With regard to missing children, statistical research which compares national media reports with
FBI data shows that there is marked under-representation of
African American children in media reports relative to non-African American children. A subsequent study found that girls from
minority groups were the most under-represented in these missing-children news reports by a very large margin.
[8]
A report that aired on CNN noted the differences between the level of media coverage given to caucasian women like
Laci Peterson and
Natalee Holloway, who went missing in 2002 and 2005 respectively, and
LaToyia Figueroa, a pregnant Black/Hispanic woman. Figueroa went missing in Philadelphia the same year Holloway disappeared. Figueroa and her unborn daughter were found murdered.
[9] The San Francisco Gate published an article detailing the disparity between the coverage of the Peterson case and that of Evelyn Hernandez, a Hispanic woman who was nine months pregnant when she disappeared in 2002.
[10]
Kym Pasqualini, president of the
National Center for Missing Adults, observed that media outlets tend to focus on "
damsels in distress" – typically, affluent young white women and teenagers.
[11]
Dr. Cory L. Armstrong pointed out in the
Washington Post that "the pattern of choosing only young, white, middle-class women for the full damsel treatment says a lot about a nation that likes to believe it has consigned
race and
class to irrelevance".
[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome
