Media coverage???????

[logs]

Something else that I found troubling about the Madison Missing was a Milwaukee Missing.
I believe it was the same night that the young lady walked out of her housing unit that a 7 year old Black boy disappeared in Milwaukee. I never heard a word about it on the local news much less the national news. Numerous small children are reported missing every day but the media choice was to cover a missing college coed.

The little boy was found unhurt two days later and I have yet to hear the story.
This bothers me to no end.

I know we can not cover all missing persons but I would think the on the local level the 7 year old in town would be a more important story and more credible use of the media than that of an adult coed from another town 90 miles away who walked out of her unit. Even with the previous alleged attack on the coed, the 7-year-old is at much greater risk under any circumstance.

Is it about who needs more help or what gets the most viewer???

[burniegoeasily]

Interesting. I guess little kids dont sell advertising time.[:@]

[Deleted User]

[Deleted by Admins]

[trophyhuntr]

go ifferd

[Aught Six]

You guys have an excellent point here. Crimes in minority neighborhoods are way under reported. It borders on racism in my book. Also, the media traditionally has a liberal bias which should lead them to report more heavily on minority issues of violence and kidnapping but they don't. They disproportionately report on the white-upper-middle class drama queens.

I would suspect that viewer apathy is a major cause. Considering that the vast majority of viewers are white (well, at least until 2050), the news reports focus of stories that hit close to home for them. Many whites engage in stereotyping minorities, and they expect to hear about crime in a black neighborhood. They don't consider that news, just the norm.

I would be careful about labeling the actual reporting as racist, however. Television stations care about one thing: the bottom line. If their largest audience (usually middle-class whites) tune out, they'll take a bit hit in their advertising revenue. I would characterize that as greed, not racism.

[Tazman]

The media is and always will be biased to what improves ratings/sales. Violence and scandal sell, good news dosn't. Would you watch the news if they devoted an equal amount of time to the bad in Iraq as they did the good? Would you go grab a sandwich when the good was on to where you wouldn't miss the bad?

The media gives us what we want, violence and scandal.

[logs]

All good points about delievering what we want as far as the entertianment aspect is concerned.
How about Civic responsibility? I believe that part of their right to braodcast involves a responsibility to help the community and what better way than to aide in the search for a missing child. I don't think we should become dependent upon them in every case but when these two cases are compared, even before the Madison case was determine to be questionable, the 7 year old trumps the college queen hands down.

What the media tells me by their actions is that when they prioritized their broadcasting in these cases, a White adult college coed is a much higher priority than a Black 7 year old child. Regardless of the entertianment rating that sucks.