Last week I talked about the impacts of media consolidation on independent magazines and press. Something I touched on, but is elaborated on Freepress's blog Stop Big Media, is that actual impact this has on coverage of disenfranchised communities. If who you cover is based on ratings, there is a good chance you are not going to make an effort at covering issues equitably. Jordan Berg looks at the case of the coverage of missing women.
The Seattle Medium, a local, independent newspaper, highlighted one particular way Big Media is harming citizens: by failing to report on missing persons based on race.The article's investigation shows, "...national media operations often fail to present what is in fact a very diverse missing persons population," instead focusing primarily on white victims.
Why the preferential treatment? The corporate news media approach missing persons as another news segment that will draw advertising revenue. In other words, only a certain segment of missing persons is viewed as important enough to cover.
Take, for example, Latasha Norman, a black Jackson State University honor student who went missing for more than two weeks in late 2007, and barely got the media's attention. It was only after her body was found in Greenville, Miss., two weeks later that CNN picked up the story (only to quickly drop it).
At the same time, Stacey Peterson, a Caucasian woman who also disappeared, was becoming a household name due to constant media coverage on all the major TV stations. This is not to say that Stacey Peterson's disappearance should not have been covered. But why weren't both women given equal airtime when they went missing and needed the public's eye to help find them?
As anti-racist feminists this is something we talk about endlessly, but it is rare we discuss the actual reasons for disproportionate coverage of missing white women verse missing black women. Outside of blatant racism, if we can't sell the 10 o'clock news, our stories are probably not going to make it on there. This is a clear violation of what the purpose of media should be, which is a watchdog for our communities and a supplier of information.
Learn more about the work of FreePress and the organization I work for, the Center for Media Justice, two organizations working nationally to stop media consolidation and petition outlets for balanced coverage on the issues that impact our most historically disenfranchised communities.
Also, take action now to Stop Media Consolidation.
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Oppression Olympics NOT helpful.
How is this "Oppression Olympics?" Just watch the news. How often do you see stories of white women disappearing? Now think about how many you see about non-white women. Men? People who aren't conventionally attractive? Do you think white women are the only people this happens to?
Arguably, Stacy Peterson was pregnant, which upped the ante for her. Regardless of the abortion laws, society tends to look at the death of a pregnant woman as doubly tragic, especially in the case of Stacy and Connor because he could have been born the day she disappeared and been perfectly healthy and capable of living outside of the womb.
Of course, there are also plenty of other great examples of similar cases of missing white women consuming the media (Natalee Holloway anybody?).
It goes for children too. JonBenet Ramsey didn't leave the news for a year, but what about Erika Green, aka Precious Doe? Her parents (and killers) were discovered in 2005. I remember seeing a little blurb in the news about that. The step father has since been convicted and sentenced to life in prison, and I don't even remember hearing that in the news at all. On the flip side, John Mark Karr makes an outlandish confession to the murder of JonBenet, and every second of his time was scrutinized by every major news outlet until DNA proved that he wasn't at the scene.
Actually, it's Lacy Peterson, not Stacy. I knew the name sounded funny, I didn't figure out what it was until now.
Nope. Its a different Petersen...
I don't see this as "oppression olympics" at all.
Crime reporting can turn up leads, either through investigation by the reporter or by publicizing the crime so that witnesses may come forward and help the police. When crime reporting is slanted by race, and it often is, then crimes against women of color go unsolved. Also, when crimes against women of color are ignored by the media, it can work to create an impression that women of color are less often victims of violent crimes. (I believe that statistics show the opposite.)
Samhita, a blog that focused on this issue has been linked on Feministing before - do you recall the name of it?
In the United States, black and hispanic people are more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than white people, though other racial groups collectively are less likely to be the victims of violent crimes than blacks, whites or hispanics. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict_v.htm#race). The bunching here probably obscures American Indians, who I suspect are victims of violent crimes at a higher rate than whites, because their data is conflated with Asian racial groups, which are victimised at a lower rate). So saying "of colour" is probably a poor choice - black women are more likely to be the victims of crime than white women, but Asian women are less likely to be the victim of crime than white women. (I have not checked the census data, but I recall those two groups are roughly equal in numbers, so whether white women are victimised at, above, or below the overall rate is hard to guess).
Comparing against Canadian numbers to satisfy my ethnocentric concerns, it turns out visible minorities and non-visible minorities are victims of crime at indistinguishable rates. (visible minority is Canadian census jargon that means not white, not Indian and not Inuit) (see http://www.victimsweek.gc.ca/res/r55.html ) Indians and Inuit are disproportionately the victims of crime, however (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/060606/dq060606b-eng.htm).
actually, 83% of all rapes happen to white women, but black women are just as likey to be raped as white women.
