PROOF OF LIFE: With the Guthrie coverage, the verdict is in!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2026

We humans just wanna have fun: Experts are widely saying that someone took our advice!

Yesterday morning, we suggested that Joe Scarborough should be gently led away and allowed to enjoy a good solid rest. This morning, sure enough:

This morning, he was absent from Morning Joe. With Mika left to run the program, no one ranted about what the "bigots" have been saying "in their racist neighborhoods" about the Bad Bunny halftime show.

Presumably, Scarborough is receiving good care and plenty of rest. This morning, starting at 6 o'clock sharp, Mika plowed ahead with the coverage of the search for Nancy Guthrie. 

Morning Joe opened with seventeen minutes on that topic, then took a commercial break. Meanwhile, over on Fox & Friends, the friends were still playing Hardy Boys as of 6:35, with no sign of a let-up in sight. 

In fairness, the Fox News Channel has pursued almost no other topic since at least 6 o'clock last Saturday morning. Experts are uniformly saying this: 

In its devotion to this one topic, the channel found a way to avoid discussing the latest array of crazy behaviors by the sitting president.

At least at Fox and at CNN, "cable news" has gone all in on the search for Nancy Guthrie—on this prime "human interest" story. Make the world go away, the bosses at the two networks have apparently said.

CNN even sent Jake Tapper to Arizona, where he was better able to pretend to be reporting the world's most important news.

As this familiar behavior unfolded, The Ghosts of Human Interest Past crowded in upon our nation's failing news coverage. According to experts, Goofus and Gallant were battling again—and they were battling each other hard. 

It was widely said to be A Tale of Two Approaches. We'll start with Gallant, who insisted on a traditional stance at the New York Times.

The Two Approaches:

Let's start with the New York Times—with Monday's print editions. Nancy Guthrie, age 84, had now been missing for seven days. Seeing this as a genuine topic, the Times published this full-length news report in Monday's print editions:

7 Days, No Suspects: The Disappearance of Nancy Guthrie

It was the type of Saturday evening that Nancy Guthrie treasured: dinner and game night at the home of her eldest daughter and son-in-law.

They lived near each other, in the unincorporated desert communities north of Tucson, Ariz., and Ms. Guthrie arrived by Uber just after 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 31. The family spent about four hours together before Ms. Guthrie was driven home by her son-in-law, who watched to ensure she made it safely inside, the police said later.

At 9:48 p.m., her garage door opened, according to a timeline from the authorities. Two minutes later, it closed. That glimpse of Ms. Guthrie heading inside was the last time anyone in her family saw or heard from her.

What unfolded in the following hours is still mostly a mystery, but one flecked with several ominous details...

And so on from there. In its report, the Times reported the basic facts about this plainly "ominous" matter. In fairness, and as you can plainly see, even that report was written in best "human interest" style. 

The Times reported the basic facts of the case—but it didn't decide to make (the rest of) the world go away:

That report about Nancy Guthrie's disappearance appeared inside the paper, on page A9. The front page featured reports about the sitting president's recent "racist post;" about the "immigration crackdown" taking place in Minnesota; and about what the Epstein files indicate about the "real scope of Ghislaine Maxwell’s role" in Bill Clinton's post-presidency.

We aren't necessarily endorsing the paper's various news judgments. For example, we think the Times has continued an endless impulse toward bad judgment in its treatment of Bill Clinton's (rather meager) connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

That said, the Times was engaged in a baldly hardheaded news judgment. The paper was plainly saying this:

There are quite a few major topics which should receive priority over the profoundly unfortunate story unfolding in Arizona.

Today, the Times has done the same thing. In this morning's print editions, it offers this updated news report—but again, it does so inside the paper, this time on A17:

Masked Person Came to Guthrie’s Doorstep Before Disappearance, Videos Show

New images and videos released on Tuesday showed a masked, armed person at Nancy Guthrie’s doorstep on the night she was abducted, the first significant break in the search for the 84-year-old mother of the “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.

The black-and-white footage released by the F.B.I. and Pima County Sheriff’s Department depicts a person wearing a ski mask, gloves, a backpack and what appears to be a holstered handgun outside of Ms. Guthrie’s home, just north of Tucson. Investigators said the person was armed.

In a video from Ms. Guthrie’s doorbell camera, the person can be seen approaching Ms. Guthrie’s door and trying to block the camera with a gloved hand. The person then grabs plants from beside the front stoop and—holding what appears to be a flashlight in their mouth—tries to use them to obscure the camera. The police have said the camera was disconnected shortly before the abduction on Feb. 1.

