All Intensive Purposes

Cynthia Tucker, in today's San Francisco Chronicle (on-line at the Atlanta Journal Constitution), and (former Bob Dole press secretary) Douglas MacKinnon, in the Chicago Tribune (by way of Kevin Drum), both point out that the media loves stories involving attactive, middle-class white women in trouble: Jennifer Wilbanks (a/k/a the Runaway Bride), Teri Schiavo, and Laci Peterson come to mind. Writes Tucker:

A year ago yesterday, May 7, Stacy-Ann Sappleton took a taxi to Queens, N.Y., from LaGuardia, bound for the home of her future in-laws. She had flown in from Detroit to complete a few tasks for her planned September wedding.

She never made it. Her fiancé, Damion Blair, his parents and Sappleton's mother spent a frantic weekend searching before they learned of her tragic demise.

Never heard of her? Neither has most of America.

Like runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks, Sappleton was missing for three days. Like Wilbanks, Sappleton was young (26), middle class and planning a wedding.

Unlike Wilbanks, Sappleton's disappearance didn't receive 24-hour cable news coverage, complete with breathless speculation by celebrity pundits, or banner newspaper headlines. Unlike Wilbanks, Sappleton was black.

Tucker says, "If Greta and Nancy are interested in justice, and not just ratings, they'd devote some time to Sappleton's story." MacKinnon pursues this thought farther:

The cable networks, which can certainly be considered centers of journalism, are also business centers with a harsh bottom line. The ratings for the cable networks are generally measured in the hundreds of thousands of viewers rather than the millions of viewers the major networks attract. Therefore, cable stations are constantly on the lookout for any story that may spike and then hold the ratings. Stories like those of Wilbanks, Sjodin, Levy or Smart seem to fit those requirements....

I have a number of friends at the cable networks (or at least I did), and I have spoken to some about this very subject. While all professed disgust with the underreporting of missing minority women and young adults, most were very uneasy with the thought of shining a spotlight on their own management to ascertain an answer. "Besides," one of them told me, "you've already figured it out. We showcase missing, young, white, attractive women because our research shows we get more viewers. It's about beating the competition and ad dollars."

Tragically, but not shockingly, in the spring of 2005, it seems the color of one's skin can determine the worth of that individual to some in the media. Journalism, as a profession, must be better than this.

Isn't this a little like saying that an ox does a fine of pulling, but that it doesn't have the personality of a horse? If news gathering and reporting is left to large, for-profit corporations, the profit motive is going to affect what is covered and how it's covered. The way that "Greta and Nancy" feel about all this can only make a little difference at the margin. Tucker and MacKinnon make a good point, but expecting the cable networks to drop what's making them money makes about as much sense as trying to saddle up an ox.