Missing: White, attractive women and the news

I have noticed a trend in nightime stations that troubles me. The search for Natalie Holloway, and others. While its a good thing, please tell me why these stations (MSNBC, Fox, to be more specific), do not carry stories about missing Latinas or missing Afro-American people?

Its only the blondes or the pretty and affluent that are showcased in these shows.

There are thousands of women battered and murdered every day UNDER the same or similar circumstances. Women who dont have money, who arent pretty, who are not in college. I hate posting anything at all "racial", thats not my style. I just cant help wondering why these stations concentrate only on the good looking whites.

Has anyone noticed this?

This is absolutely 100% true, and quite frankly, I finding it sickening and repulsive.

I am so damn tired of the "innocent little white girl with blue eye and blond hair" who gets killed or kidnapped dominating the news - the national news - while others who are low income, or non-white are simply ignored or glossed over. Its hypocritical, pandering crapola and shame on anyone who watches Greta Van Ratings or Gerry Rivera or any of these other network mouthpieces who drone on and on and on about these people. How the hell is their deaths any more tragic than the deaths of a inner city woman who is found beaten to death in her simple apartment?

Unfortunately, the networks televise exactly what the watchers (consumers) want, so there is equal blame to be spread around....

I 100% agree with you on the fact that news agencies give far greater attention to whites than minorities in these cases. While I feel that the news outlets need to make a conscious effort to strive for equal time, I disagree with you on the reason why someone like Natalee Holloway was focused on.

I live in the same city she did, and the reason why her case got so much attention is because her family was wealthy and used a great deal of their own money to publicize the case. I know that much of the reason that it stayed in the national spotlight was due to the fact she was an attractive white girl, but the only reason that it ever got that much attention was due to the fact that her family had the resources to "buy" that much attention. Unfortunately, there are millions of missing person's families in the US that simply don't have the means to do that.

The good thing that came out of the case is that here in the sometimes still segregated city of Birmingham, AL, our local news stations now give 100% equal attention and focus to missing persons cases, regardless of the color or status of the person. I'm thinking in particular of a case of a middle aged, handicapped African-American woman who's disappearence was the top story for several days.

I am glad that the local stations do pay attention to all. Its the correct thing to do. One human is just as good and deserving of life as the other.

My problem is with the new trend with Rita Cosby, Greta and the rest.

Shame on them. If they were real smart they would throw in a non-white and run a story every once in awhile, just to make it fair and balanced.
I have seen them "flash" a picture on occasion of women of other ethnic backgrounds, but i mean "flash". Its just not fair.

For the same reason Hitchcock tended to use blonde heroines beset by dire circumstances in his films. Cinematically more graphic. Much of news is a hollywood treatment of current events.
Consider that is is the major Entertainment networks that orchestrate what we see as news in that small portion of their broadcast day not inundating us with sitcoms and car-chases.

Perhaps this throws a monkey wrench into theory"Blondes have more fun?",yes I believe it's the case of parents having money

I have wondered just the same thing myself, many times, and from my perspective I have a couple answers.

I work in law enforcement in a small town that is the suburb of a medium-sized city.

In our town alone, we have about one missing person report a week, and about one missing child a month. I can imagine what the numbers in the city next door are like.

Let me try to break it down for those who are not familiar...

About half of the persons are reported to us as being found, even if it takes months. Many, including children, are still open missing persons cases in our computer. I bet a query of our open missing persons cases would come up with at least 100 names, and about half would be children.

If the person were to have their name queried by a law enforcement agency, it would pop up as an NCIC hit as a missing person, if their social security number were active, if their license plate was queried, if they applied for any kind of license, it would be called into us and we'd have to confirm the person as still being missing. So it's not like the person can be "missing" and forget to call us back to report when they are found.

Therefor...there have got to be hundreds of thousands of missing persons reported in the USA alone. Many are children.

I believe the cases that get exposure are either: 1) wealthy families who can afford to pay people to generate publicity, 2) families that know how to pester the media to get the story some coverage, 3) families with political ties to keep the story in the media.

I have been here for several years and we have never had one missing persons case make the news.

The media is very bias in this area, and so many go without notice.






F.B.I.


But the media plays to a target demographic that they know they can sell products to.
Follow the money...............

Its less about White and Black and more about green. Rich people have alot more power and connections. You know how many poor people both white and black go missing with if their lucky little more then a passing note on the local news?

Originally posted by dgtempe



I have noticed a trend in nightime stations that troubles me. The search for Natalie Holloway, and others. While its a good thing, please tell me why these stations (MSNBC, Fox, to be more specific), do not carry stories about missing Latinas or missing Afro-American people?

Its only the blondes or the pretty and affluent that are showcased in these shows.

There are thousands of women battered and murdered every day UNDER the same or similar circumstances. Women who dont have money, who arent pretty, who are not in college. I hate posting anything at all "racial", thats not my style. I just cant help wondering why these stations concentrate only on the good looking whites.

Has anyone noticed this?

I take it you saw the special tonite on the new huh? (just own up to where ya got the idea)



my question is this, why does this have to turn racial? ok, given there may not be as many missing balck women on tv but in all honesty do you know how many times that happens in their communities? I think the point of the whites turning up missing anb on the news is the fact that is indeed rare for that to happen and doesnt directly have much to do with race (this was also discussed on the program).

To say that, well news stations wont air stories about missing black women, is a bit unfair as they could dedicate an entire news network to that.


