A Fair and Balanced Vacation
by David Irvin
FOX News' primetime host of "On the Record," Greta Van Susteren, has been off the grid for about three weeks now. Chasing the Natalee Holloway story in Aruba has been hard work, but she just keeps plugging away at it. To assist, the network sent in ace investigative reporter Geraldo to gather clues about the Alabama teen's mysterious disappearance in late May. Alan Colmes, the liberal counterpart to Sean Hannity from Hannity & Colmes, also caught a flight to the island paradise for a few sunset interviews on the beach. And the lower-type weekend talent keeps cycling in and out of the island's condos with silly little grins on their faces.
Yes that's right, America's favorite fair-and-balanced news team is now officially on vacation in Aruba. Put away those PDAs, and stow that clunky voice recording thingy next to the Gideon Bible. This is party time. The kids are out of school and the drinks here are 50 cents a pop.
It's unfortunately true, that cute blond Alabama teen, who showed tremendous potential, who was first in line at the college of her choice, she is — technically speaking — still missing. And technically speaking, the Aruban authorities have arrested, like, seven or eight people possibly linked to her disappearance. One of them apparently sweats bullets every time he's asked where his son was the night Natalee vanished. Okay, that's all technically true.
But the Dutch authorities ain't talking and Greta needs a vacation. Summer only comes once a year, and a deadhead story like this once a decade. Probably just coincidence that this happened in the beautiful month of June, on the beautiful island of Aruba — and just a coincidence there was nothing else newsworthy at the time.
"Oh shit, Sandra Day O'Connor just quit the high court, and Bush has to make a choice," says Colmes, hanging up the phone at the end of the bar. "Everything hangs in the balance. Personal rights, abortion rights, privacy rights, stem cells. Will Gitmo be the first American gulag? This is going to be big. We might have to go home!"
"Settle down Colmes," Greta shoots back. "Stop playing the liberal buffoon and find some more of those little umbrella toothpicks. While you're at it, get some salve for your upper lip. Something like a Supreme Court vacancy will just get thrown to O'Reilly anyway. I don't care if I slip back to second. A tropical mix of berries and Dutch rum is not something you can just whip up in DC."
And so the conversation goes.
Of course, this kind of rampant disregard and dereliction of duty would all be tough to prove from a few thousand miles away, except that Greta has left a record of it all. She maintains a blog called Gretawire, where she writes of her investigation. And for some strange reason Rupert Murdoch allows her to post it on the FOX News Web site. This means evidence now exists that Greta's mission to find Natalee Holloway has taken serious detours along the way. For instance, when she had a run in with an overly aggressive monkey last month. She writes:
The owners left town for two weeks and we were stunned at the lack of care for the monkey. We were told someone feeds the monkey daily, but we still felt sorry for the monkey. We take food from the buffet at the hotel and feed him (there is a picture posted today of the food we take from the buffet.) I took my video camera on Friday to the monkey's house so that I could video for you the monkey as we fed him. As the video will show you, I got punched by the monkey.
A monkey punch? Very interesting. Luckily, they had the whole thing story boarded in advance.
As luck would have it, not only do we have my video of the monkey punching me, but our professional cameraman was with it and got a different angle. He got the monkey's arm coming out and he got me tumbling looking stupid, very stupid.
Good stuff. And it's nice to know, as she writes a few sentences down, that she still loves the monkey, despite her bruised ego. No doubt a good frozen cocktail back at the Hotel bar will take care of all physical and imaginary bruises.
Sure, talking to Natalee's parents every night is starting to be a drag. But it appears they're the only two people on the island who will show up to the interviews. So like a true news veteran, Greta just sucks it up. She keeps asking them the same hard questions — like, "What if your daughter doesn't come home? What if she is dead? Are the police doing their job?" Seems like that would be a downer for the parents and for Greta. But, no one can be too sad when the sounds of island congas and true merriment are just fifty feet away at all times.
But when it bleeds into the broadcast, that's a problem.
"It might be good to throw something up on the blog to explain that one," advises her producer. "Kind of looks like you're taping the show between drinks."
In blog entry, "I Can Hear Music," Greta explains:
The wedding was a joyous — but loud — occasion. What made it particularly awkward were the songs they were playing and dancing to in celebration of the wedding. The songs in the background were simply inappropriate to the discussion on our show. We were a bit lucky in that I had taped some interviews earlier on the street — e.g. The two where we simply showed up at the lawyers' offices and asked them questions on camera. Those taped interviews obviously did not have the music problem.
That's good planning. Keep the lawyers as far away from the party as possible. Everyone on this island is suspect. The whole mess is shaping up like some retro, tropically themed, excruciatingly boring first act of that movie Clue.
Sure, Greta does a couple interviews a day. But judging from her tan, that doesn't cut down on beach time much. This is, after all, the summer. And there's enough time in the day for a little R&R between segments. The interviews are important; there's an hour to fill each night, not to mention all the stock footage that sprinkles down to the weekend crew, the Heartland show and that roundtable media discussion between four flatheads.
Perhaps feeling that her game was up, Greta offers a flat denial of the swinging Aruba scene in an entry dubbed "On the ground." It's not untypical that a veteran investigative reporter will cover all bases. For all she knows, her next flight to Aruba could be her last. Those Dutch authorities have been called incompetent, illiterate, and pretty much every other synonym of "dumbass" by Greta's friends back at the network. Time to take this to the next level:
Of course we don't get to enjoy the island since we are so busy working but we do get to see out the car windows the beautiful places as we race from interview to interview.
However, watching her show, one gets the sense there have only been three real interviews since she arrived — with elder van der Sloot (father of prime suspect, Joran van der Sloot, and the one who sweats a lot); that disc jockey kid who got arrested early on and released last month; and the Aruban man who claims he's not Jamaican but who everyone on the island keeps calling Jamaican.
In an entry called "Crisp Dollar Bills," she admits, "We are working on a segment having to do with the tides around the island so we shot video all over the island of the water and beaches. I posted some pictures from that shoot — it looks like we are having fun at the beach but note we are in clothes, not swimsuits."
Oh, okay.
So, it's hard to know where all this time is spent. She freely admits to the monkey-feeding stops. But maybe all those set changes are the real culprits, as she explains in "Balancing Act":
Some nights we are on a balcony, some nights on the deck on the ground, two nights ago in a 'wind tunnel' on the grass near our hotel and who knows where tonight. We are nomadic at the hotel where our created bureau is because we are dodging activities at the hotel that could interfere with the broadcast...On more than one occasion we were not successful and viewers complained. I agree it was not good — but we try our best.
Greta goes on to say her nomadic crew will soon pull up the tents and move onto the next story. It's sad, but every vacation has to end. There are options, however. The BRAC commission is eyeing Pearl Harbor for closure. That'll need coverage. Earthquakes are on the rise in southern California. And some genetically modified sea kelp is taking over the floor of the Mediterranean. That job will require facemasks, snorkels, and some of those cool underwater disposable cameras. News is news, no matter how hospitable the environs.
— David Irvin (dirvin79 at hotmail dot com)
