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Missing white woman syndrome is a term used by social scientists[1][2][3] and media commentators to refer to the observed disproportionate media coverage, especially in television,[4] of missing-person cases involving young, white, upper-middle-class women or girls compared to the relative lack of attention towards missing women who are not white, women of lower social classes, and missing men or boys.[5][6] Although the term was coined in the context of missing-person cases, it is sometimes used of coverage of other violent crimes. The phenomenon has been highlighted in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa.[7]

American news anchor Gwen Ifill is widely considered the originator of the phrase.[6] Charlton McIlwain defined the syndrome as "white women occupying a privileged role as violent crime victims in news media reporting", and posited that missing white woman syndrome functions as a type of racial hierarchy in the cultural imagery of the West.[8] Eduardo Bonilla-Silva categorized the racial component of missing white woman syndrome as a "form of racial grammar, through which white supremacy is normalized by implicit or even invisible standards".[1]

The phenomenon has led to a number of tough on crime measures, mainly on the political right, that were named for white women who disappeared and were subsequently found harmed.[9][10] In addition to race and class, factors such as supposed attractiveness, body size, and youthfulness have been identified as unfair criteria in the determination of newsworthiness in coverage of missing women.[11] News coverage of missing black women was more likely to focus on the victim's problems, such as abusive boyfriends or a troubled past, while coverage of white women often tend to focus on their roles as mothers or daughters.[12]

Origin of the phrase

American news anchor Gwen Ifill is credited with originating the phrase at the Unity: Journalists of Color journalism conference in 2004.[6][13][14] At the conference, she said "I call it the missing white woman search syndrome. If there is a missing white woman you're going to cover that every day."[15]

Studies, reports and analyses

United States

In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle published an article detailing the disparity between the coverage of the Laci Peterson case and that of Evelyn Hernandez, a Hispanic woman - both of whom disappeared in 2002.[16]

A report that aired on CNN in 2006 noted the differences in the level of media coverage given to missing white women (such as Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway), when compared to the level of coverage given to LaToyia Figueroa, a pregnant Black Hispanic woman. Figueroa disappeared in Philadelphia in 2005, the same year Holloway disappeared.[17]

A 2010 study of news coverage of missing children found that African American missing children cases were significantly underrepresented when compared to national statistics. Female missing children were significantly underrepresented in national news reporting. The coverage of death cases for African American boys was significantly greater than expected. Coverage of non-African American female kidnapping cases was greater than expected.[18] A subsequent study found that girls (and boys) from minority groups (with black children being the highest) were more likely to remain missing for longer periods of time.[19]

A 2013 study that addressed media coverage of missing children, focusing on gender, but not race, found that "the results revealed that gender and age play only a minor role in deciding which abduction incidents are covered by newspapers, as well as the extent to which they are reported on. Specifically, newspapers dedicated more words to female victims than male victims and reported more on younger children (aged 11 and under) than older children (aged 12 and over) when they were the victim of a nonfamily abduction."[20]

In 2015, a report was published that re-examined the results from a 2010 study about media coverage of missing children (Feaster) and confirmed that the media coverage of white missing persons was disproportionate compared to non-whites; but found that the coverage of females was not as biased as the 2010 study concluded.[21]

In 2016, Zach Sommers, a sociologist at Northwestern University, published a report that while there is a sizable body of research that shows that white people are more likely than people of color to appear in news coverage as victims of violent crime, there is relatively little when it comes to missing persons cases.[1] Sommers cross-referenced the missing persons coverage of four national and local media outlets against the FBI's missing persons database. Sommers found black people received disproportionately less coverage than whites and men received disproportionately less coverage than women; Sommers could not directly assess the number of missing white women in the FBI files due to how the data was structured but concluded that there was circumstantial—although not statistically conclusive—evidence that white women received disproportionate coverage.[22][1]

Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva theorised that the subtle standard of placing a premium on white lives in the news helps to maintain and reinforce a racial hierarchy with whites at the top. For example, black women are members of both a marginalized racial group and a marginalized gender group.[1] Crucially, though, black women have an "intersectional experience [that] is greater than the sum of racism and sexism". In other words, like white women, black women are subject to sexism, but the form of that sexism differs for black women because of the compounding effects of racial discrimination; with missing white woman syndrome being a pertinent manifestation of this social phenomenon.[22][1] Some sociologists have argued that the tone of media coverage for black female victims differs markedly from coverage of white female victims in that the former are more likely to be blamed for purportedly putting themselves in harm's way, either knowingly or unknowingly. Victim blaming in this context reinforces the notion that black female victims are not only less innocent, but also less worthy of rescue relative to white women.[1] Other observers note the lack of publicity given to black female victims of police brutality in news coverage, attributing the silence to a tradition of "sexism and patriarchy" in American society.[1]

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.[23]

In a 2016 Esquire article about the disappearance of Tiffany Whitton, journalist Tom Junod observed that white women of lower social status such as Whitton, a 26-year-old unemployed drug addict who was on parole, do not get much media attention as "media outlets are ruthlessly selective, and they tend to prefer women who are white, pretty, and, above all, innocent." Whitton's mother stated that producers of shows like Nancy Grace told her they weren't interested in her daughter's case.[24] Dr. Cory L. Armstrong wrote in The Washington Post, "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]

In 2017, a research paper from University of South Florida studied media coverage and found that " ... disparities in coverage were seen based on race and age. In addition, the narratives of the reports were framed as cautionary tales and victims were seen as active participants in their disappearance."[25]

The Wyoming Urban Indian Health Institute published a study in 2020, by professor Emily A. Grant, which found that 710 Indigenous people were reported missing in the state of Wyoming between 2011 to 2020, and assessed the media coverage, and concluded that media coverage of indigenous and people of color was significantly less than coverage of missing white people.[26][27]

Canada

According to a 2008 study published in The Law and Society Association, aboriginal women who go missing in Canada receive 27 times less news coverage than white women; they also receive "dispassionate and less-detailed, headlines, articles, and images".[28]

United Kingdom

In January 2006, the London Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Ian Blair, accused the media of ‘institutional racism’ in its reporting of murders. He contrasted the reporting of the death of the male white lawyer Tom ap Rhys Price with the murder of the male Asian builders’ merchant Balbir Matharu. He said ‘murders in minority communities do not seem to interest the mainstream media’. He said that the death of Damilola Taylor (a 10-year-old black boy) was clearly an exception to this. He said he had been surprised at how much coverage the murders of two 10-year-old white girls in Soham had received.[29][30][31]

University of Leicester Criminology Professor Yvonne Jewkes cites the murder of Milly Dowler, the murder of Sarah Payne, and the Soham murders as examples of "eminently newsworthy stories" about girls from "respectable" middle-class families and backgrounds whose parents used the news media effectively.[32] She writes that, in contrast, the killing of Damilola Taylor, a 10-year-old boy from Nigeria, initially received little news coverage, with reports initially concentrating upon street crime levels and community policing in London, and largely ignoring the victim. Even when Damilola's father flew into the UK from Nigeria to make press statements and television appearances, the level of public outcry did not, Jewkes asserts, reach "the near hysterical outpourings of anger and sadness that accompanied the deaths of Sarah, Milly, Holly, and Jessica".[32] However, according to the BBC, the killing of Damilola Taylor had shocked the UK.[33]

Two cases of missing-white-girl syndrome that have been given as contrasting examples: the murder of Hannah Williams and the murder of Danielle Jones (both were white). It was suggested that Jones received more coverage than Williams because Jones was a middle-class schoolgirl, whilst Williams was from a working-class background with a stud in her nose and estranged parents.[34] Another explanation for the difference in the coverage has been given: the eroticisation of the victim by news reports about a sexual relationship between Jones and her murderer (who was her uncle).[35]

South Africa

Sandile Memela, chief director for social cohesion at South Africa's Department of Arts and Culture, noted amidst the Oscar Pistorius trial that there existed substantial differences between how media outlets reported on the murders of Reeva Steenkamp and Zanele Khumalo; two South African models, respectively white and black, who had been murdered by their boyfriends under nearly identical circumstances.[36] Memela asserted that the discrepancy between the media coverage of the Steenkamp and Khumala murders amounted to "structural racism" within South African society, and stated: "As a country we seem to have chosen to ignore the agony, pain and suffering of the Khumalo family for no other reason than that they are black."[36]

On September 11, 2014, the South African news network SABC3 aired an investigative report which raised concerns around the "Missing White Woman Syndrome"; where the death of Steenkamp was juxtaposed with the death of Zanele Khumalo.[7]

Analogous cases that do not involve missing persons

Social scientists have reported biases in media coverage for other situations that involve white women, but are not missing-person cases.

