Blogger Lorie Byrd has written a great article for Townhall.com. Check it out.
And Walter Williams is guest hosting for Rush Limbaugh today. Always a treat.
Update: Controversial stuff! Read “(White) Women We Love.” (reg. req.). It’s an op-ed about the “damsel in distress” media phenomenon and how the damsels are usually white. The writer implies that white victims of crime are more valued (or produce better ratings for cable news shows?) than black victims of crime.
Given the media’s obsession with the tragedies of women and girls like Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, Lori Hacking, Chandra Levy, JonBenet Ramsey — and the comedy of Jennifer Wilbanks — the writer has a point.
Related post: If Jennifer Wilbanks, Why Not Tamika Huston?
(Hat tips: Political Animal and Outside the Beltway)
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I don’t think it is necessarily that they value the lives of white women more than black (although for many in the media that may be true); I think it is that they perceive a larger audience interest in the tragedies of white women. So it is probably more of a business decision than an ideological one. That there is a larger audience interest is due to a larger demographic and, unfortunately, a tendency of white viewers to identify more with white victims.
Off topic: Did you hear that Sean Penn is going to Iran as a reporter to cover the phony elections? What a joke. And they wonder how we know they’re biased. Just wanted to let you know. (I think it’s the SacBee that hired him.)
La Shawn,
Glad you saw Lorie’s article! You must be doing something right… (and that’s what makes the LLL so mad.)
That’s funny, I was just thinking about this very subject a few days ago.
I think what nobody important writes above is part of it. But it’s also about the shallowness of the media. White women are, in general, considered more attractive than other women, and women who are considered the most attractive get more attention, period. That op-ed is right on the money.
Off topic 2:
Dear La Shawn,
Sorry about that. The paper is San Francisco Chronicle that hired Sean Penn to cover the Iranian vote. Hope you can find out more than I have been able to. Have a great day.
Most of us already know that Liberals are among the most racially prejudiced people in the world, as evidenced by their fury and/or amazement when anyone steps outside of the stereotype to which Liberals have assigned each group. But maybe there’s another factor at work here. Consider how the liberal media portray those whom they fear and/or idolize: Minority criminals and Leftists, homosexuals, and Muslims (especially terrorists)- all of whom are subjected to a constant barrage of kiss-up pandering.
Is it possible that they also fear and/or idolize beautiful white women?
I couldn’t care less what color these missing women are. Who the hell cares to be updated EVERY dang hour upon hour on cable news about it? It’s gets absolutely ridiculous.
Thank God for ESPN etc. when these instances arise…
Thanks for the tip about the great Townhall piece! It’s nice to see the women getting their due. I’ve just discovered your blog and am enjoying it a lot. Keep up the good work.
Yup, a topic we have ranted about many times, but yet…the same old, same old. Guess we’re not as enlightened as the ole MSM.
It’s a sad commentary on America, and the world, that the whiter and blonder and more Barbie-ish the kidnap/rape/murder victim is, the more people pay attention and the more legs the story has.
But the sadder commentary is that the MSM abandons all its pretenses of liberal activism and trying to remake society in a purer image and simply lunges at the bait like they were starving. You’d think that, with all their moralizing about making things more equal and fair, they’d spend some airtime on minority victims just to even the public perception of victimhood and to humanize the people who don’t happen to be Barbie. But no. The “best” story gets all the airtime, because the audience and the revenue is really all they care about.
They’re no better than the “evil” republicans in the end. Follow the money, as all the new Watergate fans are now suddenly so fond of saying.
This is just an extension to something that was brought up on Hannity a couple of weeks ago, and it dovetails with the things “seal-lover” and “nobody important” said above: larger demographic, thus providing more public interest, and due to that, white women are considered, statistically at least, to be more attractive. The point brought up on Hannity was that the “pretty young women” get almost all the airtime when it comes to crimes committed against them, be it rape, murder, kidnapping, or whatever.
It is definitely sad that some people pretty much get swept under the rug and others get plastered all over the public’s attention, usually based on how likely they are to evoke public emotional response, but that is the marketing aspect of the media coming into play, I’m afraid.
