 / HLN: 194,000 / CNBC: 150,000

Primetime: FNC: 2,409,000 / CNN: 617,000 / MSNBC: 188,000 / HLN: 377,000 / CNBC: 200,000

The hourlies:

5pm: Gibson: 1,118,000 / Blitzer: 370,000 / Connected: 73,000 / HLN: 147,000 / Kudlow: 229,000

6pm: Hume: 1,286,000 / Dobbs: 415,000 / Abrams: 210,000 / HLN: 195,000 / Mad Money: 237,000

7pm: Shep: 1,483,000 / Cooper: 416,000 / Hardball: 219,000 / Showbiz: 182,000 / Conan: 144,000

8pm: O'Reilly: 2,555,000 / Zahn: 411,000 / Countdown: 247,000 / Grace: 542,000 / Contender: 147,000

9pm: H&C: 2,097,000 / King: 829,000 / Situation: 148,000 / Prime News: 209,000 / Contender: 337,000

10pm: Greta: 2,574,000 / NewsNight: 612,000 / Scarborough: 170,000 / Grace repeat: 381,000 / Deutsch: 117,000

[Declan]

I find your cavalier remarks to be truly disturbing. This young woman is more than likely to be deceased. Would you post something similar if she were one of your family members?

Perspective.

[Tom v G]

Declan,

You're just part of the "Lipstick Vogue" and quite unlikely "Next Year's Model" so, frankly, you mean "Less than Zero" to me.

My Aim is True, Tom

[the electric ralph]

What's with Reynolds? Is he fiddling with his medications? Has his site been hacked? Since when is crap like this worth a link? This is almost as bad as that dismal month when Reynolds was wall-to-wall Wonkette. Phooey.

[Tom v G]

Electric Ralph:

Your email address is Gonzo. Shut the fuck up.

Cheers.

[Peter]

You all have it wrong.The reason it such a big story is so all the reporters can have have nice paid vacation. I sure Rupert himself is their coordinating the story himself.

[AST]

Wha? I watch Special Report with Brit Hume every week day faithfully, and I don't know you're talking about.

Maybe it's because I don't watch Fox, CNN or MSNBC all day long.

How do you boil a frog? Put him in a pot of cold water with a view of a TV set tuned to a cable news channel. After the 5th hour the frog will have committed suicide, then you can heat the water to boiling without the frog jumping out of the pot. Do NOT try to eat the frog unless you've dressed it first. Umm, Crunchy Frog.

If you want to avoid the story, listen to Michael Medved or Hugh Hewitt on the radio or via streaming over the internet. They don't generally waste time on such tabloid stories.

[TWM]

How is this a "non-story?" It is a story -- maybe not one you are interested in, but a story nonetheless.

If you don't like what Fox is reporting -- change the channel.

[ian]

I would agree that fox is going overboard, but I wouldn't restrain myself to only fox. You can't turn on the any station without hearing something about this girl. I agree it is a horrible situation, and I am glad something is being done about it, but does it deserve to be on all the stations all the time??

[stan]

I for one am very interested in the story, but I don't get to watch much coverage. But thanks for pointing out what channel I should watch to keep up on this interesting and important story. My heart goes out to the family who has been impacted by this out-of-the-blue nightmare.

[test]

test

[Jason]

With respect to Cableguy's post:

I can't believe Hume's show has the lowest ratings of all the shows listed on Fox News. Greta has the highest ratings? What is wrong with people. Hume's show is the only program worth watching on Fox (well that and Beltway Boys) and Greta's show is absolutely unwatchable, possibly even worst than Larry King.

Why would people want news about a kidnapped girl? How does this affect the state of the union?

[Michael]

Is there some innate wrongness with being white, female, blond, pretty and upper-middle class? If you think so, isn't that bigotry?

I thought enlightened people did not pay attention to race, color, class or religion.

Is Fox overboard? Maybe, dont watch tv much so cant say. But either way, is it the girls fault? 3 generations of my family have worked hard and long to move from poor to upper-middle class, and I have 3 beautiful blue-eyed, blonde haired, white daughters who have privileges my sister never dreamed of. And I'm proud of that. Keep your class & race bigotry to yourself please.

[David Farkas]

You blew an otherwise good point by infusing it with needless racisim.

I'v also wondered, from the start, why we keep hearing so much of this tragedy, when kidnappings take place every day. But why bring up race? You may as well raise the same non-story of the black Obama Barack winning a senate seat - is that worthy of the wall to wall coverage we see of him? Why not imply that the coverage granted him is only because he's black? ( Or the coverage granted Hillary is only because she's a woman, etc. etc.) Devoting so much time to this story is foolish, PERIOD. You can play the race game all day long if you want to.

I'm so sick of everything in this country being scutinized for racisim or sexism. The charge of "racist, sexist!" is meaningless to me these days, and I suspect millions of others feel the same. Your pointless infusion of race into your harrangue proves the point

[AntiBathos]

I too am sick of the overkill on this story. All the cable channels are bad but Fox is the worst for this kind of obsessive coverage. let's face it, if not for the 9/11 attack Fox would still be doing daily updates on Chandra Levy and Gary Condit.

[Scott Harris]

I have always thought that Greta van Sustren goes way, way overboard in her "true crime" reporting. But I have accepted that her program is driven by these tabloid style stories, and that there is a substantial part of the public that just laps up this type of story like sweet nectar.

It doesn't appeal to me, so I watch Joe Scarborough on MSNBC, or just turn the tube off. I don't get it. But others really enjoy this stuff. I can live with that.

[Oran Woody]

Gradually, I've quit watching TV. I had drifted to a FOX News only situation, but the final nail in the coffin for that was the "all Scott/Lacy, all of the time" coverage. Now, it is nada, zip, zilch.
I get my news fix from the net and feel no pain from the loss of the tube.
Folks like you give me all of the color commentary that I need. And even though we may not always agree, you always make me think.
Thanks much,
Woody

[Robert]

A few years back, a local weekly's comic strip (sorry, no longer have the link) had a strip lampooning this very phenomenon. People were show posting signs reading "ALERT! BLUE-EYED BLONDE GIRL MISSING!" News stories, newspaper headlines, etc. Last panel, a black woman is shown complaining, "My son's been missing two week, and I can't even get the police to return my calls." A man posting a sign on a pole retorts, "Where's your perspective? A BLONDE GIRL is missing!"

And yes, to forestall the inevitable, if it were my child, I'd want an ocean of publicity - but my child is a biracial boy growing up in Oakland, so it probably wouldn't happen.