It was a good piece. The Today show and NBC are proving themselves to be one of the only shows and networks willing to really push this issue. I hope this media coverage leads to some real results.
Of course it bothers me that the media cherry picks one case and acts like it's a unique and uncommon situation. It creates a false sense of security amongst other parents at risk of having their children abducted by making it look like high level intervention, or even interest, by US authorities is the rule rather than the exception, and gives those same authorities cover for their failures to support the vast majority of children. I also get frustrated to see lists of the "worst countries" that habitually exclude Mexico (I suppose Egypt will now join that list.) The very Arizona border Sage was taken across is generating all kinds of media attention lately due to drugs, immigration, animal habitats being disrupted and 20 other issues... none of them being child abduction. I've come to expect that the Hispanic community in the US will largely ignore it as an inconvenient truth when Mexico gives the shaft to American victims (many of whom are also of Hispanic descent) by refusing to extradite child abductors (or even murderers for that matter) and not honoring international laws and treaties. I'm a member of some of those groups and agreeing that something needs to be done about our insecure border opens me up to all sorts of criticism. We can stage huge protests, parades and press conferences when the US government discriminates against Hispanics, but get eerily silent when the Mexican government does so against Americans. Children abducted to Mexico are the unmentionables by all sides in policy debates on Mexico, immigration and border security.
The above notwithstanding, I'm glad to see the Today show ran one of these stories. The Bower's family story is truly tragic and I don't doubt the torture that Colin's life has become or how much his children miss their father... but I think I'm becoming desensitized to the constant stream of similar stories. I read new ones all the time, none of them substantially different from this one besides the media coverage. My capacity for outrage has become dulled by the realization that this is the way of the world in America. The American government knows all about the problem and does nothing, and the American media knows all about the problem and says nothing.
