Eighty-four-year-old Nancy Guthrie (featured bottom right) was abducted from her residence in Tucson, Arizona, on January 31, reports Fox News. She was reported missing on February 1, Fox states, after she failed to attend a church service live stream at a friend’s house.
The Pima County sheriff states that she was forcibly taken, and drops of blood were found trailing from the entryway down to the driveway. Investigators are looking into messages regarding the case while local news organizations and TMZ have been sent alleged ransom notes.
There's likely not a single viewer who's been watching Fox or ABC or CNN news coverage that hasn't asked themselves what they would be thinking or doing if it was their mother that had been kidnapped.
It's been going through Tim Graham's mind at Media Research Center.
“My mother's 88, the idea that she would be abducted is horrifying, and I think that's really easy for people to understand,” says Graham.
That fact that millions of NBC viewers know Savannah Guthrie makes the disappearance of her mother Nancy seem more relevant. But Graham says that, once the ransom notes and the latest former FBI agent's best guess at what is going on are covered, there is not a whole lot more to say.
“It's not that you're spending five minutes on it; it's that you're spending 25 minutes on it. In some cases, you're actually canceling other segments to do more on the missing woman,” states Graham.
He equates it to a lot of empty calories.
“We all care about Nancy Guthrie, but what you're getting then is like 10 minutes of basically no new facts,” says Graham.
Meanwhile, the networks are keeping their viewers tuned in and feeding the bottom line.
“Stories like this grab people's attention. It keeps them from clicking to another channel. It's sort of emotionally exploitative to take a crisis like this and squeeze dollars out of it,” concludes Graham.
