Nancy Guthrie Case: Optics, Media & Missing the Mark

Hey there, everyone. Welcome to today's live chat. We're going to take a moment, as we do with live chats, and let people log in to our live chat. As people are doing that, I want to say hello to you. Thank you for joining Molly McPherson. Okay, hold on. We're gonna get this out of the way. Clayton, hello. Welcome. Welcome back to the podcast.

Hello, Molly. Great to be back. Thank you very much.

Yeah, I mean, technically, it's. It's all one big kind of media channel. It's the podcast, it's the live chat. Why people. Come on. Why don't you let people know a little bit about your background and why I love chatting with you about this.

Sure.

Well.

Well, thanks for having me. It's the. The Molly McPherson media empire. Yeah. So I was a producer and correspondent at ABC News for 20 years and also worked at Scripps News, and now I am doing a little bit of everything. I'm writing a couple of Star wars book projects. I'm a big Star wars fan and do some media consulting and training and crisis stuff for a firm here in Denver called Dovetail Solutions. And I am available if you want a TEMU version of Molly. I'm around if any PR helper advice or media consulting. So I'm out there.

Well done, Timo. I love that. I'm going to allow you to stick with that, but I love that. That makes me laugh.

All right.

Here's the reason, Clayton, why I like having you here. There's just a. Just a certain mindset thinking of people who are media people, who are newsy people, people who have worked in the industry. You, like me, we both work now on both. Both sides of it. When we have that perspective, it gives us additional perspective to talk about these types of cases. Now, I want to be very clear again, from my position and point of view, every single time I post something, particularly about a case like this, that has a lot of heartbreak and just a lot of anguish in it and a lot of emotion around. Sometimes it's hard to come in clinically, but as you know, in your work, you need to. When you come in as a reporter or a producer, you know, a journalist, you. You have to look things. At things analytically. So that's the approach that I want to take with this. And we're going to look at it from the media aspect, the messaging aspect and the reputation aspect. We're going to. Primarily, we're going to start off talking about the Nancy Guthrie case, but also the Epstein files, because they are dominating the news. Cycle right now. So, Clayton, you're on the West Coast. You're in the Denver media market. Where do you see this Nancy Guthrie story sitting right now?

Yeah, and first, I'd like to kind of echo that. We kind of realize that there is a family at the center of this who are going through the worst thing you could possibly imagine. I would never, never wish this on my worst enemies. Not only going through it, but also going through it in this extraordinarily public way. So I want to get that. That out of the way. But, yeah, I think from a. From a clinical PR perspective, I think this was a pivotal week in this story, both on the messaging that was coming from law enforcement and also. Also on the. On the media side. And we can talk more about that, too.

But, yeah, let's go back just for a week, you know, so how you and I first connected on this is. We were talking. We. We were chatting about the press conference, which I could have talked about for hours, but the press conference from Pima County. I don't know if you'd really call it a joint press conference. The FBI was there, the special agent in charge was there, but it was really a Pima county press conference.

It was.

You. And I did a breakdown on that. Anyone interested in that conversation, you could find it on Substack. You could also find it on YouTube. We have the live chat there. But you and I both agree that from a logistic point of view, it was an organized press conference, but from an information dissemination and putting that information out there and even the thinking of it. Pretty disorganized degree.

Yeah, pretty disorganized. And I think that that may be one of the reasons why we haven't seen a press conference since then has now in some cases become the story. There have been news outlets writing stories about how there haven't been any press conferences, which you never really want. But, yeah, I think. And we talked about this last week about whether maybe there were discussions behind the scenes about who should take over the primary messaging in this story. And I kind of think you saw that on Tuesday. First of all, if we back up a date to Monday, I think we were primed to see something change. Because you saw the sheriff's office started tweeting the FBI instead of putting out their own information, they were starting to retweet Cash Patel, especially when that video came out. But, you know, Monday, you were coming off of Monday afternoon. The sheriff's office says, we have no suspects, we have no persons of interest. You were coming off this Weekend where the sheriff was seen at a basketball game.

So let's stop right there before we get ahead because you're right, so much has happened in the last week. Let's just do a reset right now where we are quickly with the case. 13th day, you know, almost two weeks into it, there has been an arrest and charge in the person sending a fake ransom note, Derek Colella, which why somebody would do that and, and why they didn't think that they would be caught for that. Also the FBI has provided new details with the suspect. And when you read this it's. There's a lot of armchair detectives out there and Internet who could have said the same. We could have written this press release. It's a male, 59 to 510 average build, wearing black with a 25 liter Ozark Trail hiker pack backpack. Now that's officially from a release from the FBI.

Yeah.

Yet everyone on the Internet already knew it.

Congratulations. You've just narrowed the suspect down to like 5 million people.

Yeah, exactly. And there's not much there. Also a point that you and I did talk about from the press conference. Originally there was a $50,000 reward. Now it's up to $100,000. And the FBI has said they fielded more than 13,000 tips. And here's where we have somewhat of the, the fork in the road between the two. And this is what I want to talk to you about. We have Pima county appearing to, you know, run the investigation right there. They bring in the special agent in that press conference last week and almost that they were a guest at the press conference. Then we have a couple days and then you brought it up. I did a post about this where we saw Sheriff Chris Nanos. He showed up at a U of A basketball game. It was first released by Fox News Digital. And I immediately had to jump in on it because that's in the reputation game. That is horrible, horrible optics. Now certainly there are comments on there that said he has every right, you know, to be at a game. But Clayton was. When you saw that, what did you think?

