....And yes, this story is being inexplicably broadcasted down here, too.

Its not solely an American phenomenon. The three major network channels in Australia pull the same stunt - smothering us with powderpuff pieces while donning a plastic smile. The rub is that we only have 5 free-to-air stations down here, so we're basically farked. Thank heavens for the Internet...!

Indeed. "Meet The Press" was overtaken by this supposedly breaking news (though it's available later at night, as well). With so much wasteful coverage on television (why cursory Iran, Iraq, China, and North Korea coverage, largely irrelevant Darfur tales, and 3-day "crises" instead of, say, the willful assassination of Russian oligarchs and dissidents by their rulers, Litvinienko notwithstanding?), it's a wonder that anyone bothers with anything but intellectual newspapers, magazines, and journals for in-depth information.

Thank you. I've been thinking it for days, but was unable to get the words out in any good order.

The biggest lesson we can learn from these two stories is; if you find yourself in the Oregon mountains in winter, DON'T LEAVE YOUR CAR!

What's even more stupid is that during the press conference they told the media that they were NOT going to speculate and some jerk askes what they speculate about something. Um hello? Freaking pay attention.

Other stupid questions were something like, were the ice caves close to each other, were there foot prints from one to the other, who found the ice cave, who found the body, who shot Mr. Burns, etc...

(just kidding on that last one).

Another funny thing, they played a clip from Lewis Black on Raw Dog (Sirius Satellite Radio) and he was talking about how crazy the coverage for that Shaviago woman was and it was everywhere. That's how I felt about the coverage.

That's why I try not to watch the "news" as much as possible.

Are there toys under the tree that will kill your kids and make your dogs hair fall out????????

We'll have the story tonight at 11:00

I agree. They have to fill the 24 hour news channels (do we really need three or four or five?) with something.

Men getting trapped on a mountain in bad weather is not big news.

A comedian once said that a shark bitting a man in the ocean is not news. If the shark came out of the water, went to 7-11, and bought a slurpee...that'd be news.

I live in Oregon-- near the base of Mt. Hood and I'm totally confused about why it's making international news (a friend from London said they're monitoring it there- WTF?). People get lost and die on Mt. Hood EVERY SINGLE YEAR. This is nothing new to us down here in the valley. We just wonder why those yahoos didn't rent beacons for $5.

I agree that it's a slow news day- news directors are bored with the 'toys for tots for christmas' stories that they do every year. I also think that because the James Kim story got so much attention, the networks are assuming that people love stories about people lost in the wilderness. They don't understand the difference: what happened to James Kim and his family could've happened to anyone. That's at least part of the reason why it was so captivating (feeling like I know him is the main reason). I can't relate to these three climbers because I'd never climb Mt. Hood in the winter or summer.

brittany sphears needs to take her underwear off again so they have something else to talk about.