Yes, it's a regular feature on the "Today Show" on NBC, but today is a special edition.

I figure it was a gamble and it failed miserably, sending their top guy to Texas, where the big news was yesterday, not today. But he's there, and not looking too happy. At least he's not in London on baby bump duties.

But NBC has done great work in recent days and weeks with its news coverage. It got the drone strike story. It avoided the 'arrest has been made' mistakes in Boston, along with CBS. I saw CNBC did have note up about AP reporting an arrest but it quickly replaced with reports of no arrest from NBC reporters.

Here are some tweets about Lauer's absence from the biggest story of the week, the manhunt and shutting down of Boston, including the slaying of a police officer and killing of first suspect. This has been going on for hours, and NBC was hurt every time they updated the Texas blast story, which is relevant with 12 bodies recovered being announced.

The tweets:

daveweigel ‏@daveweigel 8m
RT @Bencjacobs: The look of unhappiness on Matt Lauer's face as he does a remote from West, Texas is spectacular

 John Walters ‏@jdubs88 9m
I understand more people have died in Texas,but any news producer who sent his best person there (Cooper, Lauer) is a numbskull. Boston...

Of course, Lauer and his team cannot escape the continued news being reported on the shameful departure, forcing out, of Ann Curry, the NYDailyNews.com is keeping as a top editor's pick.

More tweets:

Claire Zulkey ‏@Zulkey 53m
Matt Lauer looked kind of salty about being in Texas this morning.
Followed by Dr. Barbara Holstein

 Sam Rubin ‏@samontv 1h
More "Today" show bad luck. Worlds' eyes are on Boston, & Matt Lauer is live from Texas this morning. @KTLAMorningNews 100% Boston this a.m.

 Julie DiCaro ‏@JulieDiCaro 1h
I bet Matt Lauer is so pissed to be stuck in Texas.

 Ricky Engelberg ‏@rje7 1h
I'm guessing Matt Lauer is contemplating replacing himself in Texas with a scarecrow and chartering a jet to Boston. #todayshow

 FTVLive✅ ‏@FTVLive 1h
While the eyes of the world are focused on Watertown, MA..... 1832 miles away sits Matt Lauer.​ http://FTVLive.com

 John Nolte ‏@NolteNC 1h
If Today Show is doing 'Where in the world is Matt Lauer?" he's not laughing.

 Jennifer Rubin ‏@JRubinBlogger 1h
Today is really good w/out Matt Lauer.. Aunt of suspect friend said suspect friendly, beautiful, went to "diverse" high school

 Will Bunch ‏@Will_Bunch 2h
Matt Lauer down in West, Texas is like the Rosenkrantz or Guilderstern of TV news reporting today

 joseph williams ‏@jdub321 2h
#karma RT @jeffkrehely: Matt Lauer seems annoyed that he's reporting from TX, while news breaks back east. Somewhere Ann Curry smiles.

I say, yes, absolutely.

But I understand the idea. Don't make a story out of it so we can work to get him back instead of giving potential terrorists a chance to harm him and garner their own headlines.

However, once the story is out there, it would irresponsible to ignore it, especially if the same standards are not maintained for every other story.

In this case, it is gawker.com reporting that NBC's Richard Engel is missing in Syria. Mr. Engel is a fine journalist who has done incredible work as a foreign correspondent, telling stories lately about Egypt's revolution and now Syria's civil war.

I hope his missing is a problem with communications in what seems like a war-torn country that may have damaged or turned off communications equipment. The fear is that he is injured or kidnapped or worse. His is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world and he did not seem to shy from the danger in order to do his job.

The story, though, from gawker.com deals with a serious issue: Blackouts of news coverage. Several comments, the majority on the page, were critical of gawker for writing about the story, in effect calling them out for writing about a blackout on the story and then 'violating' it.

What happens is the news agency doesn't want to report on its reporter missing as that may inflame the situation and endanger the reporter. That's fair. But in this business, or calling as some wish journalism would be, once a story is out, it's out.

Gawker correctly reports all the agencies in Europe that are reporting the news as well as people on social media.

But to insist it be held and to criticize others for reporting the news is rather disheartening, especially with all the (sometimes, rightful) criticism of news outlets (such as NBC) for the endless reporting of others' tragedies, the latest one being the Sandy Hook shootings in Connecticut. In fact, the rush to get the story out led to news agencies wrongfully reporting who the shooter was, including The Oakland Press, where we used wire reports that later had to be changed.

Many expressed desires to see the media:

- Leave the victims' families alone,
- Not flood the area with multiple reporters falling over one another,
- Not show the culprit's face and tell a story that would perhaps inspire another crazy person to act as a copycat in seeking out such media attention,
- Not politicize the event by jumping into the natural discussion about guns and gun violence and America's gun culture.

News agencies routinely ignore such requests because of the thirst to know as much as possible about something as fast as possible.

Same goes for a story about a respected journalist who goes missing while on the job in a place that generally accounts for the first or second story on NBC's "Nightly News."

And criticism that a news agency applies different standards when covering itself than it would anyone else are fair.