Yeah, I definitely thought it was bad optics, especially given the lack of progress in the case and the lack of information in the disorganized way that that press conference went down. You know, the sheriff, you know, unfortunately had to address this with the, I think it was the Tucson Sentinel on Monday there was an article that came out. So now, now he's taking time to talk to the Tucson Sentinel to defend his actions in a lot of ways. He talked about how Nobody can work 24 7. I was kind of.

Well, I'll tell you, Clayton, I will tell you the quote. I will tell you the quote. Responding to criticism, Nano has told the Green Valley News that no one can work around the clock quote even though I want to, I can't. And to sit back and say, well, it's a bad image. I guess I'm going to have to live with that image because I got to a point where I needed to decompress a little bit and back away from my team a little bit. So I'm not on them all the time. Clayton, what do you think of that quote?

Yeah, it's very defensive. And not only is he getting it from the public, he's also getting it from within his own department. There was an article about this Sergeant Aaron Cross I think is his name. He's the head of the sheriff's deputy union and he went off on the sheriff. So the sheriff is getting it from all sides. Cross talked about the mistakes in releasing Nancy Guthrie's home too early. He blamed him for everything from. From reassigning pilots which supposedly delayed the air search. And he did go after him about the basketball game too. So a lot of distractions that the sheriff is having to deal with and I think that just primed the situation for Tuesday for really you saw a big shift in the FBI really taking over kind of the messaging. I felt a shift in how. Where that primary information was going to start coming from and a lot of cash. Patel sort of taking credit for a lot of that and talking about the resources and so yeah, sheriff's getting it from all sides.

Yeah. And really it's self inflicted. You agree? And you and I, we almost predicted that this was going to happen when. When you. From an optic perspective and you call oppressor and you do not look confident in your delivery and containment of the information, it creates these fissures in the reputation where people are looking at a weakness there. As you know, you've sat in a lot of press conferences from, from the, from the journo side. You certainly can smell weakness. And it doesn't mean that you have to have an answer for. Everything we don't know is an answer that can suffice. But how do you say that and how firm are you in the. I don't know. So just like briefly go back and why do you think Nanos is wobbling so much?

Yeah, I think it kind of goes back to something that's as simple as your demeanor and your, your projected level of confidence in a press conference. It's understanding that you can't just deflect a question or not answer it or speculate, which is even worse. But to say, yeah, these are important questions and I understand why you're asking them and we want those answers too, and we're doing our best to find them. But when you, you know, allow the sheriff to just sort of stand there and just kind of speculate on every question that was coming in. Again, we talked about how that press conference probably should have been cut off 20 or 30 minutes earlier. It allows sort of the vacuum to be filled with a lot of just nothingness at the end of the day.

And speaking of vacuums filmed or being filled, something else I've noticed about Sheriff Nano's media relations. Now, in crisis management, I work with people at the center of a crisis. It's my job to get into the crisis, but also to get into the mind of the person at the cent. Certainly Sheriff Nano is also at the center of his own reputation, reputational challenge dealing with this case. And I think it is impacting the perception of Pima County. And that's why you're also going to get, you're going to get more leaks, you're going to get more frustration. But one of the things that I think one of the challenges that he's having is one he is, he doesn't have the PIO support the public and for the public information officer support, which you and I both know he does because we saw the staff or more likely he's not listening. Because what I'm saying is a sheriff who is spending a lot of time doing one on one interviews, which.

Yeah, and now he said he's not going to do those, which is interesting. I thought, I noticed they actually put that in a post or a tweet the other day that not only no press conferences but. But no one on ones, which I think is telling because he was, he was better in one on one interviews. I think he was a little more direct and a little more sincere and showed a little bit more emotion when he was doing those one on ones and those were, I think helping him a little bit. So it's interesting to see him not do those anymore.

Yeah, well, I mean, certainly, yeah, he's more comfortable in that one on one environment, which many people are. And I know this from my client work. The, one of the reasons why people like to do one on ones is they think they can control the narrative. They think they can control the reporter. It's so much easier to do one on one but when it is a press conference, anything goes. Now, I don't want this to be an entire chat about dunking on Sheriff Daniels, but this is a case that has captured the interests of so many people. Not just because of Savannah Guthrie, you know, being a co anchor on the Today show and being with NBC news, but also the length of the case without any answers mixed in with this new digital age, you know, media there. But just to bring it back to Nanos, for one second, I was reading People magazine because this is what I have to do. This is how I get my quick bits on things. But I was reading an article about, you know, about the case here. Now, I'm someone who gets calls a lot from entertainment magazines and I'm someone, I have time to talk with them, but many times I don't. This morning I had an interview request from someone doing another like, entertainment type story, which I don't know. Five years ago I would have said, what? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I'll do it. And this morning I said no, because I don't have the time. And that leans into what I wanted to say about Kristian. So in this article with People magazine now, for context, I mean, our dear Catherine o' Hara is on the COVID We love that. But this is, this is entertainment media. Now, Savannah Guthrie certainly falls under entertainment media. And big, you know, this crime cases fall under entertainment and culture and pop culture as well. But what was so interesting about this article to me, so they're doing a general overview, but then it said, you know, they, they quoted him from the February 2 press conference. And then in the article by Jillian Telling, it's very telling because it says later when he spoke to People, he noted that, quote, biological material found at the scene was being DNA tested. That alone says so much that Sheriff Nano's is speaking to People magazine. He should not be speaking to People magazine. It's not because People magazines beneath them. But that isn't effective if you are Savannah Guthrie Clayton. What are you feeling?

