Both Gideon and Norm Pattis, Connecticut lawyers both, discuss here and here the issues raised by the media coverage of the horrific Cheshire murders, and lack of coverage of murders of black victims in urban Hartford.  Does the murder of white victims matter more than that of blacks?  Are the lives of white people more valuable, important, significant than black lives?

I had a long discussion of this topic with a buddy at ABC back when news coverage of Natalee Holloway went missing in Aruba.  You remember her, she was the subject of Greta Van Susteren’s Fox TV show for something like 3 months straight, as if nothing else happened in the world.  As a result, she was ridiculed by high-minded critics, but “her ratings continue[d] to shoot up, making her the most-watched personality on cable TV.”

There’s the rub.  News coverage is not what it used to be.  Walter Cronkite is gone, and there are only two reasons that we still have news on TV.  The FCC requires it, and it’s a mechanism to sell commercial time.  The evening news is about getting people to watch, not about reporting news.  They know this.  Don’t you?

So when an editor decides that a particular story will be of interest to viewers, thus increasing ratings and thereby increasing advertising revenues, that becomes the “news”.  Only a child would believe that the news deals with issues of substance and importance in our daily lives.  If that was so, they would open with war in Iraq every night.  But nobody would watch.  Remember the old Saturday Night Live bit, “Francisco Franco is still dead?” 

As shown by Greta’s numbers during the interminable Natalee coverage, it captured enough eyes to keep it going night after night.  It wasn’t about the value of her life, but about the public’s interest in watching.  At the same time as the Natalee story captured the “public’s imagination,” there were black women who went missing or murdered.  They had families who loved them and desperately sought media interest to focus attention on trying to find them or their kidnappers or killers.  Remember them?  No, of course not.  Because nobody bothered to report about them. 

From the media point of view, it’s just a matter of one being “news” and the other not.  After all, there are just too many mundane murders and kidnappings to report them all.  Fair enough, but why is it that the cause celebre is always about a white instead of a black?  “That’s not true,” I was told.  “Oh no?” I asked incredulously.  “Name one.” 

“Tawana Brawley” — White ADA accused of rape.
“Duke Lacrosse” — White wealthy lacrosse players accused of rape

This went back and forth for a while, but you get the point.  Is it a “man bites dog” thing, or perhaps a blacks aren’t our desired demographics, or maybe they think blacks only watch “soul train” on TV and wouldn’t be interested anyway?  Granted, I’m being a bit harsh, but the hard, cold truth is that a story involving a white, wealthy, interesting person is going to be a story, while the murder of a black person, without a white hook somewhere in there, will be invisible.  About the best you can say in the media’s favor is that not all murders of white people make the news either.  But at least they have a chance.

But the ugly reflection is not just of the media, but of the watchers of the media as well.  It’s neither fair nor right that the media’s view of what constitutes news is mired in bias.  But if it wasn’t, would you watch?  It’s harsh and it’s a disgrace.  But despite all, it remains the case.