Kidnapping the Headlines
Sure it''s a scary world, if you look atit under the media microscope.
Nick Pittman / Assistant Editor
Posted on August 21, 2002

If you believe the mainstream media, then you probably think that there's someone hiding in your bushes waiting to grab your kids. Although the world is not as safe as it once was, it is not as bad as you think.

In the spirit of naming summers after the media events that dominated them, the Summer of the Brat Snatcher has got to be in the running with the Summer That All Big Corporations Went Belly Up and the Summer of Continued Enduring Freedom.

However, before you strap a Lojack on Lil' Johnny, you might want to see what the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has to say about this year's missing children statistics.

Last year 840,279 juveniles and adults went missing (the lowest it has been since 1992). Of these, the majority of juvenile cases were parental abductions and runaways. As far as serious child abduction cases, which involve strangers and Samantha Runnion, 2002's numbers are consistent with 2001's, if not less. The NCMEC says that these numbers are declining and that there will be about 100 such cases by year's end, one-half of which will probably end in murder.

The FBI's National Press Office concurs that the numbers are down. The statistics the Bureau keeps on kidnappings run from Oct.1 to Sept. 30 of the next year. The number of non-parental cases it opened has fluctuated (115 for 1998; 134 for '99; 106 for '00; 93 for '01) but is currently at a five-year low of 62. True, we have a few weeks left in this year, but it will most likely turn out as less.

If these numbers are down, then why does it dominate the news? Well, it makes for good coverage, sells papers and boosts ratings. Everybody has a soft spot for kids - especially rich, white kids - right? Add that in with the graphic capabilities of videos of missing kids celebrating their birthday or cutesy school photos of missing kids with missing teeth and you have instant put-that-remote-down appeal.

Now, I am not saying that we should turn a blind eye to missing child reports. We should be aware that this is not 1950 and you can't let your kids go unwatched. And if children who would have gone missing are safe because Mommy and Daddy realized that it isn't wise to let them run free, then I guess there is a silver lining to this coverage. But, these facts should be mentioned in every news report, especially when the odds of your child being abducted are about one in a million. Without these facts, this coverage is just rampant sensationalistic low blows.

Not too long ago I saw a kid on a bike pedaling around, packing a walkie-talkie. While that's not a bad idea, it's proof that this media bug has burrowed into the rump of our collective conscious.

It reminds me of a couple of years ago when the Summer of Road Rage rear-ended America. It seemed that every day someone was reporting on road rage. Suddenly, American drivers were pissed off and taking matters into our own hands. Horns were honked. Rods were shot. Fists were clenched and raised.

Then came the icing on the cake. The American Automobile Association (AAA) released a study claiming that road rage was up 51 percent in the early '90s. However, the finding was based on media reports. That's right ... the more the media reported on things, the higher the number went. In actuality the amount of traffic-related hostility for that year was on a par for previous years. The only difference was that some wordsmith had given a name to what drivers had been doing for years. And reporters with nothing to cover began reporting on "road rage." It was like a twisted symbiosis building upon itself until the nation was shaking behind the wheel, waiting for a tire-iron welding psycho to knock on their car window.

Ditto for Summer of the Shark (pure media inflation of consistent numbers - you guessed it!). So, if the world seems too scary to deal with, don't fret ... it will be OK. Unless, of course, you are talking about the West Nile epidemic with its massive body count in the single digits. Now that's an outbreak to be afraid of!