The body of a San Francisco man who had walked into the Oregon wilderness to summon help for his stranded family was found Wednesday in a steep ravine where he had left clues for searchers.
Officials confirmed that James Kim, 35, an editor at the Web site CNET, had been found dead.
It's all over the news and all over the blogosphere:
CNet Senior Editor James Kim is still missing, but his family has been found alive. They burned tires for fuel, ate everything in the car and Mrs. Kim resorted to breastfeeding to keep her children alive. She was able to flag down a rescue crew by flapping an umbrella covered with reflective tape. As of this writing, Mr. Kim is still lost, last seen heading into the snowy wilderness to find help for his family.
Rescuers were able to use signals recently sent from cell phone towers in order to narrow the search area down in order to find the family and narrow the search for James Kim. People are searching for him on horseback, with dogs, on foot and from heat-seeking helicopters.
The coverage for this story is nothing short of incredible. At last look, the story was being followed by all the major news networks in addition to CNet itself. Here's a roundup of the news:
San Francisco Chronicle
CNet
NBC
AOL
ABC News
MSNBC News
Additonally, BoingBoing has been tracking the story, and related stories and blog posts are proliferating Digg and the blogosphere at large like crazy.
The thing is, people go missing all the time. And PLEASE don't get me wrong here -- this is a terrible tragedy, and I do sincerely hope that Mr. Kim is returned safely to his family as soon as possible.
But 2,300 people are reported missing every day, according to CourtTV's Crime Library. And not all missing persons cases garner this degree of media attention. Why is it that this one is? James Kim is certainly not a blond white girl, a group of people that seems to garner media attention for pretty much everything.
Not that you haven't guessed the reason already. James Kim's a senior editor at CNet, a tremendous resource for other tech media ... and now, tech media's looking out for one of their own. And by extension, the people who read and comment on tech media are passing the word along.
It doesn't seem fair at all ... and it's not. But on the other hand, a missing person is a missing person. And if a couple thousand blog posts can help bring a starving man out of the snow and back with his family, that's fine by me.
12 comments:
This is sad. I hope his wife didn't use him as food for the family. Don't laugh. It wouldn't be the first time someone had resorted to cannabilism for survival.
Dianna
I know why this story captured my worry and hope. It was because a baby and a four year old were missing, most likely in a car accident, in a snowy cold place.
Not because Mr. Kim is with CNET.
Hey... don't mean to sound nasty but instead of searching out links to news stories how about getting on some one's case about file manager it's been weeks!
d
Entire families don't go missing all that often so perhaps that played into it getting more attention as well.
I wouldn't begrudge anyone who has a loved one missing any resourse available to help find them.
h
This is in response to nightmaremom. You may not mean to come off sounding nasty but you do. What a great testament to the ridiculous egocentrism of the population of our country. It is considered an interruption when the story of a family in complete strife interrupts our pursuit of fast food, goche furniture, functional file manager and the next episode of Desperate Housewives. Bravo nightmaremom.
It is really sad it ended like this.I do nont know the guy,but the story caught my attention from the outset.My prayers goes out to the family at this time of sarrow.
If only he asked for directions in the first place...
Whenever anything bad happens to anyone like this; it is fair to use whatever resources one has:friends, family, or people from your place of EMPLOYMENT. So, if his employer spread the news of his missing a little too much, SO WHAT?
I would rather see all employers try to help all employees in times of trouble; even if they happen to be connected to the media and can use those resources and appear to be OVERDOING it.
It's like Apocalypse Now... "never get outof the boat." Orcar, in this case.
Dear Jeff
thanks for this touching account of a great man and his brave family
sigh
I was personally very sad that this amn did not make it out alive! what a loss!
my heart goes out to his family and friends,
hugs,natalie
http://journals.aol.com/Lurkynat/Interface/
Thanks for these comments about James Kim, Joe. I think that it is wonderful for people to get involved with this kind of thing. Anything that can help save a life is welcome to my ears, and I think that all missing people and children should receive the same kind of attention as do those relatively few who are really brought to the attention of the public for long periods of time. I hope that you, and all of the other AOL Journalists have a great holiday season.
Myrna@Myrna L. Cox-Lavinder Journal
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