Consquences of Media Consolidation: Lack of Coverage About WOC

Last week I talked about the impacts of media consolidation on independent magazines and press. Something I touched on, but is elaborated on Freepress’s blog Stop Big Media, is that actual impact this has on coverage of disenfranchised communities. If who you cover is based on ratings, there is a good chance you are not going to make an effort at covering issues equitably. Jordan Berg looks at the case of the coverage of missing women.

The Seattle Medium, a local, independent newspaper, highlighted one particular way Big Media is harming citizens: by failing to report on missing persons based on race.
The article’s investigation shows, “…national media operations often fail to present what is in fact a very diverse missing persons population,” instead focusing primarily on white victims.
Why the preferential treatment? The corporate news media approach missing persons as another news segment that will draw advertising revenue. In other words, only a certain segment of missing persons is viewed as important enough to cover.
Take, for example, Latasha Norman, a black Jackson State University honor student who went missing for more than two weeks in late 2007, and barely got the media’s attention. It was only after her body was found in Greenville, Miss., two weeks later that CNN picked up the story (only to quickly drop it).
At the same time, Stacey Peterson, a Caucasian woman who also disappeared, was becoming a household name due to constant media coverage on all the major TV stations. This is not to say that Stacey Peterson’s disappearance should not have been covered. But why weren’t both women given equal airtime when they went missing and needed the public’s eye to help find them?

As anti-racist feminists this is something we talk about endlessly, but it is rare we discuss the actual reasons for disproportionate coverage of missing white women verse missing black women. Outside of blatant racism, if we can’t sell the 10 o’clock news, our stories are probably not going to make it on there. This is a clear violation of what the purpose of media should be, which is a watchdog for our communities and a supplier of information.
Learn more about the work of FreePress and the organization I work for, the Center for Media Justice, two organizations working nationally to stop media consolidation and petition outlets for balanced coverage on the issues that impact our most historically disenfranchised communities.
Also, take action now to Stop Media Consolidation.