What's bugging me today?  The media. That's not unusual. I can get riled up listening to the teasers aired by my local news stations throughout the evening (picture a gigantic inferno blazing and a voice saying, "Find out why 300 people had to be evacuated from this apartment building.")  During any tragedy, when the actual news is running a little slow, the reporters start speculating.  Before you know it, Reporter A's speculation is being reported as fact by Reporter B, and there's not an ounce of fact in any of it.  Drives me crazy. 

And that's what's got me annoyed today. 

There's a little girl missing in my town.  A five-year-old who wandered outside after an argument with her mother, who is pregnant and ordered to be on bed rest.  Her name is Destiny Norton.  Like most cities in the world these days, we know a thing or two about searching for missing people. We're home to Elizabeth Smart and Lori Hacking, to name just two people who've made headlines in recent years. 

The first two days, news reports told people to stay away. They already had too many volunteers, reporters said; they didn't need more.  Today, I woke up to news reporters speculating that the reason there weren't enough volunteers searching today was that the Norton family falls in a lower socio-economic class. 

I'm sorry.  Did you forget that you told us all to stay away less than 48 hours ago? 

I don't think the family's socio-economic class has a thing to do with a low number of volunteers showing up to search today. It's possible that the 100-plus-degree temperatures were a factor, but I don't even think that was the reason.  Unfortunately, people are going to believe that the Norton's socio-economic status put people off because some news reporter, who forgot that he told people to stay away, speculated about it on air.

Okay, so the guy's covering this story and probably hasn't had a lot of sleep in the past four days.  I'll try to cut him some slack.  But wouldn't it be nice if, just once, what we heard reported on the news and in the newspaper contained just the facts and not someone's interpretation and speculation? 

Meanwhile, if you have a prayer or good thought to spare for the Norton family, I'm sure they would appreciate it.