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‘Missing White Woman Syndrome’ In High Gear

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What of the Lost Women of Color?
Blacks Found Van Peebles Pioneering, Controversial
White House Wants More Info on ‘Horrific’ Videos
Media Industry Ranks Last in Employing Latinos

Reporter Helped Create Hispanic Heritage Month
Who Best to Discuss George Floyd? Take a Guess
Washington Post to Add 41 Editing Jobs
Guild Questions Unpaid Overtime at Gannett
SPJ Board Is Its Most Diverse Ever
USA Today Revisits ‘The Movement,’ Circa 1961
Law Gives Single Moms an Untenable Choice

Short Takes: Los Angeles Times Emmy front page; immigration reporter is undocumented; who is shot by Utah police, racially?; pandemic pushes some journalists to the brink; what community organizing can teach journalists; Malika Andrews; Chicago Reporter; Color of Change; Cheryl Bennett; Willard Jackson; interactive exhibit on racist violence; Zinhle Essamuah; 3.5 million records of previously enslaved people; videographer of Rodney King beating; Ecuador reversing repression; dismissal of workers by Nicaragua’s La Prensa.

Homepage photo: Missing and murdered indigenous women, from the Urban Indian Health Institute.

Updated September 23

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Ahyla Grey Bull, Destiny Spoonhunter, Kiera Spoonhunter, Alea Sanchez, Alicia Sanchez, Annalilla Sanchez and Arianna Sanchez pose for a portrait to raise awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous people. (Credit: Paulita Spoonhunter)

What of the Lost Women of Color?

Media fascination with the case of Gabrielle Petito has led to a revival of what the late Gwen Ifill termed “Missing White Woman Syndrome.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people are reported missing in the United States every year,” Katherine Rosman wrote Monday, updated Wednesday, for The New York Times. “But it’s rare for a single case to capture the public’s attention — and galvanize individuals to take action — as the disappearance of Gabrielle Petito has.

“In July, Ms. Petito, 22, embarked from New York on a cross-country road trip with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, 23. As they made their way out West in a white Ford van, the couple posted photos and videos of their journey on Instagram and YouTube. Then, on Sept. 1, Mr. Laundrie returned from the trip alone. Ten days later, Ms. Petito’s family reported her missing.

“The case has become a national sensation, in large part because of the awareness generated by people who are watching it unfold on social media. Each new development has been followed by flurries of explainer posts and videos from would-be detectives on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, who have seen their follower counts balloon. Theories have been debated and debunked. And an influencer couple may have helped locate Ms. Petito’s remains. . . .”


On MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” on Monday, Joy Reid asked, “The way this story has captivated the nation has many wondering: Why not the same media attention when people of color go missing? Well, the answer actually has a name: Missing white woman syndrome.”

“And that’s frustrating to people who say the media ignores an epidemic of missing and murdered Native American women” in Wyoming, where Petito was reported missing and where her remains were found,” Kamila Kudelska reported Tuesday for NPR.

“Since 2000, Indigenous people have made up 21% of homicides in Wyoming, even though they are only 3% of the population. That’s according to a state report released in January. [PDF]

“Cara Chambers, chair of the task force that released the report says only 30% of Indigenous homicide victims had any media coverage. That number is closer to 51% for whites.

” ‘The themes and media portrayal of homicide victims [are] that when you had an Indigenous victim, the articles were more likely to have negative character framing,’ Chambers said, ‘more violent and graphic language, really focusing more on sort of like where the homicide occurred versus anything about the victim.’ “

On the site Your Tango, editor Nia Tipton wrote Monday, “Black people make up 13.4% of the American population, and yet it’s shown that 33.8% of reports in 2019 were for missing Black people.

“Black people go missing at a rate three times higher than expected based on population numbers, and many of the reasons fall on the oppressive systems that are put into place. Ranging from poverty, homelessness, and incarceration, to inequity in health and education services.”

Moreover, “once a Black person goes missing though, they are a lot less likely to be found.”

Lindsey Ellefson wrote Tuesday for The Wrap, “Reid cited other instances of the so-called syndrome, including the media attention on the cases of Natalie Holloway and Laci Peterson, before being joined by Derica Wilson of the Black and Missing Foundation and Lynette Grey Bull of Not Our Native Daughters.

“Online, there was backlash to Reid’s assessment, but there was also support as viewers shared reports that highlight how many missing persons reports have been about Native American women or women of color.”

A common theme among the dissenters: Why doesn’t Reid use her platform to spotlight these missing women of color?

Indeed, why don’t more media figures?

Jet magazine from July 1, 1971, the year “Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song” was released.

Blacks Found Van Peebles Pioneering, Controversial

Which writers have had the best take on Melvin Van Peebles, the pioneering but controversial Black film maker whose death at 89 was announced Wednesday by his son, Mario Van Peebles.