Yeah, it's interesting because in that press conference, the last one too, we saw outlets like Entertainment Tonight. Is there, you know, lot of, lot of sustained reporting by places like the Daily Mail and outlets like that. Yeah, I think, I think it also. I would not be. I would not be thrilled that information like that was coming out in one on ones either. Again, either don't say it at all or make sure that it is disseminated in a way that feels equal and fair and as transparent as possible.

Yes. And the bigger issue, I think is why are you not looking for my mother instead of talking to People magazine.

Right.

So what is telling to me about this is that Sheriff Nano is overwhelmed.

I agree.

And instead of calling it like it is and instead of, you know, because nobody expects Pima county to be operation ready for an international story right now. This is an international story. I think reporters, I think all stakeholders out there, agencies and the public would give Pima county grace. But. And you have a, you know, you have a bit of a bumbling press conference. But, but right after that press conference when you start to get that pushback and people are starting to give you grief is when you really recenter you stop doing the one on one interviews. And it seems like he's been forced to stop doing the interviews as opposed to choosing to no longer do these interviews. But the tell also from his reaction to being spotted at that basketball game and as you pointed out, Clayton, his choice to go defensive instead of saying, you know, kind of calling it like, yeah, I know the look, I know how it seems, but I just, I had to get away, you know, for a moment. There's other ways you could have message messaged it.

Yeah.

But the lack of reputation for Nano's does impact the greater reputation of Pima county. Wouldn't you agree?

Absolutely, I agree. And I'm sure that he is probably getting some, some questions from, from his bosses. You know, the county Board of Supervisors is probably not thrilled that the only mention of Pima county is, is in relation to this story. And I'm sure he's getting a lot of pressure from, from people in that community to, to solve this as quickly as possible. And I do hope that, that there has been some sort of change in how they are advising him. You know, it's, it's hard in the middle of the, an intense high pressure case like this to take a step back and say let's talk about PR strategy and how we're going to change and do things. I think they're sort of focused elsewhere and maybe they'll have kind of a debrief later once this is all done and they'll talk about how all this was done. You know, Nano is a cops cop. He's been a cop since he was 20 years old. He knows law enforcement. He's done every job in law enforcement from from homicide to sex crimes to all, everything in between. And so Gabby Giffords, he's good. Yeah, Gabby Giffords, he was, he was involved in that case as well. But you know, besides that case and this one, I don't think he's had a lot of, of high profile cases to kind of, to kind of deal with. And so I give him a little bit of grace there. But again, a lot of these things are just sort of self inflicted, unforced errors in terms of how you, how you project confidence in the investigation and how you present information in a way that's just not meandering and disorganized.

Right. And I don't know if you've seen this in your, you know, recent work where you're, you're doing kind of message media messaging for people and helping clients and also your background work as a journalist. People at the center of a crisis. And this really is, I mean, there is the case and the investigation, but there's also a reputation crisis for Pima County. There just is now.

Oh, there is.

They're dealing with that. And another challenge that you're dealing with here is this perception of a split between the FBI and Pima County. So there are so many things that are almost infiltrating the investigation and the reputation of the investigation of this case. So let's talk about this for a moment. I don't know how deep you went on this, but yeah, looking at a number of stories out there, Reuter, AZ Central, Fox and others, essentially the quote is sheriff blocks FBI access to evidence over gloves and DNA and criticism that it quotes risks further slowing a case that grows more urgent by the minute. Now for his, he is in. Instead of there being one unifying message, we now have two. He has to rebut what was said there. So what's your take on all this?

That was, and that broke last night. That was a Reuters article by Jana Winter, who is an outstanding reporter with a long, long history of great sources and stories that she's broken over the years, including about the Aurora theater shooting many years ago here in Colorado. But.

So you've worked with her.

Yeah, yeah, I know her work. I've worked alongside her, been in press conferences with her. So that was, that was a really interesting kind of.

Well, then, Clayton, you know her. What do you take, what's the veracity of the article? I mean, is there something there?

I think it's, yeah, I, I think, I think there's something there. I think, you know, basically the gist of the story was that the sheriff is sending evidence to be tested to a lab in Florida, which maybe they've used before, rather than handing it over to the FBI and letting them fly it to, to the lab in Quantico where the FBI probably rightly argues that they have better expertise, better technology, more. More experience, really examining evidence in. In tough cases like this. And so, yeah, that was definitely. You know, that feels like. I have no idea, but that feels like somebody from the FBI or the federal government sort of wanting to. To air this out a little bit and maybe went to Janet to. To have her report this. This story out a little bit. But it, you know, comes. Comes off of a week where we did see the FBI taking the lead on all the messaging, putting the videos out. You didn't see the sheriff talking about it, but you did see Cash Patel go on Sean Hannity and talk about it for. For an extended period of time. So, yeah, I think two things have happened. I think there is a split, and you always have a little bit of tension between feds and locals. They all talk nice and they talk about cooperation, but there is a little bit of turf battle that goes on between law enforcement. It just happens. And so I think now you're seeing this kind of breakout into the light a little bit. And again, at the end of the day, if I'm the Guthrie family, watching this doesn't give me confidence to see that the two law enforcement agencies who are, you know, supposed to be finding my mother or find out what happened to her, we now have two different takes from it.

