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Missing Girls and the media
From www.bet.com
Missing Children: Is the Media Favoring White Kids? http://www.bet.com/images/bigbarker/...izabeth_bb.jpg Posted June 17, 2002 -- Have you ever heard of Alexis Patterson? Many who live in or near central Milwaukee have. The 7-year-old disappeared May 3, when she was on her way to Hi-Mount Community School. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, very little about Patterson, an African-American girl, has been heard nationally. On the other hand, Elizabeth Smart, a 14-year-old White girl from Utah, who was apparently taken from her family's million-dollar home at gunpoint, has made the national news circuit on a regular basis. The New York Times and The Washington Post both reported about Smart; neither reported about Patterson, the Journal Sentinel reported. According to the Journal-Sentinel's research, more than 400 stories have been written about Smart, while only 67 stories have been written about Patterson. ------------------------------------------------------- Ok, I am shocked :eek: because I have never heard about Alexis Patterson and she has been missing since early May! On the otherh hand, i have heard about Elizabeth Smart daily. Ohhhh :mad: |
This is a new one to me, too. I remember the little girl in Florida who was in the state's custody, but no, she was with the grandmother..:confused: I remember that case.
I think it has to do with dollar bills. If you have money and the resources to get the word out, then it's there. It just so happens that the "whites" HAVE the money. Now, that case in Florida probably made headlines because many wanted to expose the system as being flawed, then Jeb Bush is the governor there... Let's just show America that Florida is "screwed" basically....(no offense to Floridians, but you know where I'm going. You all have not been let off the hook since the election.) |
Re: Missing Girls and the media
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Money does talk. The Smart child comes from $$$$, she was snatched from a house valued at $1.1 million. This sort of reminds me of Jon-Benet Ramsey. |
Now, remember when Dr. J's son was missing? That report was all over the media. Again, money talks...(you know the rest). So, there is a case where FROM THE BEGINNING, an AA was highlighted in a missing persons case. It was a "high-profile" case.
It's sad, but that's normally how it goes. :( |
Cory Erving
I sure do remember when Cory Erving turned up missing. It was covered heavily on TV, including sports radio, because of Dr. J's legendary status.
Money sure does talk. |
There are several things that the media is looking for when they decide which stories to pick up off the "wires"
The "hook" There are hundreds of murders/missing persons/ etc. each day. What makes this one different? 5/6 year old "beauty queen" murdered in her own house, wealthy neighborhood (JonBenet), girl kidnapped out of house while family sleeps, including little sister in the same room, again, in a wealthy neighborhood in "safe" Utah, famous ex-football player charged with killing his wife and her friend (need I say it??? :D ), etc. All of these stories had a hook. If you remember, there was a story about a little black girl who was killed in a casino a year or so ago? That story made the news because of the "hook" of little girl in the casino. They also look for the story that will bring out the most sympathy from the audience. Of course there is racism associated with that. If you cannot identify with a little lost black girl, then why would you feel sorry for her disappearance? |
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Another perspective
I found this story on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Web site, written by its television-radio columnist. I sort of agree with his points, but it is still bothersome because part of me thinks that video shouldn't be the only factor in picking stories for the news.
Then again, I'm a newspaper reporter, so I see things differently. The criticism of national news outlets, especially TV, for over-playing the Elizabeth Smart story while ignoring other missing kids, like as Milwaukee's Alexis Patterson, is on point. The impression created by the out-of-whack coverage is that the daughter of an affluent white family is more precious than a 7-year-old black girl whose family hasn't climbed as high up the economic ladder. And that's an impression the news media shouldn't be fostering. But there's another, far simpler explanation for the discrepancy in news coverage: Video. It's not an excuse. But it's a key reason why some news goes national and some doesn't. Moving pictures are the driving force behind TV news. We've now seen the home video of the 14-year-old Salt Lake City girl over and over. There's Elizabeth playing the harp, acting in a school production, roasting marshmallows at the beach. As tiresome as the snippets of video become, they've helped transform Elizabeth Smart into a living, breathing person for TV news viewers. It's the same way that JonBenet Ramsey was humanized by the endless showings of her beauty pageant footage. If there's any video out there of 7-year-old Alexis, it hasn't been made available to television. Moving pictures of little Alexis might have helped broadcast her story across the country when she first disappeared. Sadly, most Americans are just hearing her story this week, nearly a month and a half after she vanished. Plus, I was reading the JS story that led to the BET piece, and it also pointed out that media coverage may also be less than enthusiastic if the parents aren't perceived as being sympathetic. Alexis' stepdaddy served a two-year prison term for selling drugs and he was also a getaway driver during a bank robbery in October 1994 that led to the death of a police officer, according to this article. |
I agree
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Missing Girls and the Media
Yeah I actually saw the story on Alexis Patterson yesterday as I was flipping channels. It was on CNN. I was on the phone telling my friend that I couldn't believe that she had been missing since May and I had not seen anything on her. But yet the girl from Salt Lake City is on TV everyday. They haven't had any new signifigant developments but yet she's on everyday. I don't think its fair at all. Her family loves and misses her too, but there have been no volunteers to help look for her like they have looked for Elizabeth.I think its all about the benjamins too, but also about skin color. Which is truely a shame in todays world.:eek:
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More on the race/class axis
From the Boston Globe:
THE MEDIA Two missing girls, but only one big story Some see race, class affecting coverage By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 6/19/2002 You'd have to be living in a cave not to have heard of Elizabeth Smart. You'd have to be living in Wisconsin to have heard of Alexis Patterson. Smart, a blond 14-year-old, was taken, apparently at gunpoint, from the bedroom of her family's million-dollar Salt Lake City home on June 5. Patterson, a 7-year-old black girl, disappeared on her way to school in central Milwaukee on May 3. Both girls are missing under tragic circumstances. But while Smart's disappearance has become a national media event and her face a familiar sight to millions of television viewers, Patterson's case is largely unknown outside the Milwaukee area. For example, a Globe Nexis search of US print sources found 332 stories that mentioned Smart in the first paragraph compared to only 45 that highlighted Patterson. Some observers say the dramatically different way the two apparent abductions have played out speaks volumes about the media - and society's - unbalanced treatment of race and class. ''Whatever happens in a black neighborhood doesn't really surprise anybody,'' says Earl Caldwell, a veteran black journalist and broadcaster. ''The public is conditioned to expect that. We take the privilege, and we equate it with the quality of the people.'' Yet, others insist that from a news perspective, the critical difference between the two girls is not skin color or neighborhood, but the nature of the two crimes. ''The Smart story is a better story, and this is me applying my news judgment,'' counters Condace Pressley, president of the National Association of Black Journalists and assistant program director at news/talk station WSB-AM in Atlanta.'' It strikes at the heart of every parent's fear, regardless of race. Here, this family is at home and in the dead of night, an intruder comes into the home and, at gunpoint, takes a child from her bed.'' Like Patterson, ''a lot of children are taken off the street and we don't come close to taking these cases,'' says Catherine Crier, a Court TV host. ''What [the Smart story] is saying is `we're not safe in our homes.' The common fear, whether you're Asian or black or white, is that someone invades your home.'' Crier is keeping viewers updated on the Smart story, and the Court TV Web site links to a series of photos and descriptions of Smart with toll-free numbers and a solicitation for donations. And while Fox's ''America's Most Wanted'' did a segment on Patterson in May, they have spent portions of the last two weeks' shows on Smart. There may be other explanations for the discrepancy in the amount of coverage, including the media savvy of those involved in the cases. In a story on Saturday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted a ''Good Morning America'' spokeswoman saying that the program had energetically attempted to contact the local police, and Patterson's family and had heard nothing back. And even those who don't think racism or classism is an issue point to more complex, but related, factors - the dictates of the marketplace and the demographics of most newsrooms - to account for the imbalance in the treatment of the two tragedies. Jim Corcoran, a communcations professor at Simmons College, ticks off several crimes in recent memory involving white, well-to-do victims that blew up into media megastories: the Charles Stuart murder saga in Boston, the attack on the Central Park jogger, and the JonBenet Ramsey murder. ''You have upper- to middle-class people running the newsroom,'' he notes. ''It's their fears playing out.'' ''I don't think anybody wants to minimize the victimization of a black person over a white person. It's just that they don't identify with it,'' says James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University. ''Print and electronic media tend to give their audiences what they want to read and see on the news. Because most Americans are white, they would tend to identify more [with a white victim]. It reminds them of their own vulnerabilities.'' ''I'm a news manager,'' says Pressley. ''We all know who our listeners are, we all know who are viewers are, we all know who are readers are.'' The Smart case, she adds, ''is a story that touches a majority of our audience.'' This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 6/19/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. |
Elizabeth Smart is Alive
ALT LAKE CITY (March 12) - Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom nearly eight months ago, was found alive Wednesday during a traffic stop in suburban Salt Lake City, police said.
