Is Sgrena related to Elizabeth Smart?

Note: This post got lost in the shuffle and should have been up about 2 weeks ago, but I thought I would post it regardless as the questions are still pertinent...

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Via Kevin Drum, Iraqi blogger Riverbend has a great post up here in which she writes with wonderment over why there is such attention being paid to the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena when shit that is much much worse (mainly occuring to Iraqis) has received a tenth of the attention.

It's a good question, and not just concerning the weirdness that is the Iraq War or Occupation or Whatever... this happens with other stuff as well: Elizabeth Smart sparked madness over child abductions. You couldn't go a day without new reports. But yet child abductions have been trending downwards. Same with the media-annointed Year of the Shark: shark attacks were actually down that year.

Yeah, I know there is the cute-little-white-girl element to both of those, but I don't think it is that simple... it is certainly a dynamic that has caused me no little amount of amazement and intense frustration over the years, and I am no more close to figuring it out.