What I have a problem with is the constant mention of race by the balck community( a perfect example being black, white, trading races which contains the lyric by ice cube "have I got my race card in the mail? hell no!" which is supposed to be satirical for the fact that the white community often discusses events which turn racial by the black community as the "race card") if we are supposed to be moving towards "equality" and away from the old prejudices, why the constant reminder by the blacks?

and ice cube is not one to be preaching equality....

deny ignorance....

[edit on 18-3-2006 by XphilesPhan]

[edit on 18-3-2006 by XphilesPhan]

Edit: Racially graphic lyrics.

[edit on 18-3-2006 by intrepid]

Xphiles, sorry to dissapoint you, but i didnt see the special. I can think for myself, thankyou, and this has been on my mind ever since the Holloways have now taken over the Fox, MSNBC, CNN networks.

I feel terrible for that missing young woman, but there are hundreds of thousands of missing people out there. Equal time should try to be given to non-blondes.

But the fact remains that they apparently giving people what they want. :shk:

Darn it, if you want to fill up the nightly news with a LineUP, do it right.

Do you people actually believe there's some BIG huge conspiracy to promote blonde/blue-eyed white girls? (OMG, my side hurts!)

Sorry, you people seriously need to lay off the conspiracy boards for a while.

Show me one case that had a chucha mother with the same amount of time and resources that the Natalee girl's mother has.

Seriously now, this isn't about the media (nor government conspiracy), it's about YOU (the viewer) and how loud the parents of the child scream and yell!

Edit: Oh yeah, don't forget the reward money (bigger the reward, the more attraction the story gets = more viewers tune into that network)!




[edit on 18-3-2006 by SourGrapes]

I think you dont got it.

You may want to review the post again and see that nightime Fox,CNN, MSNBC, etc.. only do "stories" about the whites and rich.

Yes plenty of white chicks go missing as well.. if they're daughters of the rich they'll get a cute picture on the telly of their school prom. If they come from poor familes we might hear about it when their bodies are found in a shallow ditch because when they first went missing police assumed they were runaways and didn't bother looking any further. In all fairness however I am in Aus so our cultures may be very different.. all poor people are treated with contempt here- not just the black ones.

Originally posted by dgtempe
I think you dont got it.

You may want to review the post again

and see that nightime Fox,CNN, MSNBC, etc.. only do "stories" about the whites and rich.

I just read over my post again, and realize I came across a little more sarcastic than I had intended.

My point, I was trying to make, is the reason for MSM focusing on a certain race/gender/class most certainly does have to do with money.

How do you suppose the MSM gets a hold of these stories? It's the family, the lawyers, the community who contacts the media. The more resources (money) the family has, the more they can afford to run a successful campaign.

Hypothetically, two girls went missing last night. Both girls are from the same city and have access to the same media outlets.

How could any of us know anything of these two girls missing? How could the media possibly know?

Well, it's the parents (or someone close) who get busy contacting every outlet, every source, exhausting every single resource they have available.

One girl's parents (who just so happens to live in an affluent part of town, because they can afford it) manages to gather 100K rather quickly, and happens to mention this when they contact the local media.

The first girl's SAHM has 'all the time in the world' to put forth a rather large and sucessful campaign. This is her 'new' job, to find her child. The reward pot grows, as the family liquidates and moves other financial resources around. Pretty soon, the reward pot reaches 250K, then 500K. The higher the reward, the greater the coverage (just look at today's lottery, higher it goes - more we hear about it in the media).

The second girl's parents (who just so happens to live in a less than affluent part of town, because that's all they can afford) has little to offer in reward money. They also contact the media, but when asked about a reward, they hesitate. The newsroom says, "call back when you find out the reward".

Tomorrow is Monday and both parents (girl #2) work. Which parent takes off work to dedicate, full-time, to finding their child? Can they afford to give up part of their income? Unfortunately, this girl's parents live paycheck to paycheck, thus do not have the support, nor resources to dedicate to a full search campaign (as does the first set of parents). Thus, they do not have the reserves nor the cash to gain attention of the public and the media.

It is all about money, but it's no conspiracy. The richer you are, the more funds you have to 'make things happen'. Who's fault is that? The media? Our society?

I don't believe it's anyone's 'fault'. It's quite simple really. The more money you have, the more attention you get. It's really not a race issue. It's a money issue.

Money makes me sick. Only getting media coverage if they have a reward?

It makes perfect sense to me that more white women are reported missing in the news each night for two main reasons:

1. The population of the United States is 75.1% White. So, it makes sense that most news stories would be about this group. More people watching the news are of this groups, and the news is geared toward the majority of viewers.

2. In our culture women get more attention when in trouble then men do.

So, it seems simple to me. The majority of people in American are "white". No, big shocking racist story here people...

-- Boat

[edit on 18-3-2006 by Boatphone]

[edit on 18-3-2006 by Boatphone]

Uhmm.. Most??? Practically all on the big news networks are white women.

Check this out: Missing White Woman Syndrome

Bandit,

Last I checked the word "most" does, in fact mean, "practically all". And again this would seen to make sense due to the fact that 75.1% of Americans are "white", and our culture gives more attention to women (who are in danger) than it does to men.

-- Boat

Boat,

Practically all I would see as in more than 95%. Btw... When was the last time you saw a black man, a black woman, a white man, or a missing person of any other race get so much attention on the news as Natalee Holloway, the runaway bride, Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy etc...??