''Miracles do exist,'' said the girl's uncle, Tom Smart. The girl was found in the car of a drifter who was pulled over in a traffic stop Wednesday afternoon, Sandy police spokeswoman Michelle Burnette said. ''Two separate women called in and said they thought they had spotted 'Emmanuel,''' she said. Emmanuel, whose real name is Brian David Mitchell, once did work on the Smart's home. Sandy police pulled over Mitchell, another woman and a girl who looked like Elizabeth. They later confirmed her identity, police said. Salt Lake City police detectives arrived to take over the investigation. Smart was transferred to the Salt Lake city police station. Mitchell was in custody at the Sandy police station. Last month, Elizabeth's parents announced a new reward for information and asked for help in their search for the handyman known only as ''Emanuel.'' They released a sketch of the man. At the time, they said Elizabeth's sister, Mary Katharine, had come to them recently to say ''Emanuel'' bore some resemblance to the man who took Elizabeth from their room at gunpoint. Elizabeth's kidnapping was part of a frightening string of child abductions that included the slayings of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam of San Diego and 5-year-old Samantha Runnion of Orange County, Calif. Elizabeth was 14 when she was seized early on the morning of June 5 in front of her 9-year-old sister by a gunman who may have gotten into the house by cutting a window screen near the back door. As the younger sister pretended to be asleep, the gunman threatened to hurt Elizabeth if she didn't keep quiet. The top potential suspect in the kidnapping, Richard Albert Ricci, a handyman who once worked in the Smart household, died Aug. 30 after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage while in prison on a parole violation. He said he had nothing to do with the kidnapping. Investigators have said they believe he was involved but may not have acted alone. Over the summer, the Smarts held twice-daily news briefings and helped coordinate huge volunteer searches. Ed Smart, a real estate broker, vowed to keep the case in the spotlight. The family often got calls from the police, but it was never the information they wanted to hear. Often, police were calling to alert them to grisly discoveries that might be linked to their missing daughter; they wanted the Smarts to know before the story hit the news. Sometimes, the news beat the police. Hands and feet had been found in a canyon, or bones had been discovered in the desert, according to the news. The Smarts would call police to ask if it was Elizabeth. Every time, the answer was no. Police said they followed up more than 16,000 leads from the public in addition to those they have come up with themselves. AP-NY-03-12-03 1729EST Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. Hopefully, they can find some more children alive. This at least can give some people hope. |
A photo of the freak Elizabeth was found with
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This was recently on Dateline. The little sister came forward and said that she believed that "Emmanuel" was the one. On Dateline, his kids came on and said that he ("Emmanuel") and his wife, their mother, had decided that they wanted to live exempt from taxes, therefore decided to get ride of their worldly goods and "become homeless." WTF?!?! :confused:
They showed a pic of him and the wife and said that they probably would be somwhere around the area. I want to know what they have done with the girl for 8 months.... |
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I'm watching GMA right now and basically the whole show is centered around the Smart case. Now, while I'm happy that the Smart family has their daughter back and the sicko that took her is in jail, BUT what about that man they put in jail (can't remember his name) when this first broke?? Remember, he maintained his innocence and he died in jail. In the midst of all the joy of having their daughter found, I really hope that the Smarts apologize to that man's family and pay some kind of restitution to his family for all of their pain and suffering as well!
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I'm just happy she's alive and well. I couldn't imagine what she was going through all of these months.
I heard on our news this morning that she may have spent some time here in Atlanta, as the couple she was with were drifters and may have traveled all over the country. |
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Richard Ricci was in prison on an unrelated parole violation. If there is a lawsuit I would think it would be about defamation of character or something along those lines. He was just the prime suspect, never actually charged with anything pertaining to the case. I blame the police and the media, not the Smart family.
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There are so many crazzzzzy people in this world. What is really happening??
The Smart family was too nice. They let too many strangers into their home. Mrs. Smart met "Emmanuel" on the street begging her for money, and the next thing you know he's at her house working on the roof? It's one thing to be a nice person, but now a days you can't just let everyone into your home. WoW Wow WOw.. |
Am I the only one that finds this whole mess shady.....?