And so on from there. Almost all the basic facts are included—but those facts are reported on A17. Out on today's front page, headlines like these prevail:

Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation

When Trump Officials’ Claims About Shootings Unravel in Court
Before the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, allegations against four others shot at by federal immigration agents failed to withstand scrutiny.

Russia Knocked Out the Heat. So She Slept in a Tent on Her Bed.
With defiant ingenuity, Kyiv residents are trying to find ways to stay warm in a cruel winter.

Former Police Chief Said Trump Told Him ‘Everyone’ Knew of Epstein’s Actions

Correctly or otherwise—we're writing here about news judgment—Times editors have made certain decisions. They've decided that people being frozen to death in Ukraine—and the decimation of climate regulation—should be privileged over the horrible event taking place in Arizona.

At CNN and at the Fox News Channel, a different mindset prevails. According to experts, Goofus is in the saddle at those "cable news" sites—and we're forced to report one other assessment:

According to major anthropologists, such humans "just wanna have fun."

At CNN and at Fox News, it's been "human interest" all day long and also all the way down. Who gives a flying felafel about Putin's vicious war on millions of innocent people? Also. who cares about the fact that climate regulations are about to be taken down?

In fairness, "true crime" stories tend to be good business. "Cable news" has always been inclined to love "true crime."

That said, our analysts have reminded us of the horrors associated with The Ghosts of Trump Crime Rampages Past. On cable, it may have started with the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, but it moved on at high speed from there:

Nancy Grace is all over the Fox News Channel this week. The analysts reminded us of Richard Ricci, the wholly innocent person who lost his life because of the astounding way Grace behaved during the "cable news" search for the kidnapped Elizabeth Smart.

(Incredibly, the remarkable Smart was eventually rescued—was eventually found!)

The analysts also reminded us of the highly enjoyable chase after Rep. Gary Condit, which allowed our thrill-seeking cable news stars to keep the word "intern" alive.

All through the summer of 2001, the flyweights of cable kept it up. They kept it up right through September 10 of that fateful year. 

The next day, their entertaining bullshit vanished forever when two planes struck the World Trade Center and a third plane struck the Pentagon.

That summer, as warnings about September 11 surfaced, cable news had gamboled and played. After September 11, their bullshit was never voiced again. As it turned out, the disgraceful murder of Chandra Levy has nothing to do with Condit at all:

Sic semper "cable news" stars.

Let's take a look at the history here. At first, "cable news" had seemed like a good idea! We'd have 24-hour cable news—news coverage around the clock! 

Just think how well informed we'd all be! But as the anthropologists now assert:

All too often, and with great regularity, we humans just wanna have fun!

We like to pretend that we're solving a crime. We're happy to sit around all day watching cable news guests yammer, evade and expound.

Again and again, we prefer to make the world go away. Especially when it's done so poorly, "true crime" is intriguing and fun.

That said, the cable news coverage has been astoundingly bad since last Saturday morning. For instance, all hands have refused, for four days straight, to speak to an obvious question:

We refer to the searches being conducted in and around that one family member's home.

Yesterday, why were those searches underway again? This ugly crime had been committed at Nancy Guthrie's home. Yesterday, why were law officers searching the woods behind that different home, 4.5 miles away?

There may be a simple answer to that obvious question, but no one was willing to try. With respect to that obvious question, the basic pattern has been unchanged since 6 o'clock Saturday morning. 

Yesterday, cable hosts repeatedly reported the fact that the searches were under way again. Then, they threw to their latest guest. 

In an endless array of non-replies, the guests would talk about something else. 

The cable hosts would then fail to address the obvious dodge. The hosts would simply move on to something else. 

(This occurred all day long. In short, cable stars are enormously skilled at pretending to explore all the facts.)

Joe was resting comfortably today. Mika did join Ali Vitali in pushing standard tribal snark about the Bad Bunny halftime show—but at CNN and the Fox News Channel, it was Human Interest All the Way Down. 

"This is who we secretly are," one top observer now said. "We simply weren't built for this line of work. Just turn on your cable and see!"

For the record, we're seeking "proof of life" this week—proof of intelligent life. Whose news judgment do you prefer? There's no way prove that you're right!

Tomorrow: We hope to get back to Jamelle Bouie's column