In addition to being out of the loop in the blogging world, I am fairly out of the loop in the Destiny Norton situation.
However, it seems to me that the news media is reporting this alot less than they did with the Elizabeth Smart case.
Ethan points out that Rocky is much more out of touch than he was for the Smarts.
A rich blond girl vanishes? Front page, thousands of searchers.
A poor dirty blond vanishes? Local section and hundreds of searchers.
-Bob
5 comments:
Wow, what a succinct simplification of two different cases! Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped in the middle of the night, from her own bedroom, by an armed intruder, all of which was witnessed by her younger sister. Destiny Norton simply disappeared from her back yard. People are much more motivated by a dramatic story like Elizabeth Smart's than by the more "normal" story of Destiny Norton.
I'm a bit surprised, too, by how you make the distinction between a "blond" and a "dirty blond", as if that made a difference in the media coverage. Can you really imagine the Salt Lake Tribune's editors saying, "Well, she is a dirty blond... let's put her on page B3!"
with a "green streak" in the back no less....
Bob does have a point. Maybe this story just hasn't been followed as closely because their PR isn't as good.
I'll stop here before I say something to get myself lynched. Suffice it to say, I really got tired of the Elizabeth Smart thing. Do I think the story that everyone got was accurate? No. Do I think something bad has happened in this case? Yes. Do I expect a brick through my window? Maybe... Just remember I'm in the basement, I'd hate for bob to get an undeserved brick; he has to earn his own bricks from the community.
Now that it's all done, I don't remember the Smarts or any of their representatives trying to incite a riot, spitting on police or bullying the media.
I don't recall the media breaking into the Smart's home, the police wanting to end the search after a week (and before they had reason to suspect Gregerson).
I also don't recall anyone lying to the Smart family, giving them hope she was alive and sketches of a suspect to hand out (when they already had a confession mind you). Nor do I recall Elizabeth Smart being a baby, found dead 50 feet from her own room.
I also don't recall the Smart's being judged as bad parents all over the media, the Smart family being unable to sit in the chapel at their own daughter's funeral (which happened to many Norton family members today...of course Liz didn't die but I rather doubt that even if that were the outcome her own uncles would be sitting in a room where they could not even SEE the funeral), nor do I recall anyone standing in the Smart's front yard making fun of and insulting the Smarts (which a man did today even as the family and pallbearers exited the church!)
Maybe the Norton's aren't as pretty as the Smarts, but they just lost a BABY who's body was raped!! Teenager Elizabeth disappeared under many suspicious circumstances and returned home 9 months later a little chubbier with a glow to her cheeks and her family has been profiting ever since.
Yes, this is very horrible too whether she was truly kidnapped or exploited by her family. But after seeing what I did today, I'm glad I am not LDS (as were the people who wouldn't give up their seats to the family...including the Chief of Police...and the man who was verbally degrading them in the very yard their baby was stolen even as her casket exited the church). Not to say the LDS are bad, good or otherwise...since there are bad apples in every group.
But after seeing the lack of their church's support for the family (not their specific little ward, which did not have much money but gave what it could), but the church as a whole. The lack of respect by individual LDS members at the funeral and immediately after...if I were LDS I would be ashamed right now, perhaps not for my own behavior but the lack of my church's support of a family after such a terrible tragedy.
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