The Latest Word on Nancy Guthrie

The Latest Word on Nancy Guthrie
By Larry Huss,

On or about February 1, 2026, Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC news reader Savannah Guthrie, went missing from her home near Tucson, Arizona. For nearly two months it was wall-to-wall coverage with hourly updates and, in some cases, dawn-to-dusk coverage. Local, state, and federal authorities have been involved. And at the end of the two months, here’s what we know about the disappearance.

Nothing.

From the first of April until today, the media coverage has moderated somewhat, but still every story is delivered with bated breath that suggests—and often pointedly says—that the case is about to be solved. But here’s what we know from the passage of these last two months.

Nothing.

Well, let’s be fair. They do have a doorbell video of Ms. Guthrie being moved from her house by a person who appears to be completely covered in what looks like a hazmat suit, complete with head covering and goggles. It took weeks to discover this video, which has led to speculation as to whether it is real or an AI recreation. Regardless, it stops there. Nothing has been learned from the video of the person removing Ms. Guthrie, except the image itself.

So, what has filled those hours of television, radio, and print media coverage? Pretty much gossip, speculation, finger-pointing, and media personalities interviewing each other as if they were competent investigators—and along the way, they demonstrated that they were not only clueless, but as shallow as water in a desert arroyo*. Quite simply, if you were a media personality who had ever met or seen Savannah Guthrie, or even if you could spell her name correctly on the first try, you were worthy of an interview and publication. There hasn’t been an example of media self-indulgence like this since the death of Princess Diana.

But this is the one that takes the cake for me. Some time around the first of May, skeletal remains were found about seven miles from Ms. Guthrie’s home and were reported as if they represented a potential breakthrough in the case. However, it was determined that the bones were nearly 1,200 years old. And yet, without asking a single question, without a wry observation that the remains appear awfully old, it was reported as if it were a significant breakthrough. For me, it has become the hallmark of media self-indulgence—a nothing burger that exists only because it was within a four-state proximity to Ms. Guthrie’s home and would give the originator his or her fifteen seconds of fame or a blogger the number of clicks necessary to be rewarded.

It is also emblematic of why everything you see, hear, or read from the media should be regarded in the first instance as baloney. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
So, what happened to Ms. Guthrie? I don’t know. You don’t know. Law enforcement doesn’t know. And most assuredly, the media doesn’t know, and they will probably be the last to know—even if they are standing on top of the solution.

note: For those of you forced to endure a teachers’-union-led education in the Portland public schools, an arroyo is basically a dry water bed that flows periodically during rain storms and spring runoffs.