And five years ago, I don't think this would be a question that we would ask, but it could be. Some people look at the Justice Department or they look at the FBI as the FBI as a government agency, and some people look at it as Cash Patel's agency. I know after the shooting of Charlie Kirk, part of the narrative there was the special agent in charge was let go and someone who had a lot of experience that there was somewhat of a gutting within the FBI. So is it a question that Pima county or even the family, for all we know, is not trusting this particular FBI, or could it be the FBI not trusting Pima County?

Could be both. Yeah, it's. That's. That's a hard one to say. It's. But I. I have now seen there was some reporting. I think it was sourced as a. As a source close to. To Savannah Guthrie and her family. Last night on the evening news programs, there were starting to be some chatter about the Guthrie family apparently feeling, like, unhappy that the investigation seems stalled. And that is. That is starting to become a. A thread that I think you're going to see pop up probably even more in the coming days.

So I was flying last night. Was that on The NBC Nightly News.

No, it was actually on abc.

It's actually abc. Your, your former employer. Oh, interesting.

Yep. You know, it was kind of in passing at the end of the, the, the reporters live stand up. But, but yeah, I think it's something that is, is probably again bubbling under the surface that we're probably going to hear more about in the.

Yeah, exactly.

And so no break.

Yeah, yeah. And part of the split, as you say now we have like sources, you know, unnamed sources, but sources close.

Yeah.

To the family. We have leaks now, you know, going to Reuters, going to other places. There is an, there's now this case and Pima county in particular, the danger where internal coordination becomes an issue because everybody heard about one black glove. So OJ Esque and then Pima county and Sheriff Nano saying that there were two gloves and now there's no daylight almost between the agencies. We don't know what they're hiding from each other, what they're sharing with each other. When you have a, like a Reuters type story where you have sources, you know, going on the record, whether or not background or on the record, how do you think that changes the coverage and the narrative right now? So we're Friday, we're heading into the weekend. So Saturday, traditionally slow news day, but it pops online and then Sunday we have a lot of big headlines. Do you think, think there's going to be like another kind of sub narrative here, just about the split?

I think that yes, you will start to see that only because with, with a lack of information on the primary issue here, finding Nancy Guthrie, then. Yeah. Then reporters are going to start to look for other threads to pursue. And, and I, I talked about mentioned earlier it was a turning point in terms of the messaging this week. I also think it's going to be a bit of a turning point for the media too. I think that.

Explain.

Well, I think that this to me feels like the point in the story where if there are no developments, I think what you're going to start to see, and I'm sure these conversations are probably happening right now in newsrooms and will happen over the weekend is how long do we continue devoting so many resources on the ground this story? I don't think networks will stop covering it, but none of the networks have bureaus in Arizona and it is expensive to have correspondents, producers, camera crews that you're hiring, satellite trucks, the whole bit, hotel rooms, rental cars. It gets expensive. And so what I think, I think my hunch is that by next week, if there are no developments or changes in this story. You're going to start to see the story being covered from the bigger bureaus like Los Angeles, like New York. They'll still cover it, but I don't think that the Nationals are going to be on the ground as long. So I think. And that's just a function of, you know, how long can this go on with no real news. And so they will continue to cover it because it is an important story. But I think they may start to dial back a little bit, at least. The Nationals.

Yeah. And there is, you know, and there is a lot of chatter online to where the missing white woman syndrome, you know, like media accountability. We're all, we're all focused on just this one person. Right. The Savannah Guthrie factor certainly is significant there as well. But, yeah, here we are. Now, coming up on the two week mark, when do you think it falls below the fold, so to speak?

I would say another. I would say another week. If, if it doesn't. Yeah, I would give it another week. If there's really no. No developments, then I, I would guess by another week it starts to go below the fold. Yeah.

Yeah. Because what they need are developments. And I, and I find it interesting, you know, like looking at how they are messaging the FBI, for instance. I mean, now the FBI is really stepping up, as we mentioned, they're stepping up their comms, definitely. And I just pulled a post from Twitter from FBI Phoenix. So it's, it's out. Out of the, out of the Phoenix office office there. So it says the FBI is increasing its award to $100,000. New identifying details. And we had talked about this. Right. But in media outlets should direct tips they receive to the FBI. Additionally, we do not comment on tips and information we receive regarding ongoing investigations. And then they included photos of the backpack and, and the video that, that video. Now, like when we talk about if there hasn't been no new news, that video, when that was released, it was the first thing I said was. And as you and I were chatting about this before, I've been in Arizona all week.

Yeah.

This has been a national and local news story for me. I've been following. As soon as we landed at the airport, the very first billboard we saw was for Nancy Guthrie. That was the very first thing. And the locals there are certainly doing extensive coverage. But it really, I think, peaked with that, with that video footage, which was absolutely eerie. But Clayton, don't you think it's cr. Like, I don't know. I went to bed that night thinking this person will be Caught the next day.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And then, and then with the, the information about the, the, the, the person of interest or not the, the subject, we can talk about that. That was amazing. But yes, I thought when that video came out, it reminded me of an old case I covered here that, that went on for, for months where there was a person with a mask and a, and a terrible crime. And, and I, that was sort of key to, to the case as well. But yeah, it was, it was remarkable to see, to see that, to see it in such detail because we had no idea what happened. And then to see this. I mean it was a scary, menacing, you know, fully masked, gloved person walk up onto that porch, really got people talking again. And I think that I thought there was going to be a break and I'm sure every, every reporter covering this case day by day thought there was going to be a break. And so I think that sort of fueled the kind of over enthusiasm in the subject that the sheriff tweeted about later that evening. And I think that was another misstep by the sheriff, frankly, because in investigations like this they are chasing down lots of leads and they are talking to a lot of people and.

