I like Meredith Vieira. I really, really do. I've heaped praise upon her in this space in the past, and I'm sure that I'm going to heap more praise on her in the future. But she completely dropped the ball on the Today show this morning when she interviewed the three climbers that were rescued from Mt. Hood a couple of days ago. She asked them a lot of questions about how they survived, and how their dog Velvet helped them stay warm. But she didn't ask the one question I'm sure every non-hiker in the country was curious about:

What the hell were they doing up there on the mountain to begin with?

Three mountain climbers go up on Mt. Hood. They get in trouble, socked in by a storm. They call for help. There's a search party. One's found dead; the others are still missing.

Don't get me wrong; it's a sad story. I feel for the families of the men trapped on the mountain. But this doesn't feel like news to me.

Since climbing during any time of the year, much less winter, isn't exactly a risk-free activity, I'd imagine that one or two climbers get trapped on the mountain every year. So why has this incident been the top story on all the local and network news broadcasts for the last five days?