Can We Speed this Up Please? Please

So I’m watching Issues with Jane-Velez Mitchell, and its pretty funny that is the title of the show, because the only issue that they’re talking about it the ongoing Caylee Anthony murder case/investigation/trial whatever. She along with her television BFF Nancy Grace has been covering this case everyday for few weeks now, ever since the toddler’s body was found, but that’s not when the coverage started as many of you may know. So this had me thinking what is America’s fascination with, these big media murder/missing person stories. Then it came to me like one of those light bulb moments. We, the people loved to be entertained, and what is more entertaining than a murder mystery, where you feel like you have participation in the investigation. Just think about it for over a year, we’ve known this little girl was missing, we’ve all known for just as long that the mother, Casey Anthony was responsible, but we were just waiting for the police to confirm it for us. Chloroform in her the trunk of her car, the reported smell of a dead body coming from the same source? The public had this case solved, and thought that this should be a slam dunk, case closed; bring on the trial and conviction already. And that’s it isn’t? We want to feel like detectives hot on the trial, with all of these cable shows fueling us with information and coming this close to siding with us every step of the way. Now this isn’t just specific to the case of little Caylee, no there is a formula behind this, the right ingredients need to be mixed to bake up the right public interest.

1. Take one missing wife/child (can be a male child but never a husband). 2. Add an apparent Guilty as sin Husband/Father/Mother, who is also some how involved in the search, but seems sort of distant. This distance should be taking as guilt. And finally run shows, cable news segments everyday with “updates” and “expert” analysis giving away “Late-breaking” details. 4. Make sure that the show calls the segment(s) “The Search for….” every night until a month has passed, even after “experts” are brought in saying that missing people are usually presumed dead after 48 hours of being missing. But make sure that your host/anchor and “experts” bring up cases like Elizabeth Smart, where she was missing for 7 years and was finally found alive. What this does is give the viewer hope that this woman/child is still alive. 5. Tell your audience that the missing person is likely dead, and we should be expecting a body to turn up shortly, taking the audience’s interest away from hope, and turning it into anger.. So what does this process accomplish, it allows us to make our own assumptions about the case, along with our own trial and convictions. We feel like we’re part of the search for a live person, then we’re part of the search for the dead body and then we’re on board for the criminal investigation. That’s why we’re so captivated by the Calyee Anthony and the Natalie Holloway cases of the world. Now a question I have is why hasn’t there been the same amount of coverage given to Laura Garza? I guess she suffers from being an unmarried Mexican-American from Texas.

Until next time, find Laura’s body please.