Are you referring to the doordash driver?

Yeah, yeah. To Carlos, to.

Oh my gosh. Well, the first. So locally I will say, you know, I saw it on the local news because of course now it's all NBC all day because the Olympics, you know, and this. And I was in the middle of work travel, but so they released the footage and then also the. There's the sub conversation on online. The Internet that's going back to. Is it a bandmate of the brother in law? So Savannah's brother in law, remember how we heard like Ashley Banfield, right. Saying that someone local, you know, within the local law enforcement was saying, you know, we're looking at the brother. But then you and I both agreed that there's nothing wrong with someone saying that to an Ashley Banfield. That of course, because they have to look at everyone. Right. But did you happen to see that online, like, you know, about who they thought initially was behind the mask?

I didn't, I didn't see the thing about the band member. That's. That's interesting.

As soon as it was announced, we were out sitting. It was late night. Then I saw on the phone, I said to Greg one and, and I watch like I'm waiting for media outlets like who picks this up? And no media outlet, news media outlet is going to pick up that because it's not verified at all. But all the digital news clickbait sites. Oh did.

Oh yeah, you had. I saw people posting, posting about, you know, every little detail, trying to measure the shoe, you know, the length of the shoe based on the, you know, the tile of what was probably 12 inch tiles, you know, like how many inches does it take up that the shoe when he, when he walks across those tiles. What kind of backpack is it? Apparently you can only buy it at Walmart. What sort of, you know, gloves. They are all of these things. And that's. That is an interesting part of this whole information vacuum from officials is that it is just going to get filled by all of these armchair detectives and theories and conspiracy theories and you sort of just additionally lose the narrative when. When those things, when those things take over.

Yeah, they lose the narrative. But who picks up the narrative? It's the Internet. You know in my work I hear it all the time, you know when I work with clients and, and so much of it is justified to when someone's under attack. It's a viral crisis. They get so frustrated by, you know, the keyboard warriors and their reputation being in the hands of the. I understand it. I absolutely empathize.

And a lot of it's unfair. I agree.

Yeah, a lot of it is unfair. But you know what, A lot of it is fair too. And I know it's so easy in messaging that people like to dismiss people online. Don't they have better things to do? But we also. This is a very interesting case I think because a lot of the information online is very warranted. I was looking at replies was a thread from. From Aaron Burnett. So she's on CNN and her producer posts on there is under her name. Hey, what questions do you want us to ask? Oh, interesting on our feature tonight. And so I thought okay, this is interesting. This is, you know, Aaron asking the Internet and this happened to be on threads the questions. So they all fell in three different pockets. One pocket was certainly why are you even covering this case so long when there's so many other cases to cover? The Epstein case would definitely be one of them. And. And other people were at, you know, were more critical, you know of the investigation. But so many of the questions people were asking were so good someone would say okay, they use their left hand in this. Are you checking see if they're left handed or if they do that. Some of them are not sky in the pie. Some of them do seem like very warranted questions.

I agree. I think one of my favorite ones was somebody Online was saying, here's what you should do. Take Nancy's phone, put it in a Ziploc bag, attach it to a drone and fly it in a spiral pattern around the area and see if it starts to pick up or connects to her pacemaker. And it's like, I read that at first and I was like, that's crazy. And then I thought about it. I was like, well, you know, it's not. That's good thing.

I saw the same thing. I think people are saying the same thing.

Yeah. It's actually pretty creative and well thought out idea. So. So, yeah, there's there. There probably are, you know, people who. And even the Guthrie family, I think, has said. Has talked about, you know, that the tip could come from anywhere. So you never know what should be followed and what was not. But yeah, it's been interesting for them to have to deal with sort of these parallel Internet investigations and speaking.

And speaking of tips coming from everywhere.

Yeah.

Which often happens in these cases. Who seems to have direct contact with somebody who's claiming to have direct contact with the kidnapper is tmz.

Yeah.

And TMZ now, I'll admit. So full disclosure here, I should say in this disclaimer. I've. I've worked with them. I've participated in their programs. I've done lives.

Sure.

With Harvey Levin before. Have Clayton, has TMZ ever been in your orbit at all in your career?

They have not. No. No. No.

How do journalists perceive. Perceive tmz?

Well, how do they perceive it? You know, they break a lot of news, and I think that a lot of news organizations end up following what TMZ breaks. I think. I think where the reservation comes in is, is how did they get that information? How did they, you know, was somebody paid off? Was somebody. You know, what. What were the methods of getting that information? So it's less about the. The scoops and the information which. Which most of the time turns out to be correct. It's more the. It's more the methods. So I think that's. I think that's where. I think that's where sort of traditional news media has. Has a. Has a bit of a pause when it comes.

Understandable. But when it comes to breaking news stories and when it comes to the public and when they want news, they're not looking so much as the ethics. Information is information and.

Right.

I know having worked with TMZ in the past on. On stories. They wanted me to do an interview on a story, for instance, and then they would tell me what the questions are, were going to be and then they give me a follow up call. Okay, so this is what we heard. Now we have this, this, this and this. And I said, how did you get that seven minutes since I've spoken to you. So they do have a network and they are wired in everywhere. And now.

