Media Bias: the Lack of Reporting on Minority Missing Persons in the Mainstream Media
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Media Bias: There is a Lack of Reporting on Minority
Missing Persons in the Mainstream Media
and Society has to Demand a Change
Andrea Harris
University of Phoenix
RES/110
March 8, 2010
Dr. Fabio Moro
Media Bias: There is a Lack of Reporting on Minority Missing
Persons in the Mainstream Media and Society has to Demand a Change
People of all races, genders, and economic backgrounds go missing every day. However, national media operations fail to present a diverse missing persons population when reporting to the public. The families are campaigning, but the producers are not listening, adhering instead to the belief stated by Jackson (2005),
Middle America is not going to tune in night after night to catch the latest developments in the case of the poor black lady. Nor will they be driven to pick up a newspaper by seeing a dark face plastered on the front page under the words ‘still missing’. (para. 6)
Of the 700,000 children reported missing every year, 33% are black, but you would never know from watching television news. According to the Radio-Television News Directors’ 2007 annual study of diversity, Blacks represent 9.5 percent of those in TV newsrooms and are 4.2 percent of TV news directors (Latour, 2007). Though no one admits race plays a role, research shows that a higher percentage of white female stories were covered than other minority stories and the decisions were made by producers and newspaper editors, based on what they felt would draw in viewers and sales. Media bias is apparent when reporting missing person cases and society has to demand a change.
What is Missing White Woman Syndrome (MWWS)
Saturation of coverage of Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, and Natalee Holloway and a host of others like them, has reached such an all-time high that there is now a name commonly assigned to this phenomenon: The Missing White Woman Syndrome or MWWS. Its coinage attributed to Gwen Ifill of PBS, the term references the media’s...
Missing Persons in the Mainstream Media
and Society has to Demand a Change
Andrea Harris
University of Phoenix
RES/110
March 8, 2010
Dr. Fabio Moro
Media Bias: There is a Lack of Reporting on Minority Missing
Persons in the Mainstream Media and Society has to Demand a Change
People of all races, genders, and economic backgrounds go missing every day. However, national media operations fail to present a diverse missing persons population when reporting to the public. The families are campaigning, but the producers are not listening, adhering instead to the belief stated by Jackson (2005),
Middle America is not going to tune in night after night to catch the latest developments in the case of the poor black lady. Nor will they be driven to pick up a newspaper by seeing a dark face plastered on the front page under the words ‘still missing’. (para. 6)
Of the 700,000 children reported missing every year, 33% are black, but you would never know from watching television news. According to the Radio-Television News Directors’ 2007 annual study of diversity, Blacks represent 9.5 percent of those in TV newsrooms and are 4.2 percent of TV news directors (Latour, 2007). Though no one admits race plays a role, research shows that a higher percentage of white female stories were covered than other minority stories and the decisions were made by producers and newspaper editors, based on what they felt would draw in viewers and sales. Media bias is apparent when reporting missing person cases and society has to demand a change.
What is Missing White Woman Syndrome (MWWS)
Saturation of coverage of Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, and Natalee Holloway and a host of others like them, has reached such an all-time high that there is now a name commonly assigned to this phenomenon: The Missing White Woman Syndrome or MWWS. Its coinage attributed to Gwen Ifill of PBS, the term references the media’s...