Missing white woman syndrome

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Missing white woman syndrome, also known as missing pretty girl syndrome, is a term coined by a number of media figures that refers to a form of media hype.

In MWWS, there is a perception among the American public that excessive news coverage is devoted to specific missing or murdered white women and girls, while cases involving missing men, non-white women, or other news stories receive disproportionately less airtime. Reporting of these stories may last for weeks or months, and displace reporting on other current events, such as foreign affairs, economics and politics. Examples of excessive focus on missing white women can be found worldwide; however, it has been most prevalent in U.S. media, particularly on 24-hour cable news channels.

Noted American journalist Gwen Ifill was one of the first, if not the first, to use the term publicly; at the Unity Convention of journalists in 2004, she referred to the phenomenon as "missing white woman syndrome". [1] The label has continued to be used in journalistic circles. [2] Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin referred to this phenomenon in June of 2005 as "missing pretty girl syndrome" and "damsel in distress syndrome." [3] Similar terms were used earlier in several other print articles and most notably, was the subject of an award-winning feature in Essence magazine that same month, called "Have You Seen Her?". In this article, several missing African American women, most notably Tamika Huston of South Carolina, were profiled by journalist Kristal Brent Zook.[4]

Contents

[edit] Outline of News Media Involvement

  • A typical case involves 24-hour cable news media providing regular coverage on a daily basis of any and all developments, accompanied by lengthy discussions about the meaning of such developments by the shows' hosts and their guests. (The most notable examples of shows that currently feature these stories are shows hosted by commentators Nancy Grace, Greta Van Susteren and Rita Cosby, both featured on 24-hour cable news networks.) Such guests typically have a background in law and are invited by the host to freely speculate about evidence, suspects, and motive. Family pictures and video of the subject are shown frequently and repeatedly, and friends and family of the subject or a spokesman for them are frequently invited as guests and asked their opinions of the investigation and any evidence or suspects. As a story gains popularity, tabloid news outlets often pick up on it, many times leading to questionable or unofficial information being reported as hard news. Media critics suggest that this speculation often leads to a false consensus effect.
  • Those involved in the investigation of the case (detectives, prosecutors, etc.) are invited onto the shows and asked pointed and accusatory questions suggesting that they are incompetent or negligent. Sometimes, the suspects themselves are invited on the shows and asked similarly pointed and accusatory questions about their involvement. In the case of JonBenét Ramsey, rampant speculation by the news media led most people to believe that the parents were guilty. Later developments, some believe, pointed to a murder by a stranger, and the case went cold until a suspect, John Mark Karr, was arrested in Thailand in 2006. Karr was released, however, after DNA testing failed to yield a match between his DNA and DNA left at the crime scene. In the days that Karr was under investigation, a disproportionate amount of airtime was given to the case [5]. After Karr's arrest, the Toronto Star's Antonia Zerbisias commented that "it must not be lost on anybody that JonBenet was white, and pretty, and her parents rich." [6]
  • If the case drags on for several weeks, the resulting public sympathy often prompts friends and family of the victim to establish a website with detailed information about the case and a charity foundation, first to offer a reward, then, when the case is resolved, to provide scholarships or aid to the families of the victims of similar tragedies. Eventually, the case is resolved by the police, the news media gradually lose interest, or else a new, more urgent story comes to dominate coverage. Critics of the media say that very few follow-up stories are done unless major new developments occur.

[edit] Legacy

Frequently, cases that seem to fit this profile generate enough public interest that legislators are pressured to enact new laws that are meant to protect would-be victims of violent crime. Often, such laws are named or nicknamed for the victim in question. This is often cited by critics as an example of a deviancy amplification spiral.

[edit] Examples

[edit] Missing white females

Media critics consider the following cases (in reverse chronological order) to be examples of MWWS:

[edit] Missing non-whites or non-female

Critics contend the following examples of missing people received disproportionately little coverage compared to MWWS cases:

  • Kenji Ohmi (January 28, 2006) - a Japanese male exchange student. Japanese media cited low coverage in the U.S., comparing it with Audrey Seiler, a student who went missing which sparked wide media coverage and police hunt (she later admitted to staging a hoax), as an example of MWWS.
  • LaToyia Figueroa (July 18, 2005) - an 18-year-old woman of African-American/Hispanic heritage from Philadelphia area whose case became prominent because of an organized Internet campaign to counter missing white woman syndrome. [16] Internet bloggers campaigned 10 days after Figueroa was presumed missing. On August 20, 2005, the body of Figueroa, who was pregnant, was found in Chester, Pennsylvania. Charges are pending against Stephen Poaches, the boyfriend of Figueroa. Thanks to her family and friends' pressure, the major networks did aid in breaking the story.
  • Patrick Kim McDermott (June 30, 2005) - 48 year old male of Korean descent and boyfriend of actress Olivia Newton-John. Conflicting stories have been reported regarding alleged sightings in Mexico and the possibility that he faked his disappearance to avoid a legal battle with his ex-wife.[17]
  • Reyna Alvarado-Carrera (May 6, 2005) - a 13-year-old Hispanic-American girl, disappeared in Norcross, Georgia. [18]
  • Tamika Huston (May or June, 2004) - a 24-year-old black woman who went missing from Spartanburg, South Carolina on May 27, 2004, setting off a nearly 15-month search during which time the young woman became a symbol of the lack of national media attention devoted to cases involving missing minorities. Huston's body was eventually found, and a suspect identified in the case. [19]
  • Marilyn Renee "Niqui" McCown (July 22, 2001) - a 25-year-old woman from Richmond, Indiana was reported missing after leaving her mother's house. There were reports of two men harrassing her at a local laundromat earlier but no specific leads about the disappearence. Her vehicle was found in Dayton, Ohio. After much speculation, many feel that her case is becoming a cold case.
  • Shelton Sanders (June 19, 2001) - a 25 year-old male, black college student. According to MSNBC "Sanders’ case received scant notice outside his small hometown of Rembert, S.C., even though he was a high-achieving student at the University of South Carolina who worked as a technician in the Department of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science, and despite his father’s prominence as a county magistrate. Meanwhile, the disappearance of a white, female USC student with a similar academic record [Dail Dinwiddie] has continued to receive national attention more than a dozen years after she vanished in 1992." [20] [21]

[edit] Missing White Woman Syndrome and the Iraq War

Critics of MMWS also point to the example of the media coverage of Jessica Lynch versus the coverage of Shoshana Johnson.

Media critics suggest that Lynch's story was promoted because Lynch was a more palatable and identifiable figure to promote: a young, blonde white woman. Johnson, on the other hand, was a black woman who was a single mother. [22]

[edit] Criticisms of MWWS in the Media

  • On July 4, 2005, the collaborative website Kuro5hin posted an editorial highly critical of the media coverage of the investigation into the Natalee Holloway disappearance. The editorial accused the mass media of subtle racism for covering the Holloway case but ignoring the case of Reyna Alvarado-Carerra, a missing Hispanic girl. It was also critical of the great expense and time devoted to the search for a single missing person despite many other issues of concern the media could have covered instead. The openly combative and harsh tone of the editorial sparked hundreds of angry responses, including legal threats directed towards Kuro5hin's staff.

(For more discussion and debate of MWWS in the media, please see the news stories in the "External links" section of this article.)

[edit] MWWS in the United Kingdom

MWWS may also exist in the United Kingdom. For example, the case of Sarah Payne, a white 8-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered in 2000, received extensive attention and led to calls for Sarah's Law. The Soham murders, which involved two 10-year-old white girls in a small town, received very widespread coverage in the summer of 2002.

In January 2006, Commissioner of Metropolitan Police in London, Ian Blair claimed that the media displayed “institutional racism” in their coverage of murder cases, citing the Soham case among others.

However, some criticisms can be made from a British context:

  • Over 90% of the UK population is white, so it is likely that the majority of abduction and murder victims will be white.
  • Other factors may influence the degree of media coverage. Because the two vanished together there was for a long time hope that they were alive. Further the murder of two children by a non-family member is very rare so the Soham murders may have been newsworthy even if their race and gender had been different. The Soham girls disappeared during the summer "silly season", when the media are usually short of stories.
  • Cases involving young black victims such as Stephen Lawrence, Letitia Shakespear, Damilola Taylor and Victoria Climbié have also received widespread media exposure, although not always initially (none of these four victims were ever missing persons).
  • Many missing children cases receive little or no national coverage.

[edit] Parodies of MWWS

  • In 2004, American television's The Daily Show released America: The Book, which among other political topics parodied MWWS by offering a fictional formula regarding media coverage of a kidnapping. The equation went: MinutesofCoverage = FamilyIncome * (AbducteeCuteness / SkinColor)2 + LengthofAbduction * MediaSavvyofGrievingParents3
  • In the film Scary Movie, Cindy Campbell, who is being stalked by the killer, sends an email to police with the message "White woman in trouble!". Her house is immediately surrounded by several police cars.
  • In the Family Guy episode Saving Private Brian, journalists show great disappointment upon finding out that a girl killed in a school bus accident had a Hispanic last name, rather than an Anglo name.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

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