Drop Everything! White Girl Missing!!!- Page 2

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:03am

Well, it has been a long day, but I must add that not only does the Media know how to use pretty white girls to get the attention of the public, but sometimes the pretty white girls know how to use race as a way to throw suspicion from their own crimes. That FVckin Susan Smith killed her own children and blamed it on a black man and that FVckin Runaway bride blamed her disappearance on the Mexicans. Way to work that media, purdy white girls!

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:22am

It's the news as business that I am railing against. Reporting the news used to have a sense of being a sacred mission about it, where as more and more, I feel like I'm only hearing what sells if I listen to mainstream network or cable (yes, CNN is guilty, too). And how many times have you watch a TV show only to find a tie-in story on the 11 pm broadcast. It's all about soundbytes, and sex, and fear.

Yes, the consumer is also at fault, but the media, as a whole, has lost it's sense of professional integrity by turning victims into celebrities. JonBenet Ramsey, Jennifer Levin, Chandra Levy, Lacy Peterson, etc, have been exploited in death in a profound way every time their pictures grace the cover of yet another magazine or paper for the purpose of increasing sales. It is shameful.

And just tonight, I heard that Lacy Peterson's mom is writing a book about Lacy. I tend to be sympathetic foward mothers who have lost children, but really, isn't this just feeding the frenzy? I'm sure that she was a wonderful person and that her mother loved her very much, but I have to ask....What did Lacy ever do, other than be murdered, that would make a book about her life marketable? The only reason a book deal exists is because she was turned into a celebrity, posthumously. by the media.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 3:17am

I offended many people at this very site (and got hate PMs) by pointing out the unbalanced coverage of the missing white vacationing types vs. the indigenous people whose entire families were washed away.

Are you serious? Who said that? Because I was saying the same thing, especially when they had that primetime special about the supermodel who lost her fiance and broke her hip. They devoted an entire hour to interviewing her about "her tragedy", because her fiance was killed and she sustained injuries. Never mind the people that lost their house, all their possessions, their entire family, their village, EVERYTHING back in SE Asia. A beautiful person is suffering! Let's all feel sorry for her!

I even saw the bias media coverage on a smaller level when I was up at school. There was a 16 year old Afican American boy killed in the park right next to my university and his killer hasn't been found. An African American night student at my university killed his African American baby mama and left her in a suitcase outside his house.

Did any of you hear of those cases? What about the white college student that disappeared from Cornell? I saw more local news coverage of this case than the two others that directly affected the city.

Sueleen, I totally agree with you. I saw this thread and immediately thought of a line from Eminem's The Way I Am:

Middle america, now it’s a tragedy
Now it’s so sad to see, an upper class ci-ty
Havin this happenin

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 8:35am

To be fair, it's not only a racial bias...there is also an "appearance" bias. It just doesn't make for a good story if the victim wasn't attractive.

[ckeaton]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 9:45am

While I agree on some level, I think it is more about human nature than anything else.

This story is unique, because rarely do tourists in pretty caribbean islands get kiddnapped, raped, or slaughtered. If this were a missing girl in Wichita, it would've taken a few more days to hit the networks... pretty, white, or not.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:48pm

I know at the first report of Laci Peterson missing, all I could do was think, "Well here we go again."

The more photogenic the missing person is, the more air time the case gets.

Jon Benet Ramsey anyone?