National coverage finally starting on missing 7 month old

November 4, 1:48 PMSpokane Homicide ExaminerDoyle Wheeler

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National coverage finally starting on missing seven month old.

A shout out thank you to Fox News all be it would have been better if they would have given this story the proper coverage yesterday. At least today they are giving this missing baby some coverage. There lead into Fox news story is:

“Missing Florida Baby Investigation Now Focused on Sitter, Who Wrote Warning Letter to Governor”

 “The baby sitter of a missing Florida infant is now being investigated in 7-month-old Shannon Dedrick's disappearance, authorities said Wednesday.”

They have a lengthy report at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,571670,00.html?test=latestnews

So next a look at MSNBC web page and not single mention of the missing 7 month old baby in Northern remote Florida.

Examiner sums it up: The investigators at the Washington County Sheriff’s office are looking at the parents due to past reports of abuse and drug use lodged by a baby setter in a letter to Governor Crist several months ago.

At the same time they actively searching the woods for the baby.

Now the story takes an interesting twist that will make it a cash cow for the mainstream media and will likely explode into a non-stop 24 hour a day cable news story if a certain lead pans out.

"The Sheriff has confirmed they are also looking at the baby setter that sent the letter one Susan Baker. They are trying to determine if Susan Baker in this case is the same Susan Baker that implicated in the disappearance in a 26 year old missing child case in South Carolina."

In that cold case a woman same name Susan Baker was a suspect in the disappearance of six year old little boy Paul Baker. She was the step mother the father’s name was James. The couple in that case were arrested and charged with his severe beating shortly before he disappeared never to be seen again.

That Susan Baker was convicted of beating her little girl who was taken from the home with broken bones. She received a ten year sentence back around 1987.

If these two Susan Bakers turn out to be the same person this case it will suddenly get the center stage which it should have received from the first moment that child went missing. What is the job of the news media but to inform the public of important events?  What’s more important than a missing 7 month old baby?

To some members of the media such as CNN and MSNBC everything was more important.

For CNN even under news for the south it was:  “Cross-dressing student sent home from school”   This was more important and news worthy than a seven month old missing baby in Northern Florida!

For MSNBC it was  Kidman burned diaries after Cruise divorce  was much more important than a missing 7 month old baby from a nobody white family living in poverty in Northern Florida.

Continued from Fox News:

• Police Have 'Person of Interest' in Florida Baby's Disappearance, but Still No Sign of Infant
• Police Searching for Missing Florida Baby

The Florida Department of Children and Families says it investigated Shannon's mother and father after the August complaint stemming from Baker's letter, and workers have had "a lot of involvement" with the family.

But DCF Secretary George Sheldon says investigators did not find legal grounds to take the infant away.

Searchers have concentrated on the woods surrounding the mobile home, in a remote part of north Florida near the town of Chipley.

Some of this story came from the excellent story by FOX today. That came from some information supplied by the Associated Press

For full length story from Fox news :  Baby Shannon missing

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