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May 10, 2005
I'm stunned
Bob Dole's former press secretary wrote in to the Chicago Tribune. He suggests that cable news channels love missing white women because it gets higher ratings than, say, missing Asian men. Waaah?
Note to the news media--with an emphasis on the cable networks: Enough is enough.
Your continual focus on, and reporting of, missing, young, attractive white women not only demeans your profession but is a televised slap in the face to minority mothers and parents the nation over who search for their own missing children with little or no assistance or notice from anyone.
The latest missing woman to dominate the airtime of the cable networks was Jennifer Wilbanks, from Duluth, Ga. Like Dru Sjodin, Chandra Levy and Elizabeth Smart all before her, Wilbanks is young, white and attractive. Wilbanks, as it turned out, ran away of her own volition from her impending marriage. As a Maryland police official told me after Wilbanks turned up in New Mexico, "the media's non-stop focus on the possible abduction of Wilbanks forced the local officials and police departments to spend thousands of dollars they would not otherwise have spent."
I sure do feel bad for this Jennifer Wilbanks lady. Admittedly, she did not choose the best way to express her fear of getting married. Yet I can't believe that there is any way she could have realized that her disappearance would set off the national bonfire that it did. If there's a moral here, it's that you're young, white and female, and want to go missing, make sure it's for a legitimate reason, such as you're been kidnapped or maybe abducted by aliens. CNN and Fox News are going to have your picture all over the place, and it'd be pretty damn embarrasing if somebody finds you in North Dakota with bleached hair gobbling Dolly Madison Donut Gems.
Posted by oz115 at May 10, 2005 01:49 PM