I was just on logging onto the internet and this was the first thing I saw. I read the article from news week and knew it related perfectly to what we have been talking about in class. It is a great article and I think it's something we do not see alot of in the media. Read it and post what you think!
http://www.newsweek.com/id/218911?GT1=43002
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Yeah, I haven't heard of this until now. It is a lot to have one woman (or person) murdered let alone all those names at the bottom of the article who have come up missing/dead. A very interesting way this killer is speculated to be killing also (contracting HIV from a prostitute). I am curious if all of the contributing factors : race, women, and the possible reason for the murders is why this hasn't come up in the news. Hopefully it will soon based on how it has been responded to or lack of response.
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty crazy that so many women have gone missing and/or been mudered without any media attention already. The aticle draws a good point in the fact that when a single white, middle-class woman is abducted or murdered the media is right on the story.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, there were various African Americn women who had been mudered and found in similar areas but were not acknowledged. I'm sure there are other factors in the lack of attention but in regards to this article, I feel like there was no attention until a white woman went missing. You could see how much effort the town put into bringing justice to the women by the fact that they had spent six years saving $20,000 for the search and that they posted a billboard with the women's pictures.
It's sad that with all of their own efforts the case was not noticed until a white woman was missing. Why didn't their story get aired sooner?
Although race seems to have played a role in this, I could see why the talkshow would have preferred to talk about the newest missing person. Television shows are all about ratings and I feel they chose to cancel the interview with Knight because there was something new with the case.
I agree that the cancelled interview was more likely because of a hot new news story vs the color of the skin of the missing and dead girls. Of course news media has to cover the most recent news, but at the same time that's thinking on the positive side.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it does show a media bias with almost no news coverage on all of the missing girls, even though it might have something to do with their choice of professions (prostitutes) or that they were drug users, since society tends to not "miss" the "lower" people such as these girls are portrayed to be. Either way, I think their murders should be covered whether they are a senator's daughter, or a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks, or any race, ethnicity, etc. There should not be a bias on these girls, and the media should cover them fairly. It is quite sad that the people trying to find the girls didn't get very far, yet at the same time, I'm glad they are trying.
This is very closely related to the video we watched in class the other day about colorblind privileges, except a more extreme example. The media is not consciously thinking, "we should cover the stories about white people before those about black people," but nevertheless the disappearances we hear about are just like the article says, about white middle-class women. Even just recently, it was all over the news that local authorities found the remains of Brooke Wilberger, who has become a household name in the last five years for most of western Oregon. If you haven't heard about it, she was an OSU student who disappeared from behind her dorm. As you can probably guess, she was a white middle-class college student. And the news story wasn't even about the fact that she disappeared or that authorities found out who killed her. They already arrested her murderer last year. The only bit of new information was that the suspect told police where her remains were, and yet the story dominated the nightly news for about a week. I wonder if the story would have gotten the same coverage if Brooke was a minority race. Similarly, I wonder if the Rocky Mount murders would have gotten more attention had it been ten white women that had gone missing.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, though, I don't really believe the amount of news coverage some such event is allotted has only to do with race. On the news, another description of a missing person that you don't usually hear is white, poor, just out of rehab with an extensive criminal history. I think a lot of it is the image that the media can portray. A story about an all-around good citizen disappearing sells a lot more papers than a story about a prostitue, white or black, going missing from the streets.
I think that it is so sad that ten women of color had to be murdered before the media even made a big speculation of it. You would think at least after the first two or so who were found in the same neighborhood, it would be investigated or be widely heard of through publicity. This is the first time I am hearing of this story. It is known that most cases get solved through publicity and we have even seen that if a higher class white woman were to go missing, it would be all over the news and the media. They even stated in the article: "If it was someone of a different race, things would have been dealt with the first time around; it wouldn't have taken the fifth or sixth person to be murdered". This goes to show that people subconsciously or even purposely neglect anything that has to do with people of different colors such as these "typical southern women". It also proves my point when Nancy Grace canceled her show about this story because a white woman went missing and they needed to do a breaking news. Hopefully some day this will be treated more equally, but like we talked about in class, this is just how people react when it comes to certain races.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I have heard of this particular story, but it is not the first time in which I've seen/heard/read about how the media decides to portray people of a different race, ethnicity, gender, class, etc. The way that the media handles these types of stories disappoints and irritates me. What happened to the whole equality thing? Does that get thrown out the window once the media finds out that the victims or the people involved are "different?" Just because some people have certain occupations and past behaviors, does not mean that their stories should be put aside. They are important to someone. I liked Knight’s ending statement: “If we can give a terrorist a day in court, we can get these women justice.” We are supposed to support and take care of our own. These women are “our own.” The terrorists aren’t, yet we deal with them. This just makes me wonder how many *other* stories are out there.
ReplyDeleteThis is extraordinary and I agree that it is very pertinent to recent discussions we've had in class, especially the question of if racism still exist in America. It's sad that our news media is so satiated with crimes committed on middle or upper class, Caucasians while so much is left uncovered when the victims are minority members, or people deemed as "less credible." I feel if I were in that position I would be extremely frustrated and insulted by the lack of coverage; are these victims covertly deemed "less important" by society simply because they don't have high enough incomes or perhaps come from natural growth backgrounds?
ReplyDeleteWhat can we do in our society to change the culture of our news media? It is possible to change what is given attention when those who head up news corporations are predominantly rich, white men? Is it possible that we are perpetuating stereotypes by lack of coverage?