Yeah, and I have, I have a good friend, I have good friends that work at TMZ who are, come from the traditional journalism world. So I know that they know what.

They'Re doing, they know what they're doing and they do get to operate under different journalistic standards because the, the, you know, with the sourcing, I mean, before you put any story on the air, if you, you're doing it or you're working with the correspondence producer, how many sources do you feel that you need to get before something goes on the air? What is there an SOP at ABC for that?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of the, the standard two sources and, and preferably not sources that are working, you know, side by side in the same office and have the same information. You know, there were, there were instances where you could use unnamed sources, but there was a, there was a procedure. You had to talk to the standards and practices folks, you had to talk to an ABC lawyer. And so there was, there was discussion and you had to, if they asked, you had to provide who your source was. And so there was a, there was a procedure for sort of making sure that you were, you were solid journalistically and legally.

Yeah. And now with these cases, as they happen with every new case out there, and I think here's another reason for the people who say, why are we focusing so much time on Nancy Guthrie, like when there's so many other people, why? I also think it's a story that has legs. It's because of the coverage aspect and the public's wanting the information, but also all these other stories providing it, all these other places providing it. If you think, if you look at Pima county, if you look at the FBI, a lot of info isn't coming from them. You know, a lot of the info is being dropped in the lap. And when a Harvey Levin gets online and shares, well, we're in direct contact, you know, we can verify. But this, but this is what they're telling us, it will make an impact. I don't know if you agree with me on this, but if a Harvey Levin goes on the air and says, we've been in contact, it triggers other things happening from local and federal law enforcement point of view, wouldn't you agree?

Oh, I agree because it is, you know, they have to chase down, they have to chase down every lead and you know, especially given the fact that there is this huge reward, $100,000 is now on the table. They have to, they have to chase it down. They have to take it seriously. And I know reading some of the, the latest TMZ article, you know, they even mentioned that we're not, we're not giving you every detail in this, in this note that we got or in this email that we got. I guess it was. And so they seem to be, at least tmz, I think, recognizes its place in, in this story and seems to be at least talking to law enforcement or sharing this with them to kind of make sure that, that they're not releasing too much. So they are, they are practicing some restraint in that regard. But yeah, sure, it changes the dynamic. It absolutely changes the dynamic. Dynamic. Whether or not you believe that this is actually a kidnap for ransom case, which I think has kind of been waning as a, as a. Clayton, I'm gonna ask it.

What do you think? What do you think? Now we're almost two weeks into this. What do you think?

Man, I, you know, I, I would, I would just completely be speculating, but yeah, I, I, I think maybe somebody not, not a, I feel like in the, in the, the history of humanity, the biggest motivating factor is, you know, in, in people doing bad things to each other is money. So I think that this was probably a targeted crime in the sense that they saw an elderly woman living in a nice house and someone probably thought that they could profit from it, rob the place, get money, whatever it is. I don't, I still don't think it was a kidnapping for ransom case. It just doesn't feel that way. Again, the, the length of time that it took for any, any demands to come in the fact that if you're going to kidnap someone for ransom, you don't, you don't injure them potentially, you know, severely. It's just not something you do. So, yeah, I think it was a more or less random crime in the sense that they could have picked any 84 year old living in a nice house in that part of the town.

And you think it just happened to be that one?

And it just happened to be that one. Yeah, I mean, again, I could be wrong. And I want to say that I've seen cases in the past where, in fairness to the investigators, there have been cases where it seems like nothing is Happening. But there may be a lot happening behind the scenes. And hopefully that's the case. In this case, hopefully, we are hours away or the next big break away from solving this case that we just don't know about. But it just doesn't feel that way, does it?

You took the words out of my mouth. I was going to say, but it doesn't feel that way.

Yeah.

Nothing about this. The word that I do not associate with this case is confidence.

Yeah.

And I think you and I both agree it's unusual, it's strange, and there could be a number of red herrings there. Like you said, it could be just a random crime that just happened to be the mother of someone who's on network news, or it could be close. But I'm also with you, too, whether it's a crime. I mean, I'm no detective.

Yeah, me neither.

I'm no true crime buff, even kind of sort of. I'm not like you. I'm always looking in my work. I'm looking for self interest. Why? Why does someone do something and usually it's money. So who wants money and why and how do they get it? I will say I'm very surprised that someone has not been caught yet that's between 5, 9, 510 wearing a Walmart backpack. How have we not figured that out? But here's another theory that you and I don't necessarily believe, but a lot of people do out there. The Epstein tie in. Now, the Epstein story, this is why it's so crazy and also why I wanted to bring you in on this. It's just people who have media backgrounds on this. The fact that these two stories are parallel stories at the same time. Like our snapshot in time, the two trending stories, it's the Guthrie case and the Epstein files. And you would never think the two would intersect, but yet here we are. There's different points of intersection through it. Some people pointing out that Savannah Guthrie was one of the first to interview the victims in Virginia. Also people questioning because we know that the White House so often tends to. There are patterns to their. To their crisis response. When things go bad, they force something good. I posted something the other day. I don't know if you watched any of the Pam Bondi. PAM BONDI ATTORNEY GENERAL testimony.

I saw some highlights.