The coverage/newsworthiness ratio here is almost as ludicrous as the endless Michael Jackson saga.
Of course, he kind of looks like a white woman now…
What is a trackback spam siege?
BTW, O’Reilly took note of this victim color issue on his show the other night and agreed with it.
He noted that he has covered black victims as well as white, and while he did not mention it his show is one of the few that has given any time to the mass murder of Mexican women along the Texas-Mexico border near El Paso.
However, it interesting that O’Reilly, who is a big critic of black victimization ideology, should also believe that the “white damsel in distress” observation makes a legitimate point.
A few years ago a comedian, Whoopi Goldberg, I think,said she watched soap operas because she enjoyed seeing white folks in trouble. All of the cable channels that are geared toward women, Lifetime, WE, LMN feature movies and shows about women in danger ,as victims and they are almost always white women. Law and order series had a more racially balanced lineup of female victims. Personally I prefer more uplifting and optomistic fare.
Has anyone complained about the MSM taken a look at Fox News coverage of “missing white women”?
Is Fox News now MSM?
You’re probably addressing someone in particular, DS, but I don’t think there’s a distinction between liberal and conservative media when it comes to reporting about damsels in distress.
Good comments by Dave and WayneB!
I don’t think it’s so weird…news caters to the majority of its viewers. The majority of its viewers are white (in this country), considering that the majority of the nation itself is white. And a huge majority it is. I think the missing women stories are annoying to begin with, they randomly pick a young white girl it seems, and they stick to the story for ages- neverending news alerts and live on-location standups every 2 mins are uncalled for period. But, in the end, people want to see news stories about people like themselves, and I think that includes the racial aspect.
I think reporters themselves, most of whom are white (again, when you live in a nation of 300 million and over 210 million are white, most people of every profession are going to be white) probably lean towards reporting on whites themselves. I know if I were to sit down and write a story about anything (fiction, nonfiction, whatever), the character in my mind would automatically be white, unless I purposefully thought of the racial aspect in my head…I’m white so my character would be white. That’s just natural, I’d say. Just as, I’m sure most black Americans or hispanic Americans or asian Americans (or whoever else), if they were to sit down and write a short story on something, their character would be black or hispanic or asian respectively.
So really, I think it’s fairly natural that the viewers would be interested in these stories that seem to hit closer to home, and reporters target their stories the same way. If we were to go to a nation with a majority population of another race, we’d probably find the same thing. I guess it also shows that ratings are very important when it comes to news, even tho that probably shouldn’t be the case to begin with.
Would a young, attractive black teenager who’s on her way to Spelman College get the same 24 hour treatment?
I live in Birmingham. Mountainbrook is a suburb.
I have to be honest and say that I didn’t like ONE bit the fact that the ONLY faces seen as suspects were of course black. Everyday those same pitcures of those same faces were shown around the world. Now, nearly two weeks later, it seems that perhaps that LAST to see this girl happened to be a well-connected Dutch teen and his buddies. Hmmmmm.
Yes, it my hope and prayer that they find this girl alive and well. But it’s still the fact that the faces of two black men have been shown time and time again. ONLY in the eleventh hour does it seem to be that there’s more to this story
Good point Stephanie
Why is there any surprise about this? All media play to where ratings, or readership, and consequent advertising revenue are to be gained. Until some better-rated tragedy strikes, this is news alert flavor of the day–just another reality show. And why do attractive, white middle class, Christian girls in distress get so much attention? Last time I checked, this would seem to be linked to attempt to appeal to the majority of this country which is white. Not pretty, but a pretty simple explanation for the hype.
La Shawn, having been to the Dutch Antilles,
I’m sure that that the media coverage of this
incident is motivated by the fact that they
don’t want anything to disturb their image of
Caribbean paradise, no matter what the color
of the crime victim is! Regards, Tom
Click on my name for upcoming blogosphere anniversary news.
FNC seems to like these sensational stories. I was home from work a couple days ago and they were the ONLY channel running the most recent LA Freeway chase fiasco in its entirety. MSNBC and CNN updated every now and then, but FOX rans the whole dumb thing. I think they would have broken in only if an MJ verdict had been reached or another 9/11 was underway.
