Right on, Ann. I was horrified when the news of Kia Johnson was announced on CNN; I had to switch channels immediately. It was delivered for maximum shock value. Language does make a difference. That is why I use the harshest language possible against John McCain. Hopefully, when we have a more intelligent and level-headed Barack Obama in the White House, the media will be more careful in how it portrays the human aspects of tragedies such as this, as opposed to producing a piece of attention-grabbing news for someone else to consume. Your M-F (not motherfucker) pal CNBC Sucks at http://cnbcsucks.wordpress.com

PS: I have been catching up on the whole Jessica / Ann Althouse thing from back in 2006 (yeah, I just got out of the cave) and I have to commend you guys for carrying the torch of feminism. I think that Althouse might actually even be for McCain! Sorry, I know that was off-topic, but if McCain gets elected, the cynical dehumanizing will only get worse.

Busted! Sorry, I will try to be more relevant and on topic from now on. That said, I think the media does what it is most likely to get away with, so when it comes to insensitive, dehumanizing coverage of tragic events, there is a racial undertone to the language used. I don't know what's worse though - if the language used is an outcome of a journalist's subconscious attitudes toward blacks and other minorities, or a conscious editorial decision to exploit based on a calculation that no one would take note. It's the same with CNBC - does the anchorperson or reporter actually believe what he or she is saying or is there some underhanded editorial agenda at work? Either way, media needs to be held accountable and that is a good and necesary purpose for blogs such as yours and mine.

I read a headline over someone's shoulder: "Baby Thief Arrested." I don't know remember which woman was the subject of the story, but the headline implied that someone had cracked open an incubator rather than a woman. Completely dehumanizing.

The Toronto Star headline on July 20 was:
Woman Charged After Baby Stolen From Uterus.

I have no words to describe what it felt like to read of a woman and her life reduced to nothing but the baby-containing body part.

It's interesting... race is the obvious difference here, but I wonder if, had Kis Johnson been married, she would've been given the same gentle descriptors granted to Bobbie Jo Stinnet.

Thanks for drawing attention to this.

CNN is doing a whole "Black in America" segment. Perhaps they should include themselves in the analysis...

TheFlash, I had the same questions, relating to marriage and age. Kia was presented as a "pregnent teen" which is itself a value-laden statement. She is not given the honor of being a mother, just a screw up. If she had been older, would she been given some more respect? As it is, it sounds like she, herself, is part of the problem.

Oops, I accidently went to feminocracy.com, boy was that a mistake.

I agree that media seems lack any sympathy for people of color, and unfortunately, this is example is only one of many. I know feministing has done blogs about how only missing white girls get on the news and I always wonder about the coverage of Columbine and Virginia Tech - would these two events have gotten as much coverage if they occurred at historically black or inncer-city schools?.

The Flash and Mama Mia, I too wondered if Kia had been married if they would have used the same honor. However, I do recall other cases wherein unmarried mothers were murdered, and the media called them mothers. I also felt that the "teen" label was oddly placed. Normally it's "young woman" for young adults. Perhaps they were trying to emphasize Kia's youth but the usual commentary about the loss of life is missing. Kia is reduced to her horrible death and nothing more. I still haven't found out if she has any sort of family--but the reports mention that the last time Kia was seen alive was when Kia was visiting a prison inmate. Normally news media would seek out friends and family for reactions. I guess they're not interested since the person is in jail. Normally these kind of reports seek out the humanity in the victims and try to get personal details of their life that inspire sympathy for the life that has been lost. Perhaps the news media thought that Kia's death would be much more sensational than any attempts to personalize her story would be.

I agree with readers on here that there is heavy bias when it comes to reporting and language on white individuals v. individuals of color, particularly languages that has the ability to humanize or dehumanize a situation. A major situation that comes to mind was the reporting and coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

However, I'm always heavily annoyed that the media has the tendency to identify a woman as a mother first (or another relationship title) in the headline: "Missing Mom, Slain Mom, Grandmother Killed in Hit and Run, etc." regardless of the situation at hand.

