The Mommy Factor

For those of you who are not watching Open Season and Garfield 24/7, you probably heard about the whole Caylee case a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago.

Well, that's what happens when you become a mom and surrender your right to the outside world of CNN for Boog and Elliot.

I just (honestly, just today, like five minutes ago) heard about this horrendous case, which started out as a missing person case. For those of you stuck in cartoon world like me, I'll recap (quickly before Dora comes back on!)

Caylee Anthony, an adorable two-year-old from Florida, was reported missing last summer. Her mother claimed to be looking for her and desperate to find her. Now, most likely due to the ridiculous number of mothers pleading for their kids and then being found to be the culprit, I doubt I would have believed her from the outset. (Sorry mom's who are in that desperate situation--I don't ever want to be in your shoes, but I won't believe a word you say until you are cleared as a suspect.)

Obviously, after a search and lots of information coming up from family and friends, it was discovered the story was not adding up. The mom was eventually charged with murder and more recently, the girls remains were found.

I have two reasons for writing about this--One-as a PR writer, please don't assume your audience already knows the background info. Yes, I too get annoyed when reading a news story where the last half is all recap that EVERYONE should already know. (Hello! Where've you been? Mars? No, I've been in the land of Tigger & Pooh.) But I see now why this is so important.

The reverse pyramid is a wonderful format for getting info out quick--the newest and most relevant first (for those in the know) and the back story at the bottom for people like me. That way everyone else can just quit reading.

The second reason for writing about this story is that if you look at the website I linked to at the top, they have an ENORMOUS amount of informaiton on this story. There are links to phone conversations, video clips, court documents. One could easily spend all day reading and catching up on this story. The paper's format for quick, easy-access clips and info make it easy to get sucked in and bogged down in the site for far longer than one may have planned.

Why is this so ingenious? The longer you are on their site, the more ads you see. The more ads you see, the more they can charge their advertisers. Very smart plan.