Natalee Holloway is an 18-year-old teenager from Alabama who went missing on May 30th in Aruba. I hope that she is found safe and unharmed.
The cable news industry (CNN, FOX, MSNBC) have all hopped on the story and I’m hopeful that this media exposure may help lead to her safe recovery. My praise of the industry ends there, however. The news industry is using this aspect of their reporting to qualify for redemption for the darker side of their reporting. In essence, they are selling advertising on the continuous coverage of this sad story. Further, all of the affiliates have latched on to the story and at the time of this writing there have been 2,970 stories published.
I hope that you’ll allow me to play a blogger role here and hold the media to account. At this time, because the media is clearly not bringing enough attention to their respective cases, you may be surprised to learn that there have been nine children in the United States (none in Canada) that have gone missing since May 30th. I hope that I can help bring your attention to their cases to help bring about their safe return.
Kiara Denishia Carey
Brittany Ann Freeland
Darnell Ladron Pearson
Raritan Bay Safe Haven (found orphened baby)
Maria Hurst Sasser
Richaee Lawon-Alfreda Shorter
Siee Smith
Samantha Chantel Sowatzke
Petra Lanell Thompson
I’d like to call on any media outlets to publicize these stories as well so that we can bring home these missing and exploited children. I hope that these children and Natalee all return home safely.
Perhaps CNN can spare two minutes of their idle chatter time to show the pictures and names of the 25 children that go missing per month, on average, in the United States.
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children