I remember reading a while back rules on journalism. One of the rules in creating headlines was (paraphrasing here, as I can't remember the source): if she's not YOUR mother, grandmother, daughter, etc., then don't start off as identifying her as such.

Wasn't there just another one of these cases very recently? Where the baby died as well as the mother? The mother was strangled. I think it was in California. I'm in the late stages of pregnancy myself so these have jumped out at me. I wonder why that case hasn't gotten much press, maybe because the baby died as well.

I noticed the bias toward poor Kia Johnson. I'm sure the journalists who wrote the storyies would explain it by saying that no one knew who she was at first, she was just a body found in the woman's apartment, but it goes to show that she was dehumanized from the start. This story also goes to show the sad state of mental health care in the US, as the perpetrator was well known to the system, having attacked pregnant women before and served time in prison. If she had been treated as a mental health patient in the justice system, rather than as a common violent criminal, Kia Johnson might still be alive.

Good observation Ann!

People who are media apologists (and they are on the left and the right of the political spectrum) will often try and point to some kind of numeric parity in reporting when observers note a bias. But, as you have observed here, numeracy isn't the real defining point of the impact of reporting. The sad fact is most people out there are either not trained well enough to observe and note semantic content/impact of specific word usage or visual images ranging from font size/type or the kind of graphic used or they get all their news from one source and one source only so they assume that things are reported the same all over.

I've been noting how often my local news programs will use mugshots of POC rather than the family photos they tend to use of white people when reporting the news. The most shocking thing is that even when a POC is a crime victim of a white person the news will use a mug shot of the POC and either a family photo or no photo of the white person (this was something I noticed last year when a Hispanic man was run over and killed, while on a bike, by a white drunk driver who also had a criminal history so one would assume a mug shot could have been used for him as well). Thus the media practices selective victim blaming. This is most common in my area (Oregon) when the victim is Hispanic.

Thank you Ann (and Ophelia--good Lord, those comments at the other blog are just awful) so much for posting this! I've noticed the language used regarding Kia Johnson, but am not as familiar with the other story, so I didn't have anything to compare it against. The dehumanization of Kia is startling.

I agree, it's disgusting and outrageous. Even after their death, the media can't discuss Black & White women equally.

Can we also discuss how abducted children of Color are almost never mentioned in the news (versus when the victims are blond, White girls)?

Holy shit... I just read that Lisa M. Mongomery, who killed Bobbie Jo Stinnett, was charged with 'Kidnaping Resulting in Death' - not murder. She strangled Stinnett and then cut her stomach open, but the wording makes it seem like Stinnett fell and hit her head while Montgomery was borrowing her baby.

Holly:Because this was a federal case the charge was used in order to ensure the death penalty was an option, since kidnapping resulting in death is one of a few federal crimes that leaves death penalty as an option.

So "kidnapping resulting in death" is essentially equivocal to "murder in the 1st degree" but using language specific to federal courts.

Ann posted at July 23, 2008, at 09:18AM: "Maybe this particularly resonates with me because I work as an editor, and I see it as a heartbreaking example of why language matters. How word choice can humanize (and dehumanize)..."

...and clarify (and sugarcoat). "Corpse in Pennsylvania baby mystery identified" is dehumanizing. At the same time, "woman charged in death of eviscerated pregnant teen" is sugarcoating the attack more than "woman arrested" is.

Thank you for this. For me, it brings back the "black man looting, white couple finding supplies" photo controversy after Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/photos/looters.asp

More applicable, is how white victims receive precedence over black victims, as when a child/young woman disappears:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome

"Even in cases where foul play is suspected, if the victim is male, is of Afro-Caribbean or Asian descent, is a prostitute, has drug problems, is a persistent runaway, or has been in foster care, reporters are said to decide that their readership is less likely to relate to or empathize with the victim, and reduce their coverage accordingly."

Also, "The National Center for Missing Adults have also commented on the phenomenon saying "Unless it's a pretty girl aged 20 to 35, the media exposure is just not there."

I will not mention names, also recall "MWWS in Iraq War"

Oops, I got it totally wrong! That should have been:

At the same time, "woman charged in death of eviscerated pregnant teen" is sugarcoating the attack less than "woman arrested" is.