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How nice would they have been to a man of color who needed some work? |
Smart Suspect Considers Teen As 'Wife'
Smart Suspect Considers Teen As 'Wife'
Mon Mar 17, 8:50 AM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo! By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY - The self-proclaimed prophet accused of abducting Elizabeth Smart told his attorney he considers the girl his wife and wants the 15-year-old to be renamed "Remnant Who Will Return." "He wanted me to tell the world that she is his wife, and he still loves her and knows that she still loves him, that no harm came to her during their relationship and the adventure that went on," attorney Larry Long said in an interview aired late Sunday on Salt Lake City's KUTV. Long, who said he had agreed earlier Sunday to become Brian David Mitchell's attorney, was speaking for his client for the first time. Long said Mitchell — whom he referred to as "the perpetrator" — would consider the girl's nine-month disappearance a "call from God," not a kidnapping. Smart, who was snatched from her bedroom June 5, was found Wednesday with Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, in Sandy, Utah, when they were stopped by police. Mitchell and Barzee remained in jail awaiting charges expected to be filed Monday. Long suggested that giving his client a light sentence could encourage kidnappers to keep their captives alive. "If we can somehow set up some structure where the message gets out that if you bring the girl back alive, that there's some kind of commutation of the sentence, we may be much better off as a society," Long said. He also said Mitchell, 49, wanted to be known as Immanuel David Isaiah, and wanted Barzee, 57, to be called Hephzibah Eladah Isaiah. Mitchell's name for Elizabeth, Long said, is Shear Jashub Isaiah, or "Remnant Who Will Return." He said his client, who did handyman work at the Smart house one day in November 2001, was on a fruit-only diet in jail. "I found him to be very intelligent, very knowledgeable, very coherent and very articulate in his expression of his views," Long said. Calls to Long's office from The Associated Press were not returned Sunday, and calls to his home went unanswered. Mitchell, an excommunicated Mormon, he wrote a rambling manifesto last year espousing the virtues of polygamy. The Mormon church has long distanced itself from polygamy and excommunicates those who practice it. No details have been released about any abuse Elizabeth may have suffered while captive. The girl has been interviewed several times by police, but her parents have not asked her for details, according to family spokesman Chris Thomas. He did deny speculation the girl could be pregnant: "Unequivocally, she is not pregnant and was never pregnant." "She has been thoroughly examined and tested," Thomas said Saturday. The Salt Lake Tribune reported Monday that the girl boarded a police helicopter over the weekend to point investigators to the camp where she, Mitchell and Barzee lived for two months in the foothills near her family's home. Salt Lake City detective Dwayne Baird said police interviewers are taking care not to traumatize her with their questions. At a Mormon church service Sunday, Elizabeth Smart's grandfather said her captors so sapped her of free will that she didn't try to escape even when left alone for a day. "As a doctor, it's amazing to me that you can become so brainwashed that you identify with your captor," Charles Smart said. Bishop David Hamblin said despite anything that may have happened during the ordeal, the teen is "pure before the Lord. People who are in the control of others are not accountable." |
Re: Smart Suspect Considers Teen As 'Wife'
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Kidnapped Utah Girl Smart in TV Interview
Sat Oct 18, 2:34 PM ET Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo! SALT LAKE CITY - Elizabeth Smart says she's "still pretty much the same person" after her nine-month kidnapping ordeal, and tells NBC's Katie Couric in her first television interview that the experience has made her more compassionate toward the homeless. Couric interviewed the 15-year-old high school freshman Tuesday at her family's ranch near Salt Lake City. The network did not pay for the interview, Smart's first for television, said NBC spokeswoman Caryn Mautner. Ed and Lois Smart talked about the police investigation and how their faith helped them during the nine months Elizabeth was gone. "It was a miracle that we could function as a family together because these ... types of things can wreck marriages and pull families apart, and I think we've become stronger and closer as a family," Ed Smart told Couric. Brian David Mitchell, 50, and his wife Wanda Barzee, 57, are charged with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated burglary in Elizabeth's June 5, 2002, abduction. The homeless couple allegedly kept Elizabeth as Mitchell's second wife for nine months in Utah and California. They were found March 12 in Sandy, a suburb about 15 miles south of Salt Lake City, nine months after Elizabeth disappeared. The one-hour program is scheduled to air Oct. 24. |
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