behind the news

She’s Ba-aack

October 20, 2005

It seems like just yesterday that Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz noted of the post-Hurricane Katrina news coverage, “Suddenly, there were no more absurdly hyped melodramas like those of Natalee Holloway.”

But apparently it takes more than a hurricane — actually, more than two hurricanes, an earthquake, the indictment of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a giant squid, Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation, and a controversial Supreme Court nomination — to convince Fox News to let go.

It’s deja vu all over again, as our favorite philosopher might say.

And so, we had the misfortune today of clicking our way to a clip from Fox News in which Greta Van Susteren investigates the latest developments in the case of … Natalee Holloway.

Holy flashback!

As it turned out, the clip wasn’t from August; it was from Tuesday’s show, in which Van Susteren — the unofficial Aruban bureau chief for Fox News, if you’ll recall — refocused on the crime that almost single-handedly carried cable news through the summer.

Sign up for CJR's daily email

So what were the latest developments? Had the body of the missing American teenager finally been found? Or a murder weapon? Something to justify the new paroxysms of coverage?

Well, no. But according to Van Susteren, new evidence had surfaced in the case, specifically a videotaped conversation between one of the suspects and a man named Mr. Skeeters. The videotape, it seems, had been filmed for an episode of Dr. Phil.

So, in summary: Since the summer, American television has gone from embarrassingly obsessing over the case to embarrassingly obsessing over what other TV personalities say about the case.

At one point during Tuesday’s show, Van Susteren also interviewed Tito Lacle of Aruba Today. “Tito, do people still think — when I was there, some people thought she was still alive,” said Van Susteren. “Do people in Aruba think that there’s a possibility Natalee is still alive?”

“People are not really talking about it anymore,” replied Lacle. “They have other priorities right now. … They just say, ‘We just want it to be over with.'”

Ah, yes. Now we remember. That’s exactly the sentiment we felt all of last summer.

–Felix Gillette

Correction: This post identified Tom DeLay as “Speaker of the House.” He is actually the Majority Leader.

*

Felix Gillette writes about the media for The New York Observer.