Thread by @mattsheffield

Yesterday, I did a Twitter thread about "Missing White Woman Syndrome," the idea that media give more coverage to missing white women over other groups

I also invited readers to name others outside the demographic who they thought received nat'l coverage. Here's the follow-up…

First, here is the the thread, in case you missed it.

https://twitter.com/mattsheffield/status/1440336851613614082

I must've triggered a lot of far-right Republicans with it.

Most sent brainless emotional responses, others sent me names of people. So I looked them up in Google searches of Fox and CNN's sites

Altogether, I received 46 different names of people that respondents believed had received national coverage. Overwhelmingly, as you'll see, the missing people did not receive much, if any coverage.

Altogether, the 46 individuals suggested to me received 3,826 hits on Google on the websites of Fox News and CNN.

By contrast, just one white woman, Natalee Holloway, who went missing in 2005 received 5,200 results. Gabby Petito had 111,300.

Overwhelmingly, the white Trump supporters who responded angrily did not supply any data to support their conclusions that I was wrong, even though I cited multiple sources.

Instead, like MAGA types often do, they tried to use anecdotes, which as we see today, were wrong.

I said this yesterday but will repeat it again here: Anyone whose loved one goes missing has every right to advocate for them as much as they can.

But national media outlets have a responsibility to make sure that they help people, not just ones they think would get good ratings

According to the FBI's National Crime Information Center, there are over 89,000 missing person cases. 45% of them are people who are not white. Clearly, that is not how the media outlets are dispensing coverage.

fbi.gov/file-repositor…

Other critics claimed that the reason these specific white women or girls got lots of coverage was because they were conventionally attractive or had interesting stories.

But that's really not correct either.

I'm not going to comment on anyone's appearance, but one person by the "interesting" criterion who should have received a ton of coverage was Aniah Blanchard, the stepdaughter of UFC star Walt Harris.

She received 11 stories between CNN and Fox. cnn.com/2019/12/02/us/…

I'm sympathetic to the argument that missing persons stories are better suited to specialized media and local media because the national press barely does any in-depth coverage of the many extremists at the top levels of U.S. politics or about actual policies each party wants.

Producers & editors, if you are going to cover missing persons stories, be fair in how you do it. Maybe choose who to cover randomly rather than how thin, white, and attractive you think the victim is.

Covering missing people should be about helping rather than voyeurism. /end

PS: Here is a link to download my spreadsheet, if you would like to.

I believe in releasing data and methods for full transparency in reporting. 1drv.ms/x/s!AmfAX2pz10…