Err, I was generalising to violent crimes, between specific crimes there is bound to be some variation (and in fact, that sexual assaults are more uniform than violent crimes as a whole is noted by the America Justice department in the link I cited earlier). We are talking about disappearances here, so I am not sure the sexual assault rate is preferable to the general violent crime rate (I did not see any stats particular to disappearances, since they probably get divided into murders/kidnappings/whatnot in crime statistics.)
But, yes, you would probably expect by default about 80% of the victims of any crime in the United States to be white, since roughly 80% of Americans are white. You would also expect a similar percentage in Canada (though as I recall America is a little on the shy side, and Canada is a little on the far side of 80%, but nonetheless).
Check this out:
http://www.incasa.org/PDF/women_of_color_and_rape.pdf
Black women are way more likely to be raped.
This is an issue that has bothered me for years. So many missing people go unnoticed simply because the news only focuses on people who will bring in viewers--usually poor, defenseless white women. I feel that missing people should receive equal coverage, instead of focusing on the groups more likely to bring in more viewers. Missing women, men, children, and others all deserve equal airtime in hopes that they may return home safely or, at the very least, allow their families to find some peace in knowing what happened to their loved one.
This is so true. White women are paid more attention too while non-white people and often men are ignored. I had a friend who disappeared off the coast of Guam and we didn't hear about it for two weeks. Even when we did, the only mention of him was in the local newspaper. He was an African-American man. During the same time period, Natalie Holloway had been on the news for over a year. It's sad when anyone disappears and is presumed dead. Why is it that the news thinks we only care about conventionally attractive white women?
(sorry this is a long one) Thanks for this post Samhita. These issues rarely get the attention they deserve. I'm a PhD student studying Sociology in Canada and my past and present research focuses on the lack of police and news media attention to missing/murdered Aboriginal women compared with missing/murdered White women. Even though Aboriginal women are more than 5 times more likely to die a violent death than other women in Canada, they are all but ignored.
For instance, my comparison of local press coverage of 6 matched cases (three Aboriginal, three White) found significant differences; 3.5 times less coverage for the Aboriginal victims, more than 4 times as many words in articles about the White victims. Coverage of the White women was incredibly detailed and offered full biographies of the victims' lives, including fond memories imparted by family and friends. Not so, for the Aboriginal women.
The Native Women's Association of Canada & Amnesty International have also explored the lack of police attention. Their findings, like mine, show that police often assume the women/girls ran away even without a shred of evidence to support this. The 'runaway' "theory" is used as an excuse not to take cases seriously. Often cases go unsolved and offenders are never identified or brought to trial, creating the impression that Aboriginal women and girls are easy and suitable targets for male violence since they are viewed as disposable in wider Canadian society.
Both the media, police, and public inattention to Aboriginal women in Canada is deeply rooted in sexist, racist, classist, and colonialist stereotypes which paints Aboriginal victims as bad women, who party too much, or are sex workers--even when they are not. The focus is never on their lives or the incredible loss felt by their communities and families.
The UN has called on Canada to explain why the justice system has failed Aboriginal families for so many years. My expectation is that the government will deny any wrongdoing and continue to pretend there is no problem as they have done for decades, especially when it comes to Aboriginal issues and Canada's ongoing colonization of First Nations, Inuit, Metis peoples. Thanks for keeping the issue in our minds! It is a reminder of why we must never stop fighting for an end to racism, poverty, and violence against women.
The public response can also discourage ( or encourage) offenders, IMO. If the public responds with anger and activity, this shows that the person is valued. If, on the other hand, a victim goes ignored? The message I feel is sent is that they were not all that important to the society to begin with.
The disproportional underreporting of brown skinned missing people is not limited to women---
I just read about this terrible case of a missing differently-abled child in St. Louis.
The story is so very depressing for any single mothers to read because "the system" failed her on every level. The louder she voiced her demand to protect (and later to find) her child, the more judges, case workers et c. called her "crazy."
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2009-03-18/news/vanishing-act-six-years-after-disappearance-nine-year-old-christian-ferguson-mystery-special-report/
Jjuliaava replied to sadie101 :
Check this out:
http://www.incasa.org/PDF/women_of_color_and_rape.pdf
Black women are way more likely to be raped.
-----------------------------------
sadie101 responds:
Jjulia, you linked to a site that disproves your statement and proves mine. that would make you either silly or purposely misleading. you pick.
From your OWN link:
Myth: Black women are raped at a much higher rate than
white women.
Fact: While black women are victims of violent crime more
than whites or persons of other races. Rates of rape and
sexual assault had similar incidence rates in 2001.
Yeah>>> I realized this after the post...
However, it also states this information:
"...the rates for adult
rape showed African-American women disclosing
the highest rate(37.9%)"
AND
" Among the people 12 and
older, about 83.5% of the population is white, and
82.5% of rape victims are white; 13.3% of victims
are black, compared to 12.3% of the population."
In my women' studies class, a documentary I saw recently says that there are indeed much higher rates of rape for black females.
So, I only partially stand corrected