One contender would be Hollie I. West (pictured), retired Washington Post journalist, who wrote in 1980:

“So the Van Peebles who stirred burning anger in the black community in the early ’70s with his superstud routine has proven himself as one of the few black writers working regularly in establishment circles on Broadway and in Hollywood. But the ‘Sweetback’ period brought down the wrath of many black intellectuals who complained that Van Peebles was solidifying black stereotypes.

“Psychiatrist Frances Welsing said: ‘A black penis never knocked off any white man.’ Poet Haki R. Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) said the movie was a ‘moneymaking, autobiographical fantasy.’ And Ebony magazine editor Lerone Bennett, Jr. called it a ‘negative landmark.’

“In answer to a question the other night about his reaction to critics, the writer’s answer was classic Van Peebles. ‘F — ’em,’ he said with a scowl. . . .”

Later, Van Peebles would win kudos from the African American Film Critics Association, which honored him in 2008 and 2011.

A statement from Mario Van Peebles, The Criterion Collection and Janus Films said of Van Peebles, “His work continues to be essential and is being celebrated at the New York Film Festival this weekend with a 50th anniversary screening of his landmark film ‘Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’; a Criterion Collection box set, ‘Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films,’ next week; and a revival of his play ‘Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death,’ slated for a return to Broadway next year.”

Referring to his daily digital show, Roland Martin asserted on Twitter Wednesday night, “No one else will pay tribute to #MelvinVanPeebles the way we just did on #RolandMartinUnfiltered BlkStarNetwork. We ain’t waiting on mainstream media! We are following his model: independent Black-owned media w/full ownership and control! . . .”

[Added Sept. 23]

“In the Al Jazeera video, a law enforcement officer on horseback is seen swirling the long reins near a group of migrants. Shortly beforehand, another individual on horseback is heard yelling at the migrants, saying, ‘You use your women? This is why your country’s sh*t, because you use your women for this,’ ” Jason Hoffman, Priscilla Alvarez, Geneva Sands, Paul LeBlanc and Paul P. Murphy reported for CNN.

White House Wants More Info on ‘Horrific’ Videos

“White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that the White House is seeking more information on the ‘horrific’ viral videos that appear to show US Border Patrol agents on horseback confronting Haitian refugees at the US border,” Jason Hoffman, Priscilla Alvarez, Geneva Sands, Paul LeBlanc and Paul P. Murphy reported Tuesday for CNN.

” ‘I’ve seen some of the footage. I don’t have the full context. I can’t imagine what context would make that appropriate, but I don’t have additional details, and certainly I don’t have additional context,’ Psaki said at the White House press briefing. ‘I don’t think anyone seeing that footage would think it was acceptable or appropriate.’

“Videos taken by Al Jazeera and Reuters appear to show law enforcement officers on horseback using aggressive tactics when confronting migrants, including authorities swinging long reins near migrants who crossed the US-Mexico border near Del Rio, Texas.

“Reuters video shows the officers at the water’s edge, twirling the long reins as migrants crossed the border at the US shoreline of the Rio Grande. At one point in the video, the officer’s horse nearly charges into one of the migrants, who falls back and into the water. . . .”

Meanwhile, James North wrote in the Washington Monthly “about the GOP’s manufactured outrage against the Biden administration and how its talking points successfully proliferated throughout media coverage of migration at the Mexican-American border,” Lauren Harris summarized for Columbia Journalism Review.

“Some reports emphasized the political ‘challenge for Biden,’ instead of the humanitarian challenge for the Haitians,” North writes. “But the mainstream media’s biggest failure is that it ignores U.S. complicity in the chronic crisis in Haiti, especially in the decade since the devastating 2010 earthquake. . . .”

Brian Stelter added in his “Reliable Sources” newsletter, “No surprise here, but many Fox News hosts and personalities are exploiting the tragic situation to promote fear of migrants. Lara Logan, for instance, went on the right-wing channel’s air and claimed that ‘bioweapons specialists’ had told her the surge was a way to potentially launch a ‘virus attack’ in the country. Anchor Martha MacCallum, purportedly a ‘straight news’ anchor on that network, didn’t even bother to interrupt her.

“Elsewhere, the coverage is as you would expect. Tucker Carlson led his program with it, once again advancing the racist ‘Great Replacement’ theory that a ‘HAITAN CARAVAN’ was being intentionally allowed into the country to help change the demographics so that Democrats can firm up control. It’s all reprehensible, but also oh so predictable… “

Media Industry Ranks Last in Employing Latinos

“The media industry had a lower percentage of Hispanic workers than the percentage for all other industries combined in 2019, according to the most recent data from the Census Bureau’s ACS [American Community Survey],” [PDF] the Government Accountability Office reported Tuesday.

