Daily Show with John Stewart: 'Abducted blondes get more media coverage'

06/20/2002 | Vanity

[twas]

I was watching the Daily Show with John Stewart on Comedy Central last night.

Ever since Sept. 11, Mr. Stewart has taken to interviewing reporters and tv anchors in some sort of vain attempt to appear socially relevant.

On the show last night (June 19), Mr. Stewart and his guest (a woman journalist whose name eludes me at this time) were discussing abduction of children.

Mr. Stewart delicately brought up his “politically correct” observation that the news seems to only cover the abduction of white children, strongly imply that they are not covering the abduction of black children and that therefore the media is racially biased toward whites.

The audience seemed to respond favorably to this insight and the woman reporter even went on to comment that the abducted children were most often blondes.

Again, the audience relished the comment.

Now everyone should remember the media storm surrounding Gov. Jeb Bush and missing child Rilya Wilson. Rilya is a young black girl and the media certainly reported the story so clearly the media picks-up stories that have legs and reports of crimes against children even when they are black.

Mr. Stewarts’ populist implication that the media only covers abductions of white children, (usually blonds), got me thinking in a different direction.

Why didn’t Mr. Stewart and his guest make the observation that little blonde girls are the TARGETS of abductions and that the media is NOT covering this aspect of the issue.

Instead of noting the danger of abductions to young, blonde girls, Mr. Stewart and his guest took the politically correct opportunity to substitute the reality of a real threat to implied racism in the media.

The Daily Show is repeated each day so you can check you local cable listings and view the segment for yourself today and draw your own conclusions.

[TommyDale]

So I guess Stewart thinks Chandra Levy was a blonde?

[TaxPayer2000]

whats next? Not enough black children born of white women, therefore its discrimination as well?

[KC_Conspirator]

I made the same point the other night. The only reason we are not still talking about Rilya Wilson is that she has outlasted her usefulness to the democrats and their friends in the media as a political issue to bash Jeb Bush. Sorry, but its true, and the democrats should be ashamed of themselves.

[sinkspur]

Instead of noting the danger of abductions to young, blonde girls, Mr. Stewart and his guest took the politically correct opportunity to substitute the reality of a real threat to implied racism in the media.

Actually, Aaron Brown of CNN and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post were discussing the very same thing last night. A black female teenager has been missing for nine weeks in Milwaukee, and nobody's heard of her case. Her father's an ex-con, not well spoken, and Kurtz theorizes that the media gravitates toward stories about people like them. Kurtz is fairly objective, as media critics go.

So. Mr. Stewart and his guest may not be far off the mark.

[Rodney King]

A black female teenager has been missing for nine weeks in Milwaukee, and nobody's heard of her case. Her father's an ex-con, not well spoken, and Kurtz theorizes that the media gravitates toward stories about people like them. Kurtz is fairly objective, as media critics go.

The other possibility is that black teenagers going missing is not "news" because it happens frequently. Whereas what happend to the Smart girl is very rare and unique.

[isthisnickcool]

I've seen that show. Isn't is a fictitious "news show" that "acts" serious? Or was that Dan Rather? Hmm...

[twas]

Actually, Aaron Brown of CNN and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post were discussing the very same thing last night.

Hmmmmm, I guess this is the next hot racist topic.

Whoever said their was no liberal media promoting their agenda.

Watch for this new "racist" observation to pick up steam in the media.

[Catspaw]

She's not a teenager.  She's seven. 

I thought the media coverage of the Smart case reached a super-saturation point yesterday when all of the cable networks pulled away from covering the bombing in Jerusalem to cover yet another SLC police press conference, where a horde of reporters asked the same questions over & over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Alexis' story to get national exposure during CNN

By JAMES H. BURNETT III
of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: June 19, 2002

The disappearance of a 7-year-old Milwaukee girl will receive renewed national media attention tonight, six weeks after she vanished while walking to school.

Missing Children

Photo/Family

Alexis Patterson

What To Do

Anyone with information about the missing girls should call police at
(414) 935-7401.

 

Alexis Patterson was last seen about 8 a.m. May 3, police say, after her stepfather, LaRon Bourgeois, walked her a half block from their home on N. 49th St. to Hi-Mount Community School, 4921 W. Garfield Ave.

According to the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, LaRon Bourgeois and Ayanna Bourgeois, Alexis' mother, will be interviewed at 9 p.m. today about their daughter's case on Cable News Network's "NewsNight with Aaron Brown."

While the case has been heavily covered by Milwaukee-area media outlets, until now it has received only brief mention in national news reports, including snippets on the syndicated Fox network show "America's Most Wanted," Fox News Channel and CNN.

