Wednesday, September 5, 2007

MISSING! (Any balance whatsoever)

I was watching the repeat of yesterday's MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams this morning and you all need to drop everything because there's apparently a missing young, pretty blonde, white woman somewhere in the country.

Don't get me wrong. I hope they find her alive and well, but:

1) This is not national news
2) It's become a sad joke that missing persons only become national news when they are pretty blondes.

Meanwhile, here in Pittsburgh, a black woman was found severed in half and stuffed in garbage bags.

Her disappearance did not make the national news, yet she had family and friends. There were people who knew her, cared about her and loved her.

Like I said, I really hope they find that college student featured on MSNBC last night, but I also hope that if the MSNBC and the rest of the MSM continue to do missing person stories, that they would occasionally broadcast one about, say, a not so pretty, older white woman. Or how about a black woman, or children of all colors, or, hey, how about a missing man?

This brings to mind that two years ago on August 31, I blogged the following:

WTF? Rita Cosby (MSNBC) is still in Aruba?

I couldn't believe that she was there yesterday and they still haven't yanked her out of there?! Can one missing white woman trump an entire city? I'm sure there's some missing white women in New Orleans or Biloxi...


Yeah, two days after Katrina made landfall and the levees were breached and the MSM couldn't tear themselves away from reporting on another missing blonde to give full coverage to 1800 mostly people of color who were dead from an epic hurricane.

[sigh]

6 comments:

  1. sad but true. and it is becoming fodder for jokes.

    but it all comes down to the old, bread and circus diversion.

    shame on us as a country.
    we shouldn't be so easily turned away from the things they try to hide.

    i hope they find her, alive, but yes, how about an all out media blitz on the woman found here severed in two?

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  2. Ms. Mon,

    You're absolutely right. The comings and goings of the rich and famous deserve far more media coverage than they get.

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  3. Glad you know me well enough to know I was being sarcastic -- not flippant (and trying to bring up the point that if you're rich and missing, that also helps).

    But for others reading my statement, I have seen enough of what Maria says that rings so true that the bells have left me nearly deaf.

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  4. I'm with Maria.
    I'm also a member of the media, so I struggle with this every day. The people who control what we write are driven by:
    1.) profit (top level mediacrats)
    2.) local sales (middle management editors)
    3.) mediocre news sense (burnt-out desk editors of middling intelligence)
    Sucks to be me!
    --STG

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