Jessica Lynch

News coverage of Jessica Lynch's rescue

Social commentaries pointed to media bias in the coverage of soldier Jessica Lynch versus that of her fellow soldiers, Shoshana Johnson and Lori Piestewa. All three were ambushed in the same attack during the Iraq War on March 23, 2003, with Piestewa being killed and Lynch and Johnson being injured and taken prisoner. Lynch, a young, blonde, white woman, received far more media coverage than Johnson (a black woman and a single mother) and Piestewa (a Hopi woman from an impoverished background, and also a single mother), with media critics suggesting that the media gave more attention to the woman with whom audiences supposedly more readily identify.[37][38]

Lynch herself leveled harsh criticism at this disproportionate coverage that focused only on her, stating in a congressional testimony before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary. People like Lori Piestewa and First Sergeant Dowdy who picked up fellow soldiers in harm's way. Or people like Patrick Miller and Sergeant Donald Walters who actually fought until the very end. The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales.[39]

Presumed kidnapping of "blonde angel" in Greece

In October 2013, a girl estimated to be about four years of age was found in the custody of a Roma couple in Greece and was presumed to have been abducted. The story about the "blonde angel" and the search for her biological parents received international media coverage. A Romani rights activist commented on the case to say "imagine if the situation were reversed and the children were brown and the parents were white."[40][41][42][43] The child was later identified as Maria Ruseva. Her biological mother was a Bulgarian Roma who gave Maria up for adoption.[44]

Murder trial defendants

Critics have also cited excessive media coverage of murder trials where the defendant is female, white, young and attractive, and included them along with Missing White Woman Syndrome instances in an all-encompassing narrative nicknamed the "woman in jeopardy" or "damsel in distress" genre. In such cases, the media will focus on the accused, rather than the victim as in Missing White Woman Syndrome cases, and they will be more ambiguous about their guilt than in other criminal cases regardless of evidence. Cited examples include Amanda Knox, Jodi Arias and Casey Anthony.[45]

Laws named after missing white women

Several laws have been created in the aftermath of disappearance cases, and are sometimes informally named after the missing person. Commentators have observed that disappearances of white women give rise to such laws more often than missing non-white women or missing men.[46] Such laws in the United States include Laci and Connor's Law (named after Laci Peterson), Amber alert laws (Amber Hagerman), Jessica's Law (Jessica Lunsford), Caylee's Law (Caylee Anthony ), Megan's Law (Megan Kanka), Dru's Law (Dru Sjodin), Lori's law (Lori Hacking ), and Kristen's Act (Kristen Modafferi).

Examples

Missing white woman syndrome

The following missing-person cases have been cited as instances of missing-white-woman syndrome by media commentators. The commentators stated that these missing persons garnered a disproportionate level of media coverage relative to non-white, or less-wealthy, or male missing persons.

Date of disappearance or death Name Description Source(s)
January 30, 1889 Mary Vetsera A 17-year-old new noblewoman murdered by her lover, 30-year-old Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. [47]
July 19, 1889 Elvira Madigan A 21-year-old Danish circus performer killed by her married, 34-year-old Swedish aristocrat lover after eloping with him. [47]
January 15, 1947 Elizabeth Short A 22-year-old woman found dismembered and mutilated in Los Angeles. [47]
June 10, 1991 Jaycee Dugard An 11-year-old girl abducted from the street and held in captivity for 18 years. [48]
February 27, 1992 Kimberly Pandelios A 20-year-old woman who disappeared after leaving to respond to a model-wanted ad at the Angeles National Forest. The case was publicized in a 1995 episode of Unsolved Mysteries. [49][50][51]
September 24, 1992 Dail Dinwiddie A 23-year-old college student who disappeared after attending a U2 concert. She remains missing. [49][52]
October 1, 1993 Polly Klaas A 12-year-old girl who was found murdered. Her murderer was convicted and sentenced to death. [49]
July 29, 1994 Megan Kanka A 7-year-old girl abducted and murdered by her neighbor, Jesse Timmendequas. The case led to the introduction of "Megan's Law", which requires law enforcement to disclose details relating to the location of registered sex offenders. [47]
November 16, 1995 Linda Sobek A 27-year-old model and former Los Angeles Raiders cheerleader who disappeared while on assignment. Salacious details of the case were printed in the national media. Her murderer was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. [49][53][54]
January 13, 1996 Amber Hagerman A nine-year-old girl abducted and murdered after being held in captivity for two days. Her case prompted the implementation of the Amber Alert system in the United States. [47]
December 25, 1996 JonBenét Ramsey A 6-year-old girl who was killed in her family's home. [49]
June 23, 1997 Kristen Modafferi An 18-year-old college student who disappeared from the San Francisco Bay Area and remains missing. Her disappearance, just 3 weeks after her 18th birthday, helped to establish Kristen's Law and the National Center for Missing Adults. [49]
June 27, 2000 Molly Bish A 16-year-old girl who disappeared after being dropped off at her lifeguarding job. Her remains were not found for three years, despite extensive searching and publicity. [49]
July 1, 2000 Sarah Payne An 8-year-old girl who was abducted from a cornfield while playing with her siblings. Her death led to the government allowing limited access to the sex offender registry. [32]
June 18, 2001 Danielle Jones A 15-year-old girl murdered by her uncle; her body has never been recovered. [32]
May 1, 2001 Chandra Levy A 24-year-old intern disappeared while she had an affair with married representative Gary Condit. [49]
January 10, 2002 Rachel Cooke A 19-year-old college student who disappeared while jogging. Her disappearance was publicized nationally, but she is still missing. [49][55]
February 1, 2002 Danielle van Dam A 7-year-old girl who disappeared from her bedroom. [49]
March 21, 2002 Amanda "Milly" Dowler A 13-year-old girl who disappeared after school. Her remains were found after an extensive six-month search, and the case played a significant role in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. [32]
June 5, 2002 Elizabeth Smart A 14-year-old girl, missing for 9 months after being in captivity. Her captor was sentenced to life in prison. [5][45]
August 4, 2002 Jessica Chapman Two 10-year-old girls murdered while returning from a shopping trip. [32]
Holly Wells
August 29, 2002 Audrey Herron A 31-year-old woman and mother of three who disappeared after leaving work. [49]
December 24, 2002 Laci Peterson A 27-year-old pregnant woman murdered by her husband. The case led to the implementation of "Laci and Connor's Law", which defines violence against a pregnant woman as violence against two separate legal subjects (the mother and the unborn child).[47] [56]
March 23, 2003 Jessica Lynch A 19-year-old Private First Class injured and taken prisoner at the Battle of Nasiriyah. [5]
November 22, 2003 Dru Sjodin A 22-year-old student who was found murdered. Her murderer was convicted, and the case prompted the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry. [49][57]
February 1, 2004 Carlie Brucia An 11-year-old girl who was kidnapped from a car wash and later murdered. The surveillance video showing the kidnapping gained nationwide attention. [49]
March 27, 2004 Audrey Seiler A 20-year-old college student who was found alive after an extensive search; it was later revealed she had fabricated the incident. [49][58]
May 24, 2004 Brooke Wilberger A 19-year-old student who was abducted and murdered. Her murderer revealed the location of her body and was convicted. [49]
July 19, 2004 Lori Hacking A 27-year-old woman murdered by her husband. [17][56]
February 24, 2005 Jessica Lunsford A 9-year-old girl abducted from her home and later murdered. Her death led to more restrictive monitoring of sex offenders, known as Jessica's Law. [59]
April 26, 2005 Jennifer Wilbanks A 32-year-old woman who fabricated her disappearance to avoid marriage. [2]
May 30, 2005 Natalee Holloway An 18-year-old high school senior who disappeared in Aruba and remains missing. She was declared legally dead on January 12, 2012. [17][56]
September 5, 2005 Taylor Behl A 17-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University freshman who disappeared and was later found dead. Her murderer was convicted. [17]
October 7, 2006 Michelle Gardner-Quinn A 21-year-old undergraduate at the University of Vermont who disappeared and was later found dead. Her murderer was convicted. [60]
February 9, 2007 Tara Grant A 35-year-old woman murdered by her husband. [61]
May 3, 2007 Madeleine McCann A 3-year-old girl who disappeared from her parents' hotel room during a family holiday in Portugal. Described by The Daily Telegraph as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history". [62][63][64]
June 16, 2008 Caylee Anthony A 2-year-old girl reported missing in Florida by her grandmother after 31 days. After her mother was controversially acquitted of her murder, several American states passed or proposed versions of "Caylee's Law," making it a felony for parents to fail to report their children missing to authorities. [48][65]
February 9, 2009 Haleigh Cummings A 5-year-old girl kidnapped from her father's trailer in Satsuma, Florida.[66] [48]
October 5, 2009 Aisling Symes A 2-year-old girl who disappeared from her home in Auckland, New Zealand. She was feared abducted but her body was found in a drain near her home a week later, and it was determined that she was the victim of accidental drowning after wandering off from her mother's side while she was carrying out household chores. Tim Hulme, writing for The Sunday Star-Times, surmised that age was a much greater factor than race or class in the extensive media coverage the case garnered. [67]
April 13, 2011 Holly Bobo A 20-year-old nursing student who disappeared from her home in Darden, Tennessee. Her remains were found in September 2014. Two men have been charged with her murder and kidnapping. [68]
June 3, 2011 Lauren Spierer A 20-year-old Indiana University student who disappeared after a night of drinking. She remains missing. [69]
August 3, 2013 Hannah Anderson A 16-year-old California high school student who was kidnapped by a family friend after cheerleading practice. She was found in Idaho after a weeklong national search. [1]
September 13, 2014 Hannah Graham An 18-year-old University of Virginia student who was kidnapped and murdered by an acquaintance. Her remains were found approximately five weeks after her disappearance. [70]
August 22, 2016 Diana Quer An 18-year-old girl from a wealthy Madrid family who disappeared while vacationing in A Pobra do Caramiñal, Galicia. [71]
July 16, 2018 Mollie Tibbetts 20-year-old who disappeared while jogging near her home in Brooklyn, Iowa. Her body was discovered over a month later on August 21. [72][73]
October 15, 2018 Jayme Closs A 13-year-old girl was abducted from the Barron, Wisconsin home of her parents, both of whom were killed during the incident. She escaped her captor 88 days later. [74][75]
December 1, 2018 Grace Millane A 22-year-old British tourist from a wealthy family who disappeared while visiting New Zealand. Her body was discovered in a rural area of Auckland just over one week after she went missing. A man was subsequently convicted of her murder.[76] [77][78]
March 3, 2021 Sarah Everard A 33-year-old White British middle-class woman who disappeared after leaving a friend's house in London. On 10 March, police searching woodland at Great Chart in Kent found human remains. Two days later it was confirmed to be the body of Everard. [79][80]
September 11, 2021 Gabby Petito A 22-year-old American woman from Suffolk County, New York, who was reported missing while traveling across the United States with her fiancé. Her family lost contact with her in late August when she was in or near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. [81][82][83]

