The Search For (Insert Attractive, Affluent Young White Woman Here) Is On! Exploitation At Eleven!
Of the many petty little things that have bugged me for some time (and what is the purpose of a blog beyond the publishing of self-indulgent, superior sounding rants), perhaps the most grating is the 24-hour news channel phenomenon of the Missing And Imperiled Attractive Young White Female. The latest is a young girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama who is currently missing in Aruba. Hopefully she will be found unharmed, but what I have to wonder is who exactly determines which of these cases get saturation coverage on Fox News--without fail Fox News is the worst offender when it comes to exploitation and sensationalism, although the other 24-hour news channels are catching up--and which ones join the thousands that are condemned to anonymity.
I was having my brakes checked today, and as luck would have it in the mechanic's waiting room I came across a notice that had been posted on the wall by the
National Center For Missing and Exploited Children. The notice listed 9 missing individuals of both sexes and various ethnicities. They ranged in age from 3 to 48, but most were teenagers. None of them had been missing longer than 6 months. Naturally I had not heard of any of them, and I'd bet a month's salary none of their cases has gotten any time on Fox News. Yes, some of these cases may be runaways, or people who have intentionally disappeared, or children taken by family members, but the point is that thousands upon thousands of people have gone missing in this country under potentially perilous circumstances. Why is it that we've heard of the pretty blonde 18-year-old from a wealthy Birmingham suburb who disappeared on a class trip to Aruba, but we haven't heard anything about Keyera Donte Davenport, an 18-year-old African American woman missing from Chicago for three months? I just picked her listing at random out of the thousands listed on the NCMEC website. At the risk of sounding like a cheap-shot artist, is Keyera's life worth less than the cute girl from the rich suburb?
I simply cannot believe that it is a coincidence that the sizeable majority of these "Missing!" cases that are splattered all over the news networks involve attractive young white women who come from fairly well-to-do families, usually with parents who appear sympathetic on camera. My point is not that people shouldn't be concerned about Natalee Holloway, the young woman from Mountain Brook. My point is that we should see the attention showered on these cases for what it is; a cynical attempt by news networks to fill the enormous maw of the 24-hour news cycle when they should be filling that maw with, well, news that actually affects the general public. You really can't blame the families--naturally they are always concerned first and foremost for the safety of the missing woman and will utilize any means that has even a remote possibility of aiding in the search. No, the blame must lie squarely with the media, who have obviously realized that exploiting these cases is a good way to fill time, elicit sympathy and garner ratings.
I know how heartless this sounds at first blush, but frankly these cases are not worthy of national media attention; they are tragic, yes, but they are tragedies that involve a relatively small number of people, much like a traffic fatality or an industrial accident, horrible events in their own rights that somehow never seem to merit saturation "team" coverage on CNN. On top of that, the thing always gets me about these cases is the fact that all the hand wringing and smarmy faux-concern from news readers never, ever seems to help anything. Honestly, how often is one of these women actually rescued from peril? Yes, there was that bizarre Elizabeth Smart case from a couple of years ago, but frankly there are too many strange circumstances and unanswered questions about that case for anyone to be able to draw any conclusions from it (Was she kidnapped or did she run away? Why are there different versions but no definitive facts about the "abduction" itself? Why didn't she just throw off that veil at some point and shout "I've been kidnapped!" at one of those parties her kidnappers took her to?). The hard truth is, when the media whips itself into a frenzy over these sorts of cases the end result is pretty much always either that the young woman is (sadly) found dead, or the whole thing turns out to be a put-on a la the "Runaway Bride." In the end, I can't imagine that all the media attention really does anything more than get in the way.
But there is no doubt that we will continue to see even more of these stories. I mean, why wouldn't the Fox News Channels of the world continue to circle these tragedies like vultures? These stories come complete with the fear-mongering already built in and are as simple and uncomplicated as news can possibly be. The lines between good and evil could not be clearer. Telegenic grieving parents, easy self-righteousness, none-too-subtle suggestions of white female sexual purity under threat--with qualities like these, who could possibly want to talk about news that actually affects the daily lives of the majority of the population?
Here's hoping ALL the missing and endangered people of this country come back okay, not just the pretty ones.