Yeah, some highlights which if you watch Fox News, that's all you would see were highlights. They only showed a couple highlights. But social media lit up with all of the clips from Pam Bondi. But that was like a disaster day for them. And then sure enough, you know, now, next day, I mean, I wait for it, they're pulling out of Minneapolis and the big announcement was because it was a success, even though that two American citizens died. But what do you think, if anything, about people talking about that narrative of the Epstein files and Nancy Guthrie?

Yeah, I, I, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's a convenience, I think it's a convenient connection to make. I, I've never been a big believer in conspiracies and sort of that idea that if it, if it sounds like a horse and walks like a horse, it's probably a horse. So I, you know, but again, in the vacuum of information and the widespread interest in both cases by people who are, have the time to look into this stuff and connect those dots, that maybe there's not a lot of evidence for connecting, you know, people, people are going to do it and it may affect, it may affect the storyline, it may affect how, how things are investigated. But it, I just don't, I, I don't personally and again, personal opinion, I don't, I don't by the connection.

So. Yeah. So is the connection there or not? I wouldn't give the White House that much credit honestly to plan it like that. I really, I really don't. But from the media analyst hat if I put it on right now, these two parallel stories happening at the same time. What will happen though is the, is an institution or an organization will pull push stories. They'll hide them under certain times like coming up in the afternoon, it's a Friday like right now with the Guthrie story and the Epstein files. If anyone wanted to do a News dump, Friday, February 13th is the day to do that news dump. I mean that is for sure.

Oh for sure. I didn't even think about that. But yes, that would be, that would be brilliant to do it, you know, in just a couple hours from now. I, I agree.

Well, and one, one celebrity who has benefited from this news cycle I would say is Timothy Busfield who went, you know, we were talking, it went live last time when you and I were speaking.

Right, right. As we were going last the notification.

I got the notification from the New York Times about, about the indictment. Normally that might be. He's not like a big A list celebrity, but still anyone in Hollywood being indicted would be a huge story. He's an example of a celebrity truly falling through the cracks in terms of, of information wise.

I agree and, and I'm a good example of that because other than that notification Last week I, I don't think I've read a story about Timothy Busfield.

There hasn't been hardly any stories at.

All in the week since. So that's, that's a great example.

Yeah, but right now, these parallel stories, what I find interesting is the public, I believe, and I'm not going to judge the public for this, but the public has an appetite for both of these stories.

Yeah, yeah.

And the Nancy Guthrie story and the Epstein file story, where they do intersect is from a content point of view, right?

Yeah, there's.

There. We have, we have video, we have stills, we have imagery, we have PDFs, we have people who can actively participate. It's not just a day of reading a newspaper or reading the magazine. You know, reading the newspaper magazine, people can download, people can upload to AI. People can put, take the photo of the guy and take the mask off, you know, just as what we saw in Minneapolis, you know, where they, where they take the mask off and, but people have, especially with people with time on their hands, they could do stuff with this information. That's why these stories, I believe, have more legs than traditionally. What do you think?

Well, I think what, what happens is you have this like three tiered level of information coming out about both Nancy Guthrie, but also the Epstein files, where you have traditional news media that is being really cautious and for good reason. They don't want to be sued by the President. Just look at ABC or the Wall Street Journal or any number of organizations that the President has gone after. You have, you know, sort of this, this second tier of, of independent journalists that have, that have been working the case that, that don't have to answer to shareholders. And they are, they're doing a lot of, a lot of good work. And then you have sort of the, the armchair folks who have no, no regard for any of the sort of journalistic standards and practices that are out there to keep journalists from getting sued for defamation and slander and all these things have interest. And so, but the problem is from the public's perspective, the public is not making that distinction like you and I are. And like professionals in the business, it's just, it's just the media and, and the information is flowing in on their phones to TikTok and to Twitter and Instagram and all of these places. And so it creates a real, it's, it's really, really tough to get. And I think that the biggest bummer really for mainstream news organizations is that they're just, they're outpaced and outmatched when it comes to advancing different threads of the story.

Well said. Well said. So right now, I want to ask people if you want to join in with any of your questions or comments, and we'll start reading them and asking them. But before we do that, and while people start bringing their comments in here, let me ask you. So you worked at abc.

Yeah.

You're at. And let's say you're. You're an executive at NBC. What happens to Savannah Guthrie? Whether even Savannah. What do you think happens next for Savannah Guthrie?

Oh, I, I think you tell her that you give her as much time as she needs.

Do you think she comes back to the Today show?

Yeah, I do. I, I think ultimately, I mean, it'll be maybe not, you know, maybe, maybe six months, maybe a year from now. I, I think she will come back. I, I, But I, I don't know if that's a, that's a really tricky personal decision for her, because it is, as someone said, this is going to be the thing that is associated with her for the rest of her professional and personal life. And so will you be able to look past that? I think viewers. Yeah, I think viewers would be able to. I think that, you know, eventually, again, it's sort of this, this parasocial relationship that we, we build up with morning news anchors. We, we have our favorites, and we have, you know, we, we root for them, we want them to. We feel for what they're going through. And so I think that. I don't think viewers would, like, reject her in any way. I think they would.

No, I agree. I don't think so.

I think it's more. Her. Yeah, I think it's more what she feels kind of comfortable doing. But I could see, I could foresee a scenario where she does, where she does come back, but I honestly don't know. I mean, this is.

