I haven’t really followed the awful story of the murder of Gabby Petito, but the coverage has now become, in part, about the coverage, with the media lamenting that missing girls of color don’t get as much attention.
Of course, if the media want to give more coverage to non-white missing girls, there’s nothing stopping them:
I think I've now seen at least 20 media stories about how media gives too much attention to white women that are missing and not enough attention to other cases.
Do these outlets/reporters realize that nobody is keeping them from covering other cases? https://t.co/0EEb2LBAo8
— AG (@AGHamilton29) September 23, 2021
Wilfred Reilly has some thoughts about why such cases don’t get more coverage:
So, my thoughts on "Missing White Woman Syndrome…"
First, there often IS more coverage of white as vs. POC female victims – up to 3x as much, per a paper I'll try to dig up and link below.
Then and as ~always, however, there's a huge "but."
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) September 23, 2021
And as MBD points out, its gross to now make this young woman who was the victim of a horrible crime a symbol of allegedly racist media coverage:
Twitter: “Man, I wish this missing white girl had lived to see how unjust her death was to everybody less privileged.”
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) September 23, 2021