Why The Media Cares So Much About Missing White Women
Is it because they just look so young, cute, and innocent?
When a young, beautiful white woman falls victim to crime, the world goes crazy. In the seven days Gabby Petito was missing, she was mentioned 398 times on Fox News, 346 times on CNN, and 100 times on MSNBC, in addition to coverage across news programs and opinion talk shows. The hashtag with her name has been viewed more than 900 million times on TikTok and Instagram has tallied 12,000 posts tagged with her name. Yet, in the past 10 years more than 700 Indigenous people have gone missing in the state of Wyoming alone, the same state Petito was found in. No one knows their names.
The type of visibility missing white women get isn’t bad. Quite the contrary: heightened media attention puts pressure on law enforcement to solve the case, can increase reward money, and reach people who might know something. In a missing person’s case, the more visibility, the better chances are that the person will be found.
The issue has actually nothing to do with Gabby Petito but everything to do with unfair media representation and white supremacy in mainstream media. Let’s face it: someone makes these editorial decisions. Someone decides what story should be aired and what shouldn’t, what is worth print space and what isn’t. Just look at Jelani Day, a black Illinois man who has been missing for one month and has received 1/10 of the media attention Gabby Petito did. The obsessive fascination with white women as victims and the perceived disinterest in covering people of color speaks multitudes of the value system that journalistic institutions follow.
“Everyone does everything possible when a white woman goes missing. […] we don’t have the same type of interest, attention, outlook, commitment when Black girls and women go missing.”
-Dr. Kaye Wise Whitehead
Editorial decisions should be made as objectively as possible, but complete objectiveness is unachievable; it’s simply human to push forward stories we relate to and empathize with. When we see someone who looks like our own daughter, sister, son, or friend, it hits closer to home. Exactly why newsrooms, publications, and all journalistic institutions should include representation of all ethnicities and races.
That’s far from reality though. According to the Census Bureau, racial and ethnic minorities comprise almost 40 percent of the US population but make up less than 17 percent of newsroom staff at print and online publications. Only 13 percent make up newspaper leadership.
The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are both 81 percent white. The Washington Post is 70 percent white. Minorities make up 72 percent of the population of Los Angeles, but only 33 percent of the Los Angeles Times. According to the Radio Television Digital News Association, in 2018, only quarter of staffers in TV newsrooms are people of color; in radio, the number is 11.7 percent.
In this report, researchers found large disparities in media coverage between missing white people and missing Indigenous people. Disparities were differences in character framing, the inclusion of photos, and the period of time when articles were written. For example, Indigenous people were more likely to have an article written about them being missing only after being found dead.
Last year, nearly 100,000 Black girls and women went missing. While JonBenet Ramsey, Natalee Holloway, and Laci Peterson remain household names, nobody talks about any of these women.
There are real, concrete consequences unfair media representation leads to. In an interview with Health magazine, Jamil Stamschror-Lott noted that seeing this kind of inequity play out over and over again “contributes to the psychological impact of being devalued [which in turn] contributes to racialized imposter syndrome, battle fatigue, and many other different emotional and psychological symptoms. BIPOC folks, in particular, are being indirectly socialized to believe that their community at large does not support their humanity.”
In addition to emotional and societal effects, disproportionate media representation puts people of color, and especially women, at greater risk of crime. As journalist Mara Schiavocampo highlights, murderers seek victims that no one goes looking for. Black, brown, and Indigenous women are at an increased risk to experience violence: murder is the 3rd leading cause of death for Indigenous women, and they are 10 times more likely to experience sexual assault or be victims of homicide than white women. Black women are 2–3 times more likely to be murdered than white women and 25 percent more likely to experience sexual assault. Moreover, as stated before, the amount of media attention is directly correlated to the possibility of the person being found.
For a country as diverse and multicultural as the US, these kinds of disparities are unacceptable. Diverse, fair media representation promotes those characteristics needed for an equal, inclusive, and safe society. Plastering the face of one victim on every news outlet while hundreds if not thousands of colored and Indigenous persons stay under the radar gives the impression that their existence never mattered in the first place. Women of color will continue to experience disproportionate amounts of violence and murder before the media sees equal representation as to their professional and human duty. Right now, the media promotes the idea that some lives matter more than others; an idea that keeps Black, Brown, and Indigenous people at a heightened risk.
Gabby Petito’s murder is a tragedy, yet another example of the violence women fear and face every day all over the world. Another reminder to constantly look over your shoulder, be cautious, carry pepper spray, keep keys in your fist if you’re a female. One more statistic to add to the list of 736 million women — that’s almost one in three — who have globally been subjected to intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both. The attention and coverage Gabby Petito received were needed and justified (although in some news outlets rather sensationalized too, but that’s a whole other issue). There is no need to ignore or forget any missing person, but a desperate need to show the same urgency towards missing colored and Indigenous people.
What can you do? Write to your local and national newsrooms and pressure them to include more racial and ethnic diversity in their board. Unsubscribe from platforms that don’t amplify and engage with minorities’ stories or that don’t commit to diverse, inclusive reporting. You can also donate to several grassroots organizations that do important work in bringing home missing Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.