I was having my brakes checked today, and as luck would have it in the mechanic's waiting room I came across a notice that had been posted on the wall by the
National Center For Missing and Exploited Children. The notice listed 9 missing individuals of both sexes and various ethnicities. They ranged in age from 3 to 48, but most were teenagers. None of them had been missing longer than 6 months. Naturally I had not heard of any of them, and I'd bet a month's salary none of their cases has gotten any time on Fox News. Yes, some of these cases may be runaways, or people who have intentionally disappeared, or children taken by family members, but the point is that thousands upon thousands of people have gone missing in this country under potentially perilous circumstances. Why is it that we've heard of the pretty blonde 18-year-old from a wealthy Birmingham suburb who disappeared on a class trip to Aruba, but we haven't heard anything about Keyera Donte Davenport, an 18-year-old African American woman missing from Chicago for three months? I just picked her listing at random out of the thousands listed on the NCMEC website. At the risk of sounding like a cheap-shot artist, is Keyera's life worth less than the cute girl from the rich suburb?
I simply cannot believe that it is a coincidence that the sizeable majority of these "Missing!" cases that are splattered all over the news networks involve attractive young white women who come from fairly well-to-do families, usually with parents who appear sympathetic on camera. My point is not that people shouldn't be concerned about Natalee Holloway, the young woman from Mountain Brook. My point is that we should see the attention showered on these cases for what it is; a cynical attempt by news networks to fill the enormous maw of the 24-hour news cycle when they should be filling that maw with, well, news that actually affects the general public. You really can't blame the families--naturally they are always concerned first and foremost for the safety of the missing woman and will utilize any means that has even a remote possibility of aiding in the search. No, the blame must lie squarely with the media, who have obviously realized that exploiting these cases is a good way to fill time, elicit sympathy and garner ratings.
I know how heartless this sounds at first blush, but frankly these cases are not worthy of national media attention; they are tragic, yes, but they are tragedies that involve a relatively small number of people, much like a traffic fatality or an industrial accident, horrible events in their own rights that somehow never seem to merit saturation "team" coverage on CNN. On top of that, the thing always gets me about these cases is the fact that all the hand wringing and smarmy faux-concern from news readers never, ever seems to help anything. Honestly, how often is one of these women actually rescued from peril? Yes, there was that bizarre Elizabeth Smart case from a couple of years ago, but frankly there are too many strange circumstances and unanswered questions about that case for anyone to be able to draw any conclusions from it (Was she kidnapped or did she run away? Why are there different versions but no definitive facts about the "abduction" itself? Why didn't she just throw off that veil at some point and shout "I've been kidnapped!" at one of those parties her kidnappers took her to?). The hard truth is, when the media whips itself into a frenzy over these sorts of cases the end result is pretty much always either that the young woman is (sadly) found dead, or the whole thing turns out to be a put-on a la the "Runaway Bride." In the end, I can't imagine that all the media attention really does anything more than get in the way.
But there is no doubt that we will continue to see even more of these stories. I mean, why wouldn't the Fox News Channels of the world continue to circle these tragedies like vultures? These stories come complete with the fear-mongering already built in and are as simple and uncomplicated as news can possibly be. The lines between good and evil could not be clearer. Telegenic grieving parents, easy self-righteousness, none-too-subtle suggestions of white female sexual purity under threat--with qualities like these, who could possibly want to talk about news that actually affects the daily lives of the majority of the population?
Here's hoping ALL the missing and endangered people of this country come back okay, not just the pretty ones.
posted by Yukon Sully | 8:31 PM
2 Comments:
Dear Yukon--you got the name of the Alabama girl wrong...it's Natalie Holloway. Karen Jensen must be some other missing girl. I agree with you. You rarely see black people on TV looking for their missing whoever. And they certainly don't throw out a dragnet like they do for a young, white female. I would like to comment on the Runaway Bride. That guy she is engaged to sort of gives me the creeps. He seems controlling; way too confident. When she had to go to court, he went with her, and while she was being sentenced, she sat there and cried but she never looked at him. She's just not acting like someone who is supposed to be "in love." I hope she can work it out, whatever her problems are.
Thanks for the correction.
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