“Specifically, Hispanics made up an estimated 12 percent of workers in the media industry compared to an estimated 18 percent of workers in the rest of the workforce (workers in all industries outside of the media industry combined) . . .”

The report also found that the biggest growth among Hispanics in the media industry was in service jobs, while management jobs had the lowest representation, as Astrid Galvan noted Tuesday for the Associated Press.

The report also said its analysis of data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey “shows little increase in the overall representation of Hispanics in the media industry in recent years. Hispanic representation in the media industry remained at an estimated 11 to 12 percent of the media industry workforce from 2014-2019, while Hispanics comprised 16 to 18 percent of workers in all other industries combined over the same time period.”

Similarly, media company reports to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission “stated Hispanic representation in their workforce remained at 10 percent from 2014-2018, the most recent years of EEOC data available. . . .”

The AP’s Galvan wrote, “U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (pictured), D-Texas, has made the inclusion of Latinos in media a principal issue, imploring Hollywood studio directors, journalism leaders and book publishers to include their perspectives.

“Castro says the lack of accurate representation, especially in Hollywood, means at the very best that Americans don’t get a full understanding of Latinos and their contributions. At worst — especially when Latinos are solely portrayed as drug dealers or criminals — it invites politicians to exploit negative stereotypes for political gain, Castro said.

“That could engender violence against Latinos, like the killing of 23 people in El Paso in 2019 by a gunman who was targeting Hispanics. . . .”

Telemundo celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month. Under the Spanish-language words for “Hispanic Heritage Month,” it says “Together Unstoppable.”

Reporter Helped Create Hispanic Heritage Month

“Every year when Sept. 15 rolls around, I smile to myself,” Robert J. Lopez (pictured), an accountability reporter for the Los Angeles Times with a special focus on underserved communities, wrote in 2013 for the Times, reprised for this year’s commemoration.

Lopez was describing his role in creating Hispanic Heritage Month, which began Sept. 15.

“I was a Mexican American college student in Washington and was asked to get cosponsors for a bill that would create a month-long observance honoring the achievements of Latinos — National Hispanic Heritage Month.

“I had already spent five months as an intern for Democrat Jaime B. Fuster, Puerto Rico’s delegate to Congress. Through connections, I lined up a second internship with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

“It was May 1988 and an exciting time to be in Washington. There were emotional debates over economic sanctions targeting apartheid in South Africa. The town was abuzz over the upcoming presidential race that would likely pit Vice President George H.W. Bush against Michael Dukakis, the Democratic governor of Massachusetts.

“The bill that I was asked to work on was officially titled H.R. 3182. It would amend a 1968 federal law that established National Hispanic Heritage Week and change it to Hispanic Heritage Month. The commemoration period, which would start Sept. 15, included the independence anniversaries of Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile, as well as Columbus Day, or Dia de la Raza, as it’s known in Latin America.

“A related bill already had passed the Senate, and though all 13 Latino members of Congress were in the House, getting enough supporters was far from a slam dunk. Getting the bill passed would undoubtedly encounter resistance, though I had no idea how much. . . .”

Who Best to Discuss George Floyd? Take a Guess

On five prominent Sunday morning TV news shows in 2020, white men (31%) were the most frequent guests discussing George Floyd’s murder and racial justice, the Women’s Media Center reported Tuesday. “Black men followed, with 27%, and Black women, with 24% of all guest appearances.”

That statistic was part of a broader study.

 “A yearlong review by WMC of five of the nation’s most influential Sunday morning shows revealed that 68% of all 1,671 guest appearances were by men in 2020 compared to 32% by women, although women make up nearly 51% of the nation. White men — who comprise 30% of the country — made up 53% of all appearances. Women of color, 20% of the U.S. population, represented less than 13% of all guest appearances.

“Of the 258 episodes analyzed, not a single regular or substitute host was a person of color.

“The report, ‘WMC Report: Gender and Race Representation on Five Big Sunday Shows January 1 – December 31, 2020,’ examined the guests on NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation, ABC’s This Week, Fox News Channel’s Fox News Sunday, and CNN’s State of the Union. It also analyzed coverage of three of the biggest issues of the year: The COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, and George Floyd’s murder and racial justice protests. . . .”

Separately, Christoph Mergerson, a visiting assistant professor in race and media at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, might have unwittingly offered a defense of the racial composition of the panels discussing Floyd. Mergerson set out to examine how media outlets in the South conducted their coverage of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, as they related to Black and Hispanic communities in the South.

He told Sara Sheridan of Columbia Journalism Review, “I’ve talked to more than one journalist who was like, “Our job isn’t just to reflect what Black and Hispanic communities are saying about these issues. It’s about waking white communities up and helping them understand what’s going on so that they don’t look away.”

