Media Coverage
Posted by Joshua Claybourn on 28 July 2005 | 8 responses
LaToyia Figueroa, a 24 woman that is five months pregnant, has been missing for almost ten days. Typically these “missing woman” stories jump to the national media quite quickly, but this one took ten days. Is it because LaToyia is black, whereas the other (in)famous stories concerned attractive white suburban women/children? Discuss.
8 Responses to “Media Coverage”
Timing plus circumstances. Not much was going on in the news when the Holloway kid disappeared plus with the “exotic” location and her innocence, people were interested. However, only 1 news station kept pushing it and continues to push it. And, it is what the public wants because Fox News ratings far exceed any other cable news network.
Is it because she was from a wealthy, white southern family and is moderately attractive? Probably has a little to do with it. But, I think the circumstances / facts have to do with it (Aruba, parents can empathize, academic all star, “innocence” etc.).
Plus, after the Wilbanks fiasco, whom most people were comparing to the Peterson ordeal, “adults” are probably treated or recieve a different level of attention in the media.
Yes, its pretty obvious too. Haven’t heard the FBI wanting to get involved or people from Texas coming to help out, despite the fact there is an unborn baby. Oh but its a poor black baby, conceived out-of-wedlock…these things matter, and influence whether a story will be picked up. Good thing we have the blogosphere to spread the word a bit…
Media is a business selling a product to consumers. Nothing more. It knows the demographics for its audience. My bet: Black people don’t watch as much news as white people. If viewing demographics were different, this story would be page one.
If her car had been stolen the investigation would have started immediately upon reporting the theft !
Well, when a car is stolen we know a crime has been committed. When an adult is reported missing, it’s not as immediately certain that foul play is involved. People sometimes just go somewhere and don’t tell anyone. Cars don’t.
Anectdotally I can say that’s not true. One can get on an IndyGo bus and you’ll hear plenty of Blacks talking about the news, especially what appeared on television. I can even tell you of all the times I’ve been stopped on the street because of some item I’ve written a week earlier. The fact is Black people are news consumers and often mainstream news consumers. It’s in some ways difficult to measure largely because Nielsen has difficulty getting Black families to participate in the ratings system, but Blacks do watch the news.
As for the young girl: Part of it is certainly race and packaging; a white girl from a middle-class family will certainly attract more attention than a poor black woman who’s an unwed mom. After all, such nasty things are supposed to happen to poor Black women — at least according to conventional wisdom — and besides, many probably think she probably just moved out with some pimp boyfriend and became a prostitute somewhere. No one would think that a middle-class white girl, she of pristine values — sure! — would do such a thing.
Both cases probably aren’t worthy of any airtime; hundreds of women — including middle-class Whites — are kidnapped daily, along with hundreds of children and almost none get any press attention. But it’s the dog days of summer, so the missing chick story is game. And if one had to choose which missing chick, the middle-class white girl will win every time.
Now if one thinks this is just a white bias, remember Rosa Parks. When she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat at the front of the bus, another woman did the same thing. But the latter was a foul-mouthed unwed teen mother — not good if you’re the NAACP and looking for symbolism of racial segregation — so Rosa won out.
I am still in my 20’s but I can’t recall ever viewing a mainstream news story regarding a missing or murdered black woman with the type of mainstream coverage as some of the others in recent years. I am sure there are a number of issues that influence such decisions as to why a story is covered, but it does raise a fairly substantial accusation.
Didn’t they do a study on this in Chicago?