Et Tu, Orin
Orin Kerr takes a cheap shot at the MSM for having the audacity to report missing persons who happen to be young, white, female and attractive. Funny-money quote:
I can’t stress enough that I am not saying this story isn’t newsworthy.
Actually, that’s exactly what he’s saying. Orin’s post does not identify a single old, non-white, male or unattractive person who went missing and whose disappearance was not adequately reported in the MSM. All he does is harp on the fact that Natalee Holloway’s disappearance was.
Every missing persons report is potentially newsworthy. Still, a person who followed the MSM uncritically might think that the only missing people in America are young attractive white women.
Perhaps so, if that person gets all his news from the radio and lazily assumes that anyone with a name like “Christina Williams” must be white:
Or if he’s the rare bird who shares Gary Condit’s taste in women:
Or anyone sick enough to be attracted to a prepubescent child like Polly Klaas, Danielle van Dam, Phoebe Ho, Elizabeth Smart or Erin Runnion (no links or pics this time).
I will grant Orin one thing: widely reported missing persons do seem to be disproportionally female.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has more. Meanwhile, lest anyone forget that the subjects of over-reported individuals are not exclusively female, don’t forget the world’s most famous tsunami survivor, Hannes Bergstroem:
Granted, Hannes didn’t go missing himself, but the fact that his mother did was huge news, despite her not exactly being the only victim of that same tsunami, and despite Hannes probably not being the only kid orphaned (or, as we later learned, half-orphaned) by it.
June 5th, 2005 at 11:05 am
Politicians, especially democrats, have really lowered their standards over the last several decades.
JFK may have been the zenith, while Clinton seems to have found (plumbed?) the nadir. Even goofy Ike had a pretty hot aide in WWII (may have been platonic only).
These days “attractive” means little more than available and willing.
In this respect I long for the good old days.
June 5th, 2005 at 11:45 am
Could be. Then again, maybe political office just isn’t the chick magnet it once was.
June 5th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
During the Elizabeth Smart case, there was at least one Fox News story about the unreported missing persons, who disappeared in just as mysterious circumstances but who weren’t in that attractive white category.
When Laci Peterson went missing, I thought it was the pregnancy that brought in the press. I did a blog piece about another non-white woman also pregnant, but unreported to the same degree.
I think I could show that bias but I’d need access to all missing persons files and then I’d have to work out how to determine what category they fall in and whether they are missing in a way that the media usually covers them. (Abduction by noncustodial parents would be filtered out.)
June 6th, 2005 at 7:25 am
widely reported missing persons do seem to be disproportionally female
…so take your daughters to the range *today*
June 11th, 2005 at 12:21 pm
MISSING PRETTY GIRL SYNDROME
If you are interested, Dan Riehl at Riehl World News has been tracking all the twists and turns in the tragic Natalee Holloway case in Aruba. Why do so many people seem to care so much? I’m very sorry for…
June 13th, 2005 at 8:46 am
Spinning Natalee
Eugene Robinson writes in the Washington Post: Whatever our ultimate reason for singling out these few unfortunate victims, among the thousands of Americans who are murdered or who vanish each year, the pattern of choosing only young, white, middle-cla…
November 25th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
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