PressEthic

PublicEye, the CBS news blog, recently posted about a study by the Scripps-Howard News Service.

According to this study:

White children accounted for 67 percent of AP's missing-children coverage and for 76 percent of CNN's. But they represented only 53 percent of the 37,665 cases reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children during the same period and only 54 percent of the cases found in a 2002 study of missing children sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department.

This is appalling, but not especially surprising. The media likes to portray pretty white girls (or young women) in victim stories to round up as much public sympathy as possible. JonBenet Ramsey, Elizabeth Smart, and Terry Schiavo all fit this profile before their respective tragedies. And while media outlets might focus on white children to gain more ratings from a larger segment of the television-watching public, and while wealthy white families are more likely to have the resources needed to get media attention for their children’s cases, that does not make it ethically right:

"But the thing about it, the ghetto mamas love their babies just like the rich people do. And they need to recognize that," Mattie Mitchell said of news executives.

Mitchell is the great-grandmother of missing 4-year-old Jaquilla Scales. Jaquilla, who is black and has never been found, drew only slight national coverage in 2001 when she was snatched from her bedroom in Wichita, Kan. But the bedroom kidnappings of Danielle van Dam, Polly Klaas, Jessica Lundsford and Elizabeth Smart, all white girls, erupted in a barrage of publicity.

Race is not the only bias in reporting missing children. Apparently, children under the age of 12 are cute and cuddly.

"It hasn't been proven, but there's a cuteness factor, I think," said Mitch Oldham of the National Runaway Switchboard. "Why do people like pandas more than condors? They're more cuddly. I won't say it's a callousness towards older children. But younger children are perceived to be more vulnerable."

However, once puberty kicks in, authorities are less likely to comb the area for missing children, and the media is less likely to pick up the story. Why? Because a missing 12-year-old is suspected to be a runaway.

A good example is the 2002 abduction of Laura Ayala, 13, who disappeared after walking a block from her Houston home to buy a newspaper for her mother. Police found only the newspaper and the Hispanic teenager's shoes in a nearby parking lot.

[…]

“I made dozens of phone calls," [Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children] said. "But we were told, 'Oh, she probably just ran away.' My response was: 'Without her shoes?' The presumption by media in cases of a 12- or 13-year-old is that this is a runaway. End of story."

It is tragic when children go missing, especially when they are abducted. Though national media sensationalizes these cases, it also helps bring home the children who are still alive, and find the remains of those who have been killed.

There is no reason not to publicize the suspected abductions of minorities or preteens – unless you’re working with a bottom line that says customers only care about small white children. In that case, we have a bigger problem facing us, and helping find children that don’t fit into this mold might be a step toward dealing with that problem.