And, remember, FOX really took the whole Jennifer Wilbanks story to another level. They seem to be doing their part (as well as the other networks) in continuing to cheapen the news.
Thanks for the link to the Byrd article. It was very interesting. I think one of the main barriers to women bloggers is time. Lorie Byrd is lucky that she manages to find the time to blog after running around with her kids all day. I don’t know how she does it, because most other women would not be able to summon up the energy to do what she is doing.
In addition to the “Missing Pretty Girl” syndrome (as Michelle Malkin described it), there is also the “Hot Athletic Guy Couldn’t Possibly Have Done It!” syndrome.
This generally occurs when a “hot athletic guy” (so described by women, I’m straight so I have no clue what that means) is accused of rape or murder. Examples include the indignation that arises when sufferers of the syndrome hear that Scott Peterson, the Yuppie Strangler, or frat-boys on the football team are accused of committing a crime - “they couldn’t possibly have done it!”
Average Joes, dorks, and nerds are generally preferred as the “obvious” suspects.
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I also agree with Stephanie. I do have a problem with O’Reilly’s coverage. He point blank labeled the first two suspects (who happened to be black) as “bad guys.” I didn’t hear the same condemnation for the next 3 suspects (who happened to not be black). It doesn’t make him racist, it just means he pre-judged the first 2 suspects without getting the rest of the story. Race may or may not have been a factor in O’Reilly’s declaration.
This story has been way over-covered in my opinion. Race probably has been a factor in that.
The media still has (after all the years) the bitter taste of Tawana Brawley in it’s mouth. That kid pretty much ruined it for non-white “Damsels in Distress.” I saw that case change an awful lot of attitudes!
La Shawn:
The comments about the “unfairness” of the White Blonde Damsel in Distress hysteria is almost as interesting as the story itself.
Let’s face it - men of all colors like blondes. We are a culture of “blondes have more fun”.
We are obsessed with the myth of “Vionence Against Women” - but let me tell you - working as an anesthesiologist in a trauma center, the majority of victims I see are men - young Black men - probably unlikely to get coverage on Fox News.
To the media, all people are NOT equal.
Maybe beacuse I am blonde-ish, I’ve always had a thing for redheads and raven haired women
Saddly, to Frank’s other point, you won’t get many young men to stand up and admit they just had their ass beaten, esp if it was by a lover.
Now add in that at FNC, and the rest of the media actually, black man beats up black man isn’t news. Black man beats non-black man is only news if they think that Jesse Jackson and co won’t land on them with both feet. White man beats black man is always news, because there aren’t any ‘advocacy’ groups out there to protest that story that the media fears/respects.
Profit motive, as others have pointed out, combine with fear, to give us crappy reporting.
I think the Lacey Peterson case was big, not just because she was a pretty white girl. Scott was a shady acting pretty white boy. Had he been a shady pretty black boy, I think much of the media would have been slower to accuse him, and do more to report the non-shady aspects of his life/alibi. If only to dodge charges of racism or to prove their enlightened creditentials.
Frank wrote:
“Let’s face it - men of all colors like blondes. We are a culture of “blondes have more funâ€.”
I think men of all colors like women of all colors, it’s just that the almighty ad execs have pushed blondes almos exclusively for decades now.
“We are obsessed with the myth of “Vionence Against Women†- but let me tell you - working as an anesthesiologist in a trauma center, the majority of victims I see are men - young Black men - probably unlikely to get coverage on Fox News.”
And just who is it who perpetrates these acts of violence against young black men? Statistics show it’s almost exclusively other young black men to a degree of better than 99%. Funny how that never gets mentioned either. Funny indeed.
“To the media, all people are NOT equal.”
To anyone with any sense of reality all people are not equal, but most people tend to view behavior as a more reliable measure of a person than physical characteristics, though in the case of crime, statistics point to definite trends. I know a lot of people will start knee-jerking over this, but it’s real, it’s fact, and denying it won’t help. Bill Cosby is right.
None of these women were attractive to me; I hate these stories!
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