We certainly don't know if she's going to come and. Yeah, but since we work in this business. Yeah, we think about it and certainly talk about it. And this was a conversation that I was certainly having with my TV Anchorage journals. We were talking about ways to look at it, too. You know, from the Savannah Guthrie point of view. I think it would be hard to come back every day. I think it would be very difficult to do. And there's no way NBC is going to push her out. There's no, no way they're going to do that.

No, they'll give her lots of time. Lots.

They'll give her lots of grace and lots of time. However, NBC Network news news viewership is. Is struggling. It's not like it this. We are well past the Katie and Matt days. Yeah, we don't have those days anymore. A lot of young people don't even know who morning acres are on television. They couldn't tell you even who nightly newsacres are anymore. And I think if you. You couldn't even begin to put yourselves in the shoes of a Savannah Guthrie. But I personally think would be hard to get up every day at 3am and go to work and do that. I see her staying at NBC definitely. But does maybe NBC put her in more of a special correspondent, special projects?

Kind of got her work at our own pace. Yeah, maybe I could, I could see.

That because the public will like her and no one will reject her. However has to be said it, it must have been said somewhere at 30 Rock. Somebody said if she comes back or when she comes back, is that the first thing that people are going to see because this story is so such a deep story.

Right.

Is that what they're going to see every morning?

Right. And I think obviously it depends on what happens in this case. If it just becomes a cold case, that is one thing. But if there is resolution and a trial that drags out for a long time, then that's. I think that's going to affect the decision making and certainly the timing of it as well. So you know, what can I have to say?

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, we'll certainly have to see there. So I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me and you know, our. I told you that the community loved getting your feedback. I want to look at some of the things that they're saying here. One, one person said, I see a John Walsh reboot featuring Savannah depending on the outcome. I don't know if I see that necessarily. Almost. I don't think her heart could ever go there. But when people watch something like that. A hundred percent.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Danielle said maybe they give her a once a week news show. I don't know if the appetite is there or not for that, but I think people will still want to see that she's taken care of and. Well.

Right.

Maybe give her something more weekly or serial.

Yeah. I mean one of the things that you're seeing is. Is Today show ratings for better or worse are up during this whole thing.

Oh my gosh. With the Olympics. One person said, I think that depends on whether on the outcome of the situation, whether Nancy is found or not.

Certainly agree. Yeah, yeah. I agree with that.

Yeah. And. And, you know, looking at the commentary here in the chat, I always give the public. Like, I'm so used to dealing with clients who hate chiming in from the Internet, like, whenever the Internet chimes in.

Right, sure. Yeah.

I love giving the Internet the benefit of the doubt because there's a lot of smart people on there, too. You got to get through all the trolls. But here's one comment I want to hear from the media who were physically outside Nancy's house last weekend, who were asked to move for an hour or two, asked to move down the street, and a few of them saw FBI on the roof via drones. But wouldn't it be time for someone to take the video with a NEST camera three days later, after the footage was released? You know, before we. Before we go. That's a really good point, Chelsea. Thank you. You know, how this creeps into other areas of reputation, the NEST camera, how we couldn't get footage, and all of a sudden we have footage. I don't know how many people with NEST cameras or ring cameras. Oh, and then the parallel story at the super bowl, an ad comes out from ring saying, turn on your ring because we're gonna find lost dogs. And then the ICE narrative of, well, do we open the door to people with masks on? And we. You know, there's just so much going on, Clayton, in the story, the intersection of it all.

There is. And I. You know, I have a ring. We have a ring camera, and we are not. I don't subscribe to. To the service. It's just sort of there, and it. That whole. That whole issue of privacy, like, you think that video just goes away and opens up a whole whole new set of questions about where our video and where our stuff is being stored and for how long. And, you know, I have to say I'm happy that they found this, because it's the only big lead they've really had in this case. But, yeah, it sort of opens this. This. This tangential angle about. About privacy concerns and. And. And that's something that we're gonna have to reckon with at some point as well.

Yeah, oh, absolutely. I think that's going to be another. Another subplot in all of this. Well, Clayton, I want to thank you for joining. Joining me again, talking about the story. I think you and I have the same feeling, you know, looking at it. It's. It is heartbreaking, and it's the worst. You cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like to be Savannah Guthrie or her brother. Or her sister and what they're dealing with. And just the. Just the thought of maybe never having any closure to this case ever.

Yeah, I mean, I've covered a lot of cases where it's been years and I can think of a couple that I've covered where there's still no resolution in missing persons cases. And yeah, not knowing is. Is absolutely the worst.

And yeah, not a week ago, not knowing, but then after that video came out of the. It's just so our heart certainly is with the Guthrie family, but also. But we pay attention and we notice patterns and we notice coverage and. And this is a story I think you and I both agree. I think it's starting to fade quicker. I think we're going to get another burst maybe on Sunday. I think we're going to get a lot of the sub narrative stories about Nest and I think we're going to hear about the split between the FBI and Pima County. We're going to hear less from Nanos. Hopefully Nanos won't be going to any more U of A basketball games or anything like that. But I think sadly for the Guthrie family, if there isn't a conclusion is just going to slowly start to peter out while the Epstein story, I think is going to start filling in the space.

Yeah, it will. It will start to fade. And that is just the reality of. Of the news cycle. So. Which is. Which is why I'm hoping there's a. There's a break and they get some resolution.

Yeah, certainly as well. All right, Clayton, thanks so much for joining me.

Thanks, Molly.

Appreciate it watching and we'll speak with you again down the road.

All right, everyone.