Update on Latoyia

It looks like I must take a certain amount of responsibility for feeding the monster. After being called to the carpet in an embarrassing manner by bloggers, the 24-hour networks have picked up on the Latoyia Figueroa story.

Various bloggers had differing motivations for discussing Ms. Figueroa's case. Some might look at the fact that even though they are very late, perhaps we should declare victory because now the MSM "gets it." God knows I hope she's found safe and sound, but that wasn't my point at all. I wrote about it in order to illustrate the point that the media sensation that is the Natalee Holloway case (like many Missing White Girl cases before it) was not only rife with class, race and gender bias, but was a terrible example of how the national news media is failing in it's obligation to provide the public with information that it needs, and instead pandering to the salacious and the sensational. In other words, I really didn't WANT to see another media sensation created around another woman's tragic disappearance. Above all, I wanted to make the point that these sorts of stories, while certainly of vital importance to those directly affected by them, and definitely a matter of the highest concern to local law enforcement, are not stories that should be taking up collectively hundreds of hours on national news broadcasts. The national news media should be concerned with matters that are vital to the nation, not salacious local (albeit tragic) stories.

Oh well.