National news events have a way of minting public figures out of people who had not spent their lives expecting the spotlight. This can cut in either direction: For better, as when a person toiling in obscurity suddenly meets their moment, or for worse. And, for the millions following the Nancy Guthrie case, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has proven unready for the tests he’s faced.
Nanos makes headlines for reasons beyond his being the conduit of whatever paltry information exists about Guthrie’s whereabouts. Tasked with overseeing the local law enforcement response to the apparent kidnapping of news anchor Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nanos has met a charged situation with infelicitous choices of what words to use and what tone to take.
For instance, in a recent interview with the New York Times, Nanos described his investigation — notably marked by the detention of an apparently unrelated delivery driver, who was later set free — as “exhausting, these ups and downs.” He then said that Nancy Guthrie would inevitably be found, but that “maybe it’s weeks or months or years from now” when that discovery will happen.
The case, seen from the outside, is legitimately baffling; the kidnapper or kidnappers seems to have entirely obscure motives (given that Savannah Guthrie’s public offer to pay ransom has gone effectively unacknowledged). But Nanos cannot help but telegraph how little, weeks in, law enforcement has been able to figure out about the identity of Nancy Guthrie’s captor or captors. (A sheriff confident in his information might not suggest that an investigation would take, well, years.) In responding to criticism, too, Nanos has tended to center himself and his own feelings; while he surely must be exhausted, a more circumspect public servant might take a beat and wonder how much more exhausted the Guthrie family must be. And, in a baffling outburst last week, Nanos took on his critics head-on, declaring: “Now, you want to get picky that the sheriff speaks funny or talks off the cuff, or you can call him a buffoon or Barney Fife or whatever you want to call him. The haters are going to hate, but my local media, you included, know me. You know what I’m about, and you know I’ve always been a pretty much open book. You ask me a question, I’m going to answer it. That’s just the way it is.”
The inability of the local police to make any headway in this case has been noticeable as the case has drawn on, but those commenting on it are not always accusing Nanos of being a “buffoon”; that he hears it that way suggests a me-first approach that, if nothing else, is a bad look. But then, Nanos breaking his silence about his own communication style was nothing new: Early in the investigation, he told reporters, “I’m not used to everyone hanging onto my every word and then holding me accountable for what I say.” It is fair to consider that Nanos had never expected to be under a national spotlight, but, really: Perhaps he ought to get used to it. Among Nanos’ many jobs is to preserve the public’s trust that this crime is being competently and thoroughly investigated. He seems instead to alternately be spilling inadvertently revealing information — as in his declaration that Savannah Guthrie’s public plea for help solving the case generated “4,500 more leads,” which suggested just how scattered the investigation is — or attempting to clean up his own comments and making everything worse. Why does a sheriff trying to crack a challenging case even have time to address “the haters”?
The Nancy Guthrie case has been a painful media spectacle for many reasons, among them the inescapable fact of Savannah Guthrie’s particular brand of celebrity. A figure whose stock-in-trade has been a sunny, amiable approach to morning conversation — and a devoutness that manifests in the form of optimism — has been brought to the point of pleading via Instagram video for her mother’s safe return. Savannah Guthrie’s videos, difficult to watch for how much they show a familiar figure at the absolute end of her rope, present a person who is at every turn decentering herself. This isn’t, for the anchor, about her fame or notoriety or the years she’s spent on TV; it’s about her mom. It might not materially affect the case, but might be a show of a grace that’s too rare in an increasingly blunt age, if only the sheriff overseeing the case took a similar approach.
