Discrimination in Missing Person's cases
The following is from a website called "The Collegian"
t's likely that most people in the United States and the rest of the world know about 17-year-old Natalee Holloway, right down to the number of hours she's been missing in Aruba.
For that, we have the constant coverage of cable news channels and the up-to-the-minute news tickers flashing across the screen to thank, even when other big stories, such as when the second Russian submarine becomes trapped underwater, are happening.
But how many news tickers have flashed and exactly how many days has it been since 25-year-old Latoyia Figueroa, a pregnant woman and mother of one from Philadelphia, was reported missing? The answer: Who's counting?
Figueroa was relatively unknown until a few weeks ago and by that point, she had been missing since July 18.
Meanwhile, how many hours, not days or weeks, had it been before CNN started to report that Holloway was missing?
The fact that young, white females, who also happen to come from families with money, garner mass media attention is proof that society wants what it feels it can identify with the most.
And a little extra money for a hefty reward never hurts either.
Isn't the media assuming that most people won't care as much about a missing pregnant woman of color as a blonde, blue-eyed high school student?
Maybe society should begin to question its ideals and the state of true equality in the U.S.
Perhaps the population at large deserves more credit than what the media gives it.
Perhaps people would begin to care, assuming they don't already, if the media reports with more regularity what happens to everyday people.
How such a widespread and ingrained problem can be fixed is anyone's guess.
There's the age-old argument of creating more "diversified" newsrooms, which would theoretically lead to more well-rounded news coverage.
But it's not just a matter of racism.
Even Centre County's missing district attorney Ray Gricar, who's been missing since April, can only get two or three days worth of national attention, which spans at most only a couple of minutes per clip.
After all, not everyone knows what it's like to have enough extra money in their pocket to offer thousands of dollars to find their loved ones.
The question has been asked many times before, but it's time to ask it again: Is the media a reflection of societal ideals, or does society reflect the media's interests?