Missing persons who did not receive comparable media attention

The following missing person cases have been used as counterexamples by social scientists or media commentators. These are missing person cases which, according to the source, did not receive as much media attention they would have received if they were white, or female, or more affluent.

Date of disappearance Name Description Case contrasted with Source(s)
Unknown Srey Nath A 15-year-old Cambodian student lured to Thailand with a job offer and enslaved in a Malaysian brothel. After escaping with three other girls and reporting to police, she was jailed for a year for illegal immigration and subsequently deported to Thailand, where she was sold to another brothel. Jaycee Dugard [48]
November 27, 2000 Damilola Taylor A 10-year-old Nigerian boy who was stabbed by a random attacker in London and died from blood loss while being driven to a hospital. The coverage centered on the general safety of the area and largely ignored the victim. Sarah Payne [32]
Milly Dowler
Jessica Chapman
Holly Wells
April 1, 2001 Hannah Williams A 14-year-old London working-class girl with a history of running away from home, who disappeared during a shopping trip. Her body was discovered a year later during the search for a middle-class missing girl, Danielle Jones, and most of the (scarce) coverage Williams received was early speculation about the possibility of her body being Jones's. Danielle Jones [34][84]
Milly Dowler
May 3, 2002 Alexis Patterson A 7-year-old African-American girl who disappeared after being dropped off at her Milwaukee, Wisconsin elementary school, just one month before Elizabeth Smart was abducted in Utah; her case received only a small fraction of the media attention given to Smart's. No trace of Alexis has ever been found. Elizabeth Smart [85][86]
July 24, 2002 Evelyn Hernandez A 24-year-old, almost nine months pregnant Salvadoran immigrant and her American 6-year-old son, who went missing in San Francisco. Evelyn's torso was found in the San Francisco Bay three months later, while Alex remains missing. Laci Peterson [87]
Alex Hernandez
February 25, 2005 Donna Cooke A 23-year-old prostitute found strangled in Lake Thonotosassa during the search for Jessica Lunsford. Coverage of the then unidentified woman was reduced to the Sheriff reassuring viewers, "it is not our girl" (meaning Lunsford), which was denounced as "dehumanizing" by critics. Cooke's murder remains unsolved. Jessica Lunsford [88]
July 18, 2005 Latoyia Figueroa A 24-year-old, five months pregnant Afro-Latina waitress (and already a single mother) who disappeared in Philadelphia after leaving a prenatal care session. Her remains were discovered in Chester, Pennsylvania one month later. Natalee Holloway [89]
March 10, 2007 Yéremi Vargas A poor 7-year-old boy who disappeared while playing in a vacant lot of Vecindario, Gran Canaria. The disappearance had little repercussion for the first five years. Antonio Ojeda, a pedophile incarcerated for abusing another child, was named the main suspect in 2016. Madeleine McCann [90]
January 8, 2009 Oscar Garcia-Calles Two Salvadoran brothers aged 16 and 14 who disappeared while traveling to Green Brook, New Jersey.[91][92] Possibly abducted by an unrelated adult male. Danielle van Dam [48]
Samuel Garcia-Calles Jessica Lunsford
April 29, 2009 Shalomiel Solel A 3-year-old African-American boy abducted by his non-custodial parents from Carson, California. Found undernourished and living on the streets with his parents in New Orleans, in March 2011.[93] Caylee Anthony [48]
October 1, 2009 Srikanth Rayadurgam A 23-year-old Indian student disappeared in Auckland, New Zealand. Rayadurgam's family denounced that a Wellington team originally assigned to investigate his disappearance was redirected in short notice to Henderson in order to assist on the search of 2-year-old Aisling Symes. Aisling Symes [67]
May 30, 2010 Stephany Flores A 21-year-old Peruvian business student murdered in a hotel room by Joran van der Sloot, the main suspect of the Natalee Holloway case. Natalee Holloway [94]
July 5, 2016 Manuela Chavero A 42-year-old woman who disappeared in the early morning from her home in Monesterio, Extremadura; she left the TV on, her cell phone in the kitchen, and her pants on the bed. Diana Quer [71][90]
August 25, 2016 Iván Durán A 30-year-old man from Baiona, Galicia, disappeared 3 days after Diana Quer.
June 5, 2017 Ashley Loring Heavyrunner A 21-year old Native American vanished from the Blackwater Reservation in Montana. A true-crime podcaster focused on her case after claiming that a number of native American women who have disappeared from reservations have received relatively little media attention. various, including Tara Grinstead [95]
June 7, 2020 Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman Two black sisters from London, aged 46 and 27 respectively, and daughters of the priest Mina Smallman. They were found killed in a park. Two police officers took inappropriate photographs and shared them on WhatsApp. Sarah Everard [96][97][98]
March 22, 2021 Richard Okorogheye A 19-year-old black male from London who was isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic due to sickle cell disease. He left home without informing his parents, and his body was found in April. His mother said that "If Richard was that colour, blue eyes, maybe the reaction would have been different immediately: that’s what they say". She alleged that the police had less interest in finding her son than finding Everard, though he was younger and had a chronic illness.
June 23, 2021 Daniel Robinson Robinson a 24 year old black man was last seen leaving his field geologist job site in Buckeye, Arizona, on June 23, and was reported missing later that day while he was driving his 2017 Jeep Renegade. Gabby Petito [99]
June 28, 2021 Lauren Cho Cho, an Asian woman, disappeared from a rental home in California on June 28. She was last seen walking away from the rental home without her phone, food, or water. A friend of Cho believes she may have gotten into a vehicle with an unknown individual she planned on meeting later that week.[100] [101]
August 25, 2021 Jelani Day Day, who was a black male 25-year-old Illinois State University graduate student was reported missing on August 25, 2021. Police later located Day's car in a wooded area near a local YMCA on Aug. 26 with the clothing he was last seen wearing left inside. A week later on Sept. 4, a team of police, fire and rescue officials found "an unidentified body just off the south bank of the Illinois River" though police have not stated whether that person is Day. [99]

