Careful what you wish for
The second half of this week flew by at an alarming pace. Blog-wise, that had mostly to do with the efforts to bring the Latoyia Figueroa story to the forefront, or at least make it visible. The efforts seem to be working, but a few by-products with which I have grown weary have tumbled along on the coattails of that effort.
One is the raging argument about how the media covers different kinds of missing persons. This argument, while it is a legitimate one to have, has overshadowed the intent of all this activity. Whereas it began in the vein of raising awareness, it has evolved in many circles into an ever-so-subtle marginalization of Latoyia Figueroa and her family’s plight.
A fellow Philly blogger, Steve Reynolds (“The Spin Dentist” at AllSpinZone.com), was a guest on Tucker Carlson’s latest vehicle at MSNBC this past Thursday evening. He was relatively subdued and respectful, but Carlson asserted more than once that the “Help Find Latoyia” blogswarm was made up of left-wing bloggers. Given Philadelphia’s average political demographic, that assertion is bound to be somewhere close to the truth, and Steve tends liberal as well, but anyone familiar with his ASZ content knows he wasn’t in political mode while talking to Mr. Carlson. Among the people leading this swarm, politics was never the driving force. Raising awareness of a missing person who, up until a few days ago, hadn’t received much coverage at all, even here in her hometown area—that’s what this was always supposed to be about.
To dismiss it as political wrangling is ridiculous; it shows an ignorance of many of the people who’ve been pushing the effort along, and it allows other lazy minds to assign a value to the story without actually having to listen to it.
Of course, the approach taken by some of the bloggers in this effort makes that marginalization ever easier, especially when someone writes a post lashing out at Natalee Holloway and her family, simply because the media has been all over her story. Miss Holloway, her family, and anyone else who has an ounce of compassion should be able to find some sympathy for that situation. But those critical of the bloggers’ motives, making such generalizations based on a selective sampling of blog content, are probably intelligent enough to know better. Tucker Carlson, along with many others in the house of mainstream media, should know better than to circle the wagons as if this story was only about their inadequacy.
Rest assured, that’s a debate that needs attention in the (very) near future, but it’s not the story here. The story is finding Latoyia Figueroa, and you can click here for ways to help.
5 Comments