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Savannah Guthrie gets top billing every weekday morning when the \u201cToday\u201d show introduces its cast. In an anguishing twist, the disappearance<\/a> of her 84-year-old mother has made Guthrie herself the top story, too.<\/p>\n NBC’s morning show is reporting news that it is part of, a journalistic challenge made more acute by the conceit that this television format has long been built upon: The on-air team is a family, one that viewers are part of each day. Guthrie has been co-host of \u201cToday\u201d since 2012.<\/p>\n The probable abduction of Nancy Guthrie from her Arizona home last weekend was the lead story on \u201cToday\u201d every morning this past week, as it often was on other newscasts.<\/p>\n \u201cOur thoughts and our prayers remain firmly focused on our friend,\u201d said Craig Melvin, Guthrie’s co-host. His partner has been replaced this week by Sheinelle Jones, who typically anchors the show’s fourth hour.<\/p>\n The \u201cToday\u201d show coverage stood in marked contrast to another journalism institution in the news this past week: The Washington Post did not assign any of its reporters to cover the announcement that the newspaper was laying off one-third of its staff<\/a>.<\/p>\n For the most part, \u201cToday\u201d was relatively straightforward in its coverage, while mindful of the fact that it affected a person that its viewers \u201cknew.\u201d Dedicated fans are also familiar with Guthrie’s mother, who has made a handful of appearances on the show with her daughter over the years \u2014 clips that were replayed this past week.<\/p>\n Melvin and Jones updated the story with each day’s developments, with the help of reporter Liz Kreutz in Arizona and Tom Winter, a law enforcement correspondent. At times, the details came at a frustratingly slow pace. \u201cWe’re getting new information,\u201d Winter said at one point. \u201cUnfortunately, it’s not really new information than can help advance the case.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than overdoing it, the show seems to have covered the developments as they would if another well-known person \u2014 and not the mother of \u201cToday\u2019s co-host \u2014 was involved, said Shelley Ross, a longtime \u201dToday\u201d competitor as former top producer at ABC\u2019s \u201cGood Morning America\u201d and, later, CBS\u2019 morning show.<\/p>\n \u201cThey’re reporting it as stoically as possible without medicating themselves,\u201d Ross said. \u201cThey were very professional in their coverage. I think it was pitch-perfect and helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n When Guthrie recorded a video message with her brother and sister, addressed to their mother and potential kidnappers, \u201cToday\u201d aired it in full. That was one indication of the personal involvement \u2014 other networks generally aired bits and pieces of the video \u2014 but Ross argued that it made for effective television. \u201cToday\u201d seems to have sought \u2014 and was taking the advice \u2014 of experts in hostage situations, she said.<\/p>\n The need to cover the story when the show was part of the news isn’t foreign to \u201cToday\u201d \u2014 or Guthrie. NBC left it to her and Hoda Kotb to tell viewers in 2017 when Matt Lauer was fired<\/a> for \u201cinappropriate sexual behavior\u201d with a colleague. <\/p>\n Beyond this week’s headlines, \u201cToday\u201d colleague Jenna Bush Hager reported on Guthrie’s religious faith, saying they were neighbors in New York City who often attended church together. Kotb, Guthrie’s co-anchor after Lauer’s firing until she left the show last year, returned Friday for a story about how others in news and entertainment, along with \u201cToday\u201d viewers, had shown their support.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s this helpless feeling,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Viewing Kotb’s return as a \u201cfamily member\u201d returning home at a time of crisis may seem schmaltzy, but it’s an apt metaphor in this case, said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University\u2019s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture.<\/p>\n Network morning shows are the ultimate fluid format: a \u201cToday\u201d host could report on a complex breaking news story one morning, and dress up in a Halloween costume the next, Thompson said. The show’s sets are often designed to make it appear like a viewer is looking into a living room.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is really the \u2018Today\u2019 show doing exactly what the \u2018Today\u2019 show was designed to do three-quarters of a century ago,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n Guthrie’s absence was also noted Friday at the beginning of NBC’s coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony. She was supposed to have co-hosted the event with Terry Gannon, but stayed in Arizona to be with her family and was replaced by Mary Carillo. \u201cShe is dearly missed by everybody,\u201d said Terry Gannon, the co-host.<\/p>\n NBC’s Guthrie coverage made The Washington Post’s own decision more noticeable. With the troubled news outlet facing headwinds over the past few years, its management decreed that its own media reporters who cover the news industry not write about their own. They stuck with that decision even as the deep layoffs, which included eliminating the newspaper’s sports section, were widely covered elsewhere.<\/p>\n The Post’s website instead ran a story about its own announcement that was written by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http:\/\/x.com\/dbauder<\/a> and https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/dbauder.bsky.social<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n