Political Connection: Subconscious Racism Apparent in Coverage of Missing Persons

Have you heard of Laci Peterson, JonBenet Ramsey, Elizabeth Smart, or Natalee Holloway?

If you rely on the American media for your source of information, you probably have. The mainstream media was on these missing persons cases from the get-go, plastering their pretty smiling faces on every news channel. Hours upon hours of airtime have been devoted to these missing individuals. Newspapers, radio stations, and especially television networks have covered the exhaustive FBI and volunteer searches, the candlelight vigils, and every new development in each case until everyone in America knew their names. In the case of Natalee Holloway, it didn't stop there. The 18-year-old Alabaman didn't just garner mere national attention. The Dutch Marines and the Aruban government pitched in with the "rescue" effort when she disappeared during her Caribbean class trip.

What about Angela Frances Lynne Delucca, Diamond and Tionda Bradley, or Christian Ferguson? Have you heard of them?

Probably not. These children are only a few of the 58,000 American children gone missing each year. And unlike Elizabeth Smart and Natalee Holloway, they are among the number of missing minorities that are far less likely to garner attention from large media networks like ABC, CNN, FOX, or MSNBC. It seems like the media has chosen to focus almost exclusively on missing white photogenic women. Why is it that we constantly hear about each new development in their cases, while for the majority of missing children, the only mention they receive is a poster in the entrance of the local Wal-Mart?