See also

References

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  2. ^ a b Liebler, Carol M. (2010). "Me(di)a Culpa?: The "missing White Woman Syndrome" and Media Self-Critique". Communication, Culture & Critique. 3 (4). International Communication Association: 549–565. doi:10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01085.x. ISSN 1753-9129.
  3. ^ Lundman, R.J. (2003). "The Newsworthiness and Selection Bias in News About Murder: Comparative and Relative Effects of Novelty and Race and Gender Typifications on Newspaper Coverage of Homicide". Sociological Forum. 18 (3): 357–386. doi:10.1023/A:1025713518156. S2CID 141625288.
  4. ^ Foreman, Tom (March 14, 2006). "Diagnosing 'Missing White Woman Syndrome'". CNN. There is no polite way to say it, and it is a fact of television news. Media and social critics call the wall-to-wall coverage that seems to swirl around these events, 'Missing White Woman Syndrome'. That was the phrase invoked by Sheri Parks, a professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, during our interview yesterday.
  5. ^ a b c Robinson, Eugene (June 10, 2005). "(White) Women We Love". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008.
  6. ^ a b c d Cory L. Armstrong (2013). Media Disparity: A Gender Battleground. Lexington Books. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-7391-8188-1.
  7. ^ a b "Oscar Pistorius: The Verdict". SABC. September 12, 2014. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
  8. ^ "Cleveland abductions: Do white victims get more attention?". BBC News. May 9, 2013. Retrieved July 24, 2015. Charlton McIlwain, professor New York University: White women occupy a privileged role as violent crime victims in news media reporting.
  9. ^ Stein, Sarah Land (2012). The Cultural Complex of Innocence : an Examination of Media and Social Construction of Missing White Woman Syndrome (PhD thesis). University of Southern Mississippi. ProQuest 1113331344.
  10. ^ Essig, Laurie (2014). "Racial Politics in the US and the Figure of the White Lady. One way to understand the senseless killings of Black men is through the 'lady'". Psychology Today. Retrieved October 9, 2017.
  11. ^ Moody, M.; Dorries, B.; Blackwell, H. (2008). "The Invisible Damsel: Differences in How National Media Outlets Framed the Coverage of Missing Black and White Women in the Mid-2000s". Conference Papers – International Communication Association. pp. 1–23.
  12. ^ Cheryl L. Neely (2015). "African American Women as Victims of Violence – How do news stories affect our perception of crimes against women from different racial backgrounds?". Utne Reader. Retrieved October 9, 2017.
  13. ^ Robertson, Katie (September 22, 2021). "News Media Can't Shake 'Missing White Woman Syndrome". The New York Times. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  14. ^ "User Clip: Gwen Ifill coins the term 'missing white woman syndrome'". C-Span.org. April 21, 2017. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
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Further reading

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