Riddle me this

[SteveDallas]

I watch practically no TV, you understand. What I do watch is Tivo'ed, and other than that it's mostly DVDs. I certainly do not watch the news on TV.

So all of last week, I was down at my parents' house in NC, and they do watch TV news, mostly the local news & some Fox News. I therefore learned things I did not know before. Specifically, I learned that a young lady recently disappeared in Aruba and that every ablebodied adult in the Western Hemisphere has been mobilized to find her. Or at least, that's the impression I get from the news.

Could somebody explain to me why this story, which seems to me to be personally tragic to the woman's family and friends, but to be of no particular exceptional newsworthiness, has dominated the news for days and days on end?