DAMSELS IN DISTRESS

via : Last June, a black woman named Tamika Huston was reported missing by her family. USA Today picks up the story from there: Rebkah Howard, Huston's aunt and a public relations professional in Miami, tried to get the national media interested in the case. "I spent three weeks calling the cable networks, calling newspapers — even yours," Howard said this week. Not much happened. ...."It's stunning sometimes how hard it is to get the national media interested when it's a minority," [said Philip Lerman, co-executive producer of America's Most Wanted and a former editor at USA Today.]

Good for USA Today for writing about this. Maybe eventually this kind of publicity will embarrass the cable folks into finding something else to fill their airtime.

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Thanks Kevin, this is an issue that both right wing sites and left wing sites have been complaining about. During the Terri Schiavo case there was another tragedy unfolding: Sun Hudson, a six-month old Texas baby died last week when health care providers at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, Texas removed his life support system over the objections of his mother. The action was authorized under the 1999 Futile Care Law which was signed into law by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

On the Right, LaShawan Barber wrote: Controversial stuff!

It’s an op-ed about the “damsel in distress” media phenomenon and how the damsels are usually white. The writer implies that white victims of crime are more valued (or produce better ratings for cable news shows?) than black victims of crime.

Given the media’s obsession with the tragedies of women and girls like Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, Lori Hacking, Chandra Levy, JonBenet Ramsey — and the comedy of Jennifer Wilbanks — the writer has a point.