Though the circumstances of Alexis' case appear to be different from those of 14-year-old Utah girl Elizabeth Smart - allegedly kidnapped from her home at gunpoint two weeks ago - the disparity in national media coverage of the two cases came under heavy scrutiny after a Journal Sentinel article examined the girls' differences.

"We hope to get the amount of attention that the girl in Utah is getting," said John Robins-Wells, a retired private detective agency owner who came out of retirement to work on the Alexis case. "This girl could be anywhere in the U.S., anywhere in the world for that matter. Hopefully, somebody out there will see this and maybe come up with a lead."

Robins-Wells said the local NAACP chapter faxed, called and e-mailed all of the major networks for several days before getting a positive response from CNN.

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on June 19, 2002.

[T. P. Pole]

A black female teenager has been missing for nine weeks in Milwaukee, and nobody's heard of her case

Except for the coverage on America's Most Wanted. I wouldn't quite call that nobody.

[iguanaman]

Well... I think they get more media coverage, certainly, though I'm not entirely sure it's a product of their skin color. Rather, it's a product that the three girls Stewart is probably thinking of off the top of his head - Elizabeth Smart, Danielle van Dam, and the most obvious case, Jon-Benet Ramsey - were (I'm assuming in the case of poor Elizabeth) all rich as hell. Hundreds of kids, white, black, blond, brunette, are abducted every year, but not everyone has the money and influence to hold huge press conferences.

[Catspaw]

As stated in my post #9, she's not a teenager. She's seven years old. Although black teens may disappear frequently, seven-year-old black children do not.

[sinkspur]

The other possibility is that black teenagers going missing is not "news" because it happens frequently. Whereas what happend to the Smart girl is very rare and unique.

Nobody knows what happened to the Smart girl. I haven't heard any possibility ruled out, including that she willingly went with her "captor."

And, I've been corrected. The young black girl is seven years old; missing seven year olds ought to be news everywhere.

[Rodney King]

You're right, my mistake.

[sinkspur]

Thanks for the correction. I didn't pay as rapt attention as I had thought.

[Rodney King]

Agreed on both points.

[iguanaman]

You know... I really don't consider racism in America a part of the 'liberal agenda'... I think racism should be an issue on everyone's agenda.

Whether or not this is a case of racism is to be determined, but the fact remains that societal racism (that is, non-institutionalized) should still be dealt with as a prevelant issue in American culture.

[Lee'sGhost]

"The other possibility is that black teenagers going missing is not "news" because it happens frequently. Whereas what happend to the Smart girl is very rare and unique."

I was thinking about this last week and came to sort of the same conclusion. But, IMHO, it's not just the "frequency," there are serveral other factors at play. One being socio-economic setting. Poor kids in bad neighborhoods being abducted or killed just don't strike home as the reverse does. People work hard to get away from such bad situations, live in safer (more expensive) neighborhoods, and NOT be confronted with such horrors. Then, when it comes to their turf, it has the element of irony and failure of the American dreame -- whether the child be black or white. Add to that the fact that person came into the home to commit the crime rather an oportunist snatch on the street and you have EVERY parents worse nightmare -- one they thought they had elimiated as a possibility. I'm certainly not saying one life is worth any more than another. What I am saying is that the circumstances -- not the race -- is what makes one more compelling as a news story than the other.

[ladyjane]

Hundreds of kids, white, black, blond, brunette, are abducted every year, but not everyone has the money and influence to hold huge press conferences.

Agree. Look at the Chandra Levy case. Hundreds of peple disappear in D.C. and are never heard from again. I am surprised that in the search for Chandra they didn't come up with 50 bodies.

[Catspaw]

She got very brief coverage on AMW. It was one of those APB's they put out. You know, "ALERT! There's a girl missing in Milwaukee." The segment probably lasted under 15 seconds, if that. OTOH, Walsh--like the rest of the pack--was in Salt Lake City and featured the Smart story on last week's show.

I understand that the media can choose what stories they want to run, but a seven-year-old who vanishes on her way to school could have a bit more coverage than some local regional news coverage and a passing glance by the national media. Perhaps the parents of Alexis Patterson couldn't afford to hire a savvy PR firm, have a foundation mount a search for the girl, and the family probably wasn't good friends with a former senator. But this story needs more coverage.

Oddly enough, there are still two girls (they happen to be black) missing in Chicago (an hour or so south of Milwaukee) that vanished last summer on their way to the store. That, too, got some local & regional coverage, but I cannot even remember if it made AMW. I think it did, but there hasn't been any follow-up.