Finally! CNN Facing Open Rebellion

Bob Costas Boycotts

Natalee Show
NEW YORK, Aug. 20, 2005


While some cable TV hosts are making their living off the Natalee Holloway case this summer, Bob Costas is having none of it.

Costas, hired by CNN as an occasional fill-in on "Larry King Live," refused to anchor Thursday's show because it was primarily about the Alabama teenager who went missing in Aruba. Chris Pixley filled in at the last minute.

"I didn't think the subject matter of Thursday's show was the kind of broadcast I should be doing," Costas said in a statement. "I suggested some alternatives but the producers preferred the topics they had chosen. I was fine with that, and respectfully declined to participate."

Costas' manager declined to elaborate on what Costas didn't like about the topic.

Thursday's guests included Beth Holloway Twitty, the girl's mother; a television reporter and an investigator in the case. Seven of the show's 10 guests talked about the missing girl, the other segments were about the BTK killer.

The Holloway case has been a big attraction on cable news networks during a slow news period, with Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren getting record ratings as she's paid almost nonstop attention to it. Reports of Costas' decision first surfaced on the mediabistro.com Web site Friday.

"There were no hard feelings at all," Costas said. "It's not a big deal. I'm sure there are countless topics that will be mutually acceptable in the future."

Wendy Walker, senior executive producer of "Larry King Live," described it as a mutual decision for Costas not to do the show because he was uncomfortable with the subject matter.

"We love having Bob ... and since `Larry King Live' covers an extremely extensive palate of subjects, there will always be shows that he will enjoy hosting," she said.

The NBC Sports personality, also host of "Costas Now" on HBO, had agreed to be host for about 20 editions of "Larry King Live" this year. He's done six, the network said.

His decision is reminiscent of Keith Olbermann, the former sportscaster who left his MSNBC news show in the late 1990s in part because he was asked to repeatedly cover the Monica Lewinsky story. Olbermann is back now for his second run at MSNBC.

--Twenty Two Years almost to the day, that this young woman disappeared, My Aunt, my mothers youngest sister walked out of a resturaunt and off the face of the earth. Five years later the U.S. Government not only declared her dead but the victim of foul play.

It was kinda obvious.

Maybe, twenty years ago it just was not possible to get Aqua Search on it. Maybe in another twenty years SOMEONE will care not only about the petite blonde we are missing, but who we think did away with her.

MAYBE because the COPS most likely killed my aunt, NO ONE will EVER care. Have YOU ever had SIX, yes SIX F.B.I Agents tell you they 'have no jurisdiction over MURDER.'...????

It would be a serious mistake to think I am joking.

But, like that pregnant black woman in Philly, we did not get our own greta. Like MANY families we are STILL waiting for answers that NO ONE wants to provide or even EXAMINE. Much less devote entire nationaly broadcast evenings to it.

Do I feel bad for Natalies family...? Absolutely. I actually know well how they feel. Do I think they have used the publicity? Absolutely and I do not blame them for it. Not them...

But, just like my family, there is a time when you MUST go on. There is a time when you realize that one child vanished is but one tragedy in amongst THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of like tragedies.

And so that leaves us with,the media, and their OUTRIGHT whitewashing of the REAL NEWS. Take your pic. Traitor in the White House. Downing Street Memos. Iraq falling apart every goddamned day. A president who feels NOTHING for US, WE THE PEOPLE. No Osama.

Yet hours and hours of this one lost child. Now I remember why I quit watching TV all together. By using her to cover up other news the media, itself, has now become DEATHS WHORE.

And I personally hope my Aunt not only haunts them, I hope all of the missing dead never allows them to sleep well ever again.--