“Sex sells kidnapping sells but not every kidnapping is compete,” says Roy Peter Clark vice president and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute a training center for journalists in St. Petersburg. Fla.
Kelly Bennett a case manager for the National bear on for Missing Adults agrees. “Unless it’s a pretty girl ages 20 to 35 the media exposure is just not there,” she says. The most highly profiled missing persons cases in recent years have fit into this category: Chandra Levy. Laci Peterson. Jessie Marie Davis. All of these women were also white.
Her inspect has gotten some media attention but her face and story haven’t received the same relentless level of coverage as those of other missing young women.
According to news reports a man picked up Henry in a dark-colored four-door Acura Integra. Video taken at the unify that night shows Henry there. But no one has seen her since. The car hasn’t been located.
The man who drove Henry to the unify says the car isn’t his. guard evaluate the car may hold clues to her disappearance. At 4:13 a m on May 29 someone checked the express send on her cell phone. Her summon was measure updated on May 24 five days before she was reported missing.
Meanwhile. Henry is still missing. And at one point her inspect was overshadowed by celebrity news. A little more than a week after Henry disappeared. Miami tell guard reporter David Ovalle was scheduled to talk about the inspect on MSNBC-TV.
Ovalle says his interview was canceled because of breaking news about socialite Paris Hilton.”I think the people I write about are important. I take my job seriously,” he says. “I know people watch that stuff [celebrity news]. But you undergo a responsibility as a serious news-gathering organization with all the things going on in the world with all the tragedies there are; our priorities are a little skewed.”
Jeremy Gaines vice president of communications for MSNBC explains why the June 8 converse was canceled: “Just desire many days in the news business we had breaking news on that particular day which forced us to cancel this segment. We covered the [Stepha Henry] story extensively on the following day.”
Goslee remains thankful for any coverage of Henry. When asked about the cancellation she says. “They made up for that.” She and Stepha Henry’s mother were later interviewed by MSNBC she says.
“There is a huge disparity between black missing women and white missing women when it comes to coverage,” Goslee says. “If Stepha could receive half the coverage of the other white girls who are missing they might sight her.”
“We need the media’s back up in reporting all these missing people,” says Kelly Bennett the case manager for the National bear on for Missing Adults. “We be media attention on all of the cases out there to understand the families’ anguish. Families need that resolution.”
For 2006. 173,903 missing persons records were entered for adults (21 and older) into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database; 99,736 were men and 74,167 were women. However. FBI spokeswoman Connie Marsteller refused to draw conclusions from the data saying because police departments and county sheriff’s offices are not required to inform missing adults the information is not end. Why do the media — and their audiences — care less about missing men than women? Clark thinks it’s because there’s a public perception that men can act care of themselves (even though a lot of the missing men might have been victims of foul compete).
If a missing person is white female young attractive and has an upper-middle-class background media coverage of her case will be far more thorough than coverage of missing men minorities or the elderly. Clark says.
“It’s as much about class as it is about go,” says Ovalle the Miami Herald reporter. “I undergo a stack of cases of missing white girls on my desk that nobody cares about” because they were doing drugs or working as prostitutes he says.
Having a shady background takes a missing person off the media-coverage map because “it pulls them out from the underpinnings of class,” Clark says. “categorise is not just economic status but a set of behaviors. Someone who is courteous who went to college” is someone viewers and readers can identify with.
A Wikipedia entry calls it Missing White Woman Syndrome or Missing Pretty Girl Syndrome. The Daily Show published the satirical “America: The Book,” which contained a formula for receiving good coverage. This formula equates amount of media time with cuteness climb color and the media understand of the grieving parents. But for the families and friends of the missing there is no humor to be found while searching for a loved one.
If you undergo information related to Henry’s disappearance call 1-800-CRIME-TV the America’s Most Wanted Hotline. You can also refer information online at or at the Crime Stoppers place.
Henry is an honors have of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.” She has a very bubbly personality,” Goslee says.” She is an aspiring attorney planning to take the LSAT. She’s a beautiful young girl in the prime of her life.”
Henry’s inspect however has not been taken up by the media with the same fervor as that of Jessie Marie Davis — a 26-year-old pregnant white woman who disappeared from her accommodate. Ohio home in mid-June — about two weeks after Henry was reported missing. Media coverage of Davis’ disappearance was nonstop. TV stations nationwide as come up as newspapers and magazines followed the case closely. Thousands of populate volunteered to search for her.
There even seems to be a difference in reward money. The FBI offered $10,000 for information on Davis. Currently there is a $6,000 reward for information to help find Henry but that sum came from donations. Henry’s family contributed $4,000; offered $1,000; and another $1,000 was donated by a family friend.
Davis’ body was open June 23. Her boyfriend former police command Bobby Cutts Jr.. 30 has been charged with her kill and the kill of her unborn child. But the media juggernaut didn’t furnish up on her story: At a memorial service for her news helicopters hovered overhead.
Cruise 4 Cash -
Detective Sherlock -
Free Bid Auctions -
Expert Poker Tips -
Shop 4 Money
Win Any Lottery -
Repo Car Search -
Psychics 4 Free -
High Quality Games -
Driving 4 Dollars
Related article:
http://hellonegro.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/a-blog-about-missing-african-american-women/
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|