Missing

There’s yet another missing child story in Portland this week. At one of the elementary schools, a boy said goodbye to his stepmother, who shot a photo of him, and then went down the hall to a science fair. And he has not been seen since.

I am afraid I have become desensitized to these stories. The reason for that, I think, is that the television people – particularly those on the morning network shows – get confused when they’re staging them: they seem to think it’s Halloween, and they’ve come to work with their detective costumes on. The stories, of course, go according to a script. The parents, or an aunt, or a neighbor is propped up before the cameras, usually accompanied by a lawyer or a cop, and sobs through an attempt to answer questions by ‘news’ people whose singular goal, as far as I’m concerned, is to wrestle forth as many tears as possible. There are insinuations galore, about who may or may not be a suspect, about how fit or not fit the parent or guardian may or may not be. There are often pictures, or flowers, or devotional candles, and there’s always something or another along the lines of how the missing child could “light up” a room just by walking into it. And sooner or later, one of the television drones asks, in a way that I have come to think of as funny (which is totally inappropriate, I realize), this gem of a question: How do you feel? One of the more offensive millionaires in the business, Robin Roberts, often gets more confused than the others, taking off her detective costume and changing quickly into a reverend costume. The speed with which she does this is impressive. I’d love to see her salary divided by the number of times she’s cooed “our thoughts are with you.” I’d bet every time she utters that schlock she earns more money than anyone I know earns in a decade. It’s sick, sick theater, and the viewing public apparently cannot get enough of it.

So I was impressed, actually, with the parents of the boy missing in Portland, who have chosen to not go before the cameras. Good for them. The police are giving statements a plenty, I think. The parents have issued statements through the law, which I think is more than sufficient. But then detective Matt Lauer got on the story, saying that he didn’t mean to imply suspicion – a comment designed, I think, to do just that – but does anyone think it’s strange that the parents haven’t been appearing on television? And a newscaster on a local station, one who cannot get through a sentence without stumbling over the words, reported that the parents had posted something on their Facebook page (of course) about going to the gym … and isn’t that interesting? Not really.

But it was one of the local conservative talk show hosts – who I am sure wouldn’t be above throwing lit matches into gasoline tanks for the sake of a good show – who said the most sensible thing I’ve heard so far: she said that she thought people should bear in mind that some people are more comfortable talking in front of cameras and microphones than others. It’s amazing to me, the places where reason sometimes hides.