Why is it some missing people get more media coverage than others?
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The last couple of days there have been 3 people who have gone missing who I know off, including the poor girl from Bristol, however it's only the girl from Bristol who has had any kind of media coverage. Surely there must be missing children every month, yet you only ever see these types of incidents quite rarely on the news.
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The media is fairly adept at being led by profit so I can only imagine there are more clicks / sales/ viewers attached to stories featuring missing people who fit that profile. What that tells you about us as a society is a bit depressing really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome
I remember in the 90s a case of a school girl raped and murdered on school trip to France it got tremendous news coverage, at the same time a downs syndrome girl went missing and there was hardly any coverage
Yep that's the phenomena I was talking about!! Nice linking:)
Indeed, she was missing for a week before it really became news, and has only become big news in the past few days with the developments.
And that's explains it really. A standard missing person case, especially a teenager, really isn't newsworthy. Teenagers in particular go missing/running away/forget to update parents all the time. They're usually found within a day or so.
Only when it becomes more 'interesting' does it become more newsworthy.
Secondly, what else is in the news at the time will have a big impact on how much attention any other story gets, about a missing kid or not.
Both cases were over summer as well I think so a slow news period, which meant that was all that news outlets focused on for a few weeks. They were thought to still be alive for a couple of weeks too, or at least bodies weren't found. A bit of a perfect media storm.
AMAZING QUESTION. AMAZING AMAZING QUESTION.
Who are the other two and what circumstances dis they go missing under?
And becouse of their age. Preteens are unlikely to run off in a strop of their own accord. They are more likely to be involved in a 'tug of love' situation, but that will be known about from the get-go so there's not so much concern from the general public.
First of all that poor girl Becky R.I.P. I HOPE whoever has done this I hope they rot in jail
It has taken a long time for Becky's vanishing to be put on the news sadly. I don't know why that is. Perhaps if her parents were middle class doctors she might have got more air time. ;-)
To be fair, it was about 2 days until it was on the news, locally.
It's an interesting question, and relevant right now, sure, but not sure it quite counts as "amazing"- it does get asked a lot when there's a big case in the news. No disrespect to the OP- as I say, it's both interesting and relevant- but I think you may be overegging the pudding a little.
This is all true, but there is a kind of heirarchy of newsworthiness. Same way a war hero getting mugged is more likely to make the news than a random shopper. I guess whether friends and family contact the press themselves is also an issue; not sure on that one, but it seems likely.
What happenef to the girl with Downs?