The View From Here: Smart’s return a glimmer of hope
We needed Elizabeth Smart to come home, and for good reasons.
With so much to worry about in the world today — the economy, war, North Korea, Osama bin Laden, not to mention the hassles of everyday life, we needed something else to focus upon, if only briefly.
Who was not affected by the story? After hearing about this well-to-do family, who had no clue how someone entered their home and simply snatched a child from the bedroom, it was a genuine mystery for all the world’s pundits and everyone else in America to ponder.
Moms and dads hugged their children a little tighter, the media paid more attention to children who simply vanished without a trace and the family held out hope.
Nine months into the ordeal, it’s probably a safe bet to say most not directly involved with case lost hope that the girl would ever be returned, except for a grieving family who desperately wanted their daughter back.
All the details have not emerged, but who would have guessed she would emerge 15 miles from her home in good physical health after a nine-month abduction from a religious zealot when the experts told us the chances of this girl being found alive were virtually non-existent?
If not only to be able to focus upon something else besides the threat of war, a split country and an even more worrisome split international community, we needed her to come home just to tell us good things still do happen.
An added bonus is the fact that law enforcement gave credit where credit was due – to police officers and detectives, even if hindsight is 20/20, to the people who called in who recognized the abductor, to the family who never lost hope and countless others – but also to the television news media, which broadcast sketches and photographs of the man.
We like to think of most news media as invading our areas in times of trouble, and that can be the case. News crews certainly came to the call in the Smart case, as expected, and we got inundated with information for several weeks. But what a role they played in the outcome.
The media gets a bad rap for everything that goes wrong in the world – never mind that people like to shoot the messenger. Remember Enron blaming the media for a man’s suicide, for “wreaking havoc,” when all they really wanted to know was what happened and why?
What a great thing to hear the Utah’s top brass giving some credit to the news media who helped bring Elizabeth Smart home.
It could be said that delivering the messages, the clues as to possible captors, was just another day at the office for the media involved, but they probably know it’s not.
It’s important to be part of something good once in awhile, and most hard news journalists I know would prefer to report that all is right in the world. It’s not. But what a rare opportunity for those media outlets to have something to be proud of — to say they helped out.
What an inspiration for everyone that someone saw the photo of the abductor, paid attention and took action. It’s been described as a miracle and from all the dire predictions that were floating around out there, how can it be classified as anything else?
We needed Elizabeth Smart to come home because we are capable of wondering how something similar would affect our own lives and if only for a short time, to celebrate what can happen when people work together, especially when it involves a child.
(Amy Satterwhite is a reporter for the Standard. She can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)