Posted on 08/08/2005 12:08:56 PM PDT by LibWhacker
NEW YORK (AP) - Bringing a microphone and camera crew to the gates of an Aruba landfill this past week, Greta Van Susteren returned to the island that her nightly Fox News Channel program has figuratively called home recently. Van Susteren's "On the Record" has relentlessly followed the mysterious disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway of Alabama while on a graduation trip to Aruba in May.
Critics find it an obsession bordering on the bizarre, twisting traditional notions of news judgment and becoming Exhibit A in the media's fascination with missing people - as long as they happen to be young, white, female and pretty.
But while doing this, Van Susteren has been rewarded with her biggest audiences since making the switch from CNN three years ago.
She averaged nearly 2.2 million viewers a night in July, up 58 percent from the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen Media Research. CNN's Aaron Brown used to put up a tough fight in the time slot; now Van Susteren routinely triples his audience. She narrowly missed 3 million on July 26, her biggest audience this year.
"On the Record" even topped Fox's prime-time king "The O'Reilly Factor" eight times, although Bill O'Reilly was off on four of those nights.
"I'm always happy when the viewers are happy," Van Susteren said. "I obviously don't program for the people in the newsroom or my friends or the people I went to law school with. I program for the viewers."
It's not just Nielsen that confirms interest in the Holloway story. Van Susteren said she spends an hour or two a day combing through e-mails from viewers on the case, and they often supply her with good questions.
The mystery plays to her strengths as a lawyer.
"For me, it's sort of an intellectual challenge," she said. "Where is she? How did she disappear? Did somebody drop a date rape drug in her drink? Did she walk off? Is this not really a homicide but a missing person? ... I could go on. These are fascinating to me and they're obviously fascinating to the viewers."
Desperate to learn what happened to Natalee, the Holloway family has been grateful for the interest and available to help fill hours of airtime.
"Greta has gone above and beyond to publicize this case and keep people interested," said Paul Reynolds, Natalee's uncle. "Getting involved the way she has been is an incredible effort. She's keeping people interested and keeping people looking."
The Aruban government hasn't been happy with all the coverage, believing much of it makes the authorities look amateurish and unprofessional, but Van Susteren has government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg's respect. "Even though she is aggressive, she will try to get both sides of a story," he said.
The case has all the elements of a classic summer page-turner: the bright-eyed girl whose search for fun may have gone horribly wrong, a privileged Dutch boy who saw her before she disappeared but claims innocence, authorities following several hot and cold leads.
Without being a regular, tuning into Van Susteren's show many nights is like opening up a mystery novel in the middle.
It's all a little baffling to those who didn't buy the book.
"I think she's registered to vote in Aruba now," joked NBC News reporter Josh Mankiewicz, who narrated a "Dateline NBC" report examining why television networks pay an inordinate amount of attention to missing white women.
With war and terrorism in the news, critics wonder how one missing person case can so dominate a news program. Even on the night President Bush nominated John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court, "On the Record" spent far more time on Holloway.
Her name came up 178 times during a computer search of "On the Record" transcripts from the past two months, only seven times for the same period on Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" on MSNBC. The count was 434 times for Fox's three prime-time news shows; 50 for CNN's.
"Emotional pornography like the Natalee Holloway story is more alluring, just as a car crash is better TV than a news conference," said Matthew Felling of the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs. "But this media rubbernecking is partly to blame for the public's dissatisfaction in the media as a newsgathering enterprise."
Two views on how to program a cable news network couldn't be displayed more starkly: Either use news judgment to put events into perspective, or give the people what they want, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
It's hard to say whether Van Susteren's ratings grew because she spent more time on the case or whether she spent more time on the case because the ratings grew, said Bill Shine, Fox News Channel's vice president of production.
Probably a little of both, he said.
"I don't know what you're doing this weekend, say you're at a beach or in the deli, but what do you think people are going to ask you - what do you think is going to happen with the Roberts nomination next month or what's going on with that story in Aruba?" Shine said. "I think my money would be on Aruba."
Rosenstiel concedes he can't understand the intense interest in the Holloway story. "It's just a classic tabloid story that they're milking and if that's the way you want to make your living, fine," he said.
Criticism of cable networks for a slavish devotion to a story, whether it merits the attention or not, is nothing new; just insert the names Chandra Levy or Laci Peterson for Holloway. One of many reasons why Fox has been able to soundly beat CNN in the ratings with a considerably smaller news staff is that viewers respond more to this approach.
"Maybe part of their brilliance is they're not as guilt-ridden about it," Rosenstiel said.
Mike
I'll pay attention when she's no longer a Scientologist and married to a scummy plaintiffs' lawyer.
That should pay for her next facelift.
She would thank Scientology for her success, I bet.
LOL, that would be her biggest audiances ever. I don't think she was ever even close to a million at cnn.
I wrote an 'article' here on FR about the obsession with Natalie Holloway and shark attack stories, earlier in the summer. And the crux was this: the only people that really control and regulate how much time news departments and hosts spend on topics such as this is us.
If no one was watching Van Susteren, she wouldn't devote much time to this. Stories like this are fueled by viewership and the only people that can be held culpable in weirdo fascination with these stories are the people watching. The hosts are going to go where the ratings are and as long as there's an audience for this stuff (and a big one, at that) then hosts will continue to devote whole segments and indeed HOURS to this type of story.
The reason the media is so fascinated by this story is that it gives them an opportunity to spend time in Aruba.
She had a face lift where when she is Eleanor Roosevelt ugly.
It's time for Americans to boycott Aruba.
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I agree -- first, it is a good thing that FOX, et al, are down there bringing as much attention to my belief and the Arubans are doing everything they can to frustrate the finding of that poor young woman's body and protect the slime that are responsible for her death.
I hope Aruba chokes on it. And I hope they find the body, because those slime bags are going to swing then. The court of WORLD OPINION will ensure that.
I don't think we would be getting much live coverage on "Murder in Thule, Greenland". I doubt there would have been a graduation trip to the Thule beaches either.
SOmeone tell me why this is so important. If you were from another planet you would think the only people that come up missing are young white females. Am I off base here?
Sorry, but I quit watching Greta about the second day of this trivial BS.
Greta's act is disgusting. But, she makes an excellent point:
"I obviously don't program for the people in the newsroom or my friends or the people I went to law school with. I program for the viewers."
It's not her fault that she's pushing sludge. Americans can't wait to lap that stuff up. The veiwers really do get what they want. Fortunately, I don't have to tune in to what others seem to want.
I do think this story is important. Any American especially where a crime has occurred at least deserves better than having it covered up. Clearly the Aruban authorities need a message and I believe the State Department should ban all travel to Aruba. They want our money but run when their customers are in trouble. I'm so tired of the smirking lawyers claiming they have a good legal system. It's not about the legal system.
Boycott Aruba and this will send a message to every tourist spot. You want our dollars? Then you need to ensure our safety.
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