Oh, sigh. These women are not getting the respect they deserve. Not only is the coverage severely lacking, but the women of colour are reduced to baby boxes in their deaths. It really reminds me how everything is connected - sexism, racism, the media and the pro-life agenda. It's heartbreaking but I feel like sites like these are making a difference, just based on the awareness of these issues. Thank you, Ann, for bringing this up. At least these women are finally being recognized.

After reading headlines such as those quoted above and the ones relating to the Hurricane Katrina survivors it is not surprising how pervasive implicit racism is in our culture; always on the back of our tongues and even beyond the realm of our consciousness. I often wonder if there are any black people working in conjunction with the journalists/editors who choose to convey the news with such a heavy bias. I would hope that they would speak up if there were but I believe this implicit racism has no racial biases and takes the form of implicit defeatism (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0BxFRu_SOw) amongst black folks. It is truly heartbreaking that these not-so-subtle and extremely powerful differences in journalistic integrity are still so abundant. There was a time when I thought about becoming a traditional journalist but it is precisely these types of practices which have convinced me that the traditional media is so tirelessly flawed and not worth my time.

Thanks for clearing that up, Logrus. I'm definitely ignorant to Federal wording. I do not support the death penalty in any case, but shouldn't 'murder' be a more serious offense than 'kidnapping resulting in death'? I mean, It's all semantics at this point but it definitely sounds to me like an accidental death.

Holly: Yeah legal terminology is just like any other technical language, it rarely makes sense to anyone who isn't a technician (IANAL, but like MD's my family is rife with them so I'm semi-conversant in law-speak and med-speak); also they are also somewhat restricted because, to a degree, a new term needs to be arrived at for a lot of new legislation. So the term "murder" was probably already in use for a crime that was significantly different than this one or had a significant difference in penalty.

I too am against the death penalty, not because I'm against death but because I'm aware that we do have a flawed justice system and I refuse to be willingly complicit in the deaths of innocents or disproportionate minorities since POC are more likely to be given the death penalty than honks.

But I am all for citizens using justified means to defend themselves from imminent danger, and to a degree, personal property. I would also be on the side of "acquittal" in a burning-bed scenario so I can't say I'm anti death penalty because "it's legal revenge".

So I'm in the weird stance of often having to explain how I can be "pro-death" while being "anti death-penalty". I guess I don't like doing anything the easy way.

Holly: Should have said this too, while some states to recognize the concept of "accidental death" during the commission of a crime (and sometimes it is broken down between a felony or a misdemeanor; so if you kills someone while running a red light you won't be tried for murder but if you kill someone while robbing them you will). But AFAIK the feds are uniform on this. You participate in a felony, someone dies, it's murder. "Accidental" death is not recognized as a mitigating factor in the federal courts. You chose to initiate or participate willingly in a situation that resulted in death, you're fucked.

And while against the death penalty I completely agree.

jamesneysmith: I think you're touching on something about the complicity of some people who are propped up as representing the black community by the predominantly white media. Look at the people who we are told are the "leaders of the black community", the two most recognizable names being Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and how they are used to create more division, not only between the black and white people of our nation but between POC themselves. Jackson's recent comments about BO being just the tip of the iceberg.

Of course the American black community is just as subject to the media as anyone else in our nation are left thinking these few men are their public voice. There is no way that I can be convinced that using men like them, when there are so many more intelligent and progressive people capable of speaking to the issues affecting the black community is anything other than deliberate obfuscation on the part of the media.

Logrus:

I don't live in the states, so my opinions on the death penalty are almost purely theoretical (Canada abolished it in 1976) but I completely agree with you. There are certain cases that make me want to scream 'fry the bastard!' (see above) but there's no way I'd trust a judicial system with that kind of power.

It certainly oversimplifies the situation, but when discussing capital punishment with someone who's pro, or undecided, I usually just ask the person if they have total, unobstructed trust in the decisions their government and legal system make. It usually puts things into perspective.

Thanks again for the education on wording and 'accidental death' and such. It makes sense now. Being Canadian and not even versed in our law and med-speak, I appreciate it.