The Washington Post newsroom honors reporter David Fahrenthold after he won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. His topic involved Donald Trump (Credit: Melina Mara/Washington Post.)

Washington Post to Add 41 Editing Jobs

“The Washington Post is expanding its editor ranks as it pushes forward with plans for growth in national and international coverage under its new executive editor, Sally Buzbee (pictured). . . .,” Katie Robertson reported Monday for The New York Times.

“The new positions will increase the number of journalists of color in editing roles, Ms. Buzbee said in an interview,” Robertson wrote.

“ ‘A real benefit toward us in a situation like this is ensuring that this will also improve the diversity of our staff, provide career paths across the newsroom for a more diverse group of people, for people from a wide variety of backgrounds and skill sets,’ she said. . . .”

The Monday announcement from Buzbee and other editors began, “We are delighted to announce a major expansion to accelerate our transformation into a fully 24/7 news organization and strengthen the leadership of the newsroom.

“The addition of 41 editing positions will grow our capacity to produce timely breaking news, revelatory enterprise and definitive investigative work; create visually rich stories that our audiences find compelling; cover topics that resonate with younger, more diverse readers; and develop innovations that will define a new era of digital journalism. The expansion will allow us to create a greater number of career paths across the newsroom and increase the number of journalists of color in editing roles. . . .”


Gannett employees appear in this promotional video for the company.

Guild Questions Unpaid Overtime at Gannett

“The NewsGuild, a labor union that represents thousands of journalists, is investigating the workplace culture of US newspaper conglomerate Gannett (GCI), starting with the issue of unpaid overtime work,” Kerry Flynn reported Tuesday for CNN.

“NewsGuild President Jon Schleuss sent a letter to Gannett CEO Mike Reed last Friday about the union’s plan to launch an investigation and requested the company do the same. The union also called on Gannett, which owns USA Today and more than 260 local publications including The Arizona Republic, the Detroit Free Press and The Indianapolis Star, to agree to other labor protections proposed in the ongoing union bargaining taking place in some of its newsrooms.”

Flynn also wrote, ” ‘There’s a lot of issues at Gannett,’ Schleuss said. ‘They claim that they’re supporting diversity. Well, a lot of people who are taken advantage of most when it comes to unpaid overtime are people of color and women.” ”

SPJ Board Is Its Most Diverse Ever

The Society of Professional Journalists Board of Directors has selected its two appointed members for 2021-22 and approved a third member to fill a vacancy on the board, giving the organization its most diverse board ever.

“The SPJ Board board now is made up of five Latinx, one Black woman, and three Caucasian/White members, which includes a trans woman. She is a first too,” Rebecca Aguilar, the new SPJ president, messaged Journal-isms. “We are seven women and two men. Our SPJ board is diverse in many ways and we are honored to serve our 6,000 members. SPJ does not only talk about diversity, our members made it happen.”

SPJ said in a Tuesday announcement, “Israel Balderas and Cheryl Smith were appointed during Saturday’s virtual board meeting and Danielle McLean was approved to fill the vacancy left by Claire Regan who was voted president-elect earlier this month.

“Balderas is an Emmy award-winning journalist, attorney and assistant professor of journalism at Elon University. His teaching and research focus on freedom of the press and access to public records influenced by artificial intelligence technologies. Prior to his academic appointment at Elon, Balderas taught journalism and media law at Palm Beach Atlantic University, where he also served as the faculty adviser to The Beacon Today, the school’s student-led publication.”

Smith, publisher/editor at I Messenger Media LLC in Dallas, was secretary of the board of the National Association of Black Journalists and is a board member of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, representing Black-press publishers. McLean was among a group of “transgender writers who have changed their names but aren’t easily able to correct deadnames on past work,” CNN reported in June.

 ‘Seven Days of 1961’ will run through December. 

USA Today Revisits ‘The Movement,’ Circa 1961

USA Today Wednesday launched a new multimedia series, “Seven Days of 1961.” Created by reporter Deborah Berry, the project “spotlights seven pivotal protests in 1961 that fueled the civil rights movement and helped end legal segregation and extend voting rights to millions of Black Americans. It is extremely relevant amid the national social justice movements and ongoing debates over voting rights, police brutality, and white supremacy.

“ ‘Seven Days of 1961’ will run through December featuring compelling text, video, Augmented Reality, events, , graphic novels, and podcasts to explore how sustained action brought about sweeping change,” an announcement said.

“USA TODAY journalists involved in the project traveled with veterans of the 1961 civil rights movement to seven protest sites to learn how each protest laid the foundation for progress. Nearly every few weeks in 1961, a battle for civil rights took place in which children, young adults, and longtime activists risked their lives to fight for voting rights and the integration of schools, businesses, public transit, and libraries. Journalists tracked down historic documents, analyzed