Pretty, White and Female

If I said the name :Elizabeth Smart, Natalie Holloway, Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy or Kelsey Smith , you'd know exactly who I was talking about, right?

Do you know: Stepha Henry , Latoyia Figueroa, Amber Harris, Sintia Mesa, Chris Pineda ,Brendan Gonzalez or Tamika Huston?

No? Really? The people named all have one thing in common, they were/are missing. There is one huge disparity though; the people in the second list aren't white females. Oh, there's one other factor, they didn't get the media coverage that those in the first list got. In fact, the Stepha Henry case got bumped for coverage of Paris Hilton's front gate, on the day she went back to court.That's what I consider important stuff, right there."Cable news executives say they don't pick stories based on the race of the victims."The stories that 'go national' all have a twist or an emotional aspect to them that make them interesting," said Bill Shine, senior vice president of programming at Fox News."Link to story
Isn't a missing woman, man or child of any race, nationality or creed; emotional in and of itself? I'm sure it seems so to the friends and family of the missing. All disappearances have twists, they are all interesting. They all deserve the same amount of coverage. Why is it that no one seems to want to hear or report on the missing who aren't white, pretty or females.(Usually all three)Roy Peter Clark thinks he knows why. "It's all about sex," said Clark, vice president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg,Fla.Young white women give editors and television producers what they want. "There are several common threads," Clark said. "The victims that get the most coverage are female rather than male. They are white, in general, rather than young people of color.They are at least middle class, if not upper middle class." (Link to his story)

I think it's time that all missing person cases were covered the same way. Either they all get hours of media attention, or no one does. For more information on this "Missing White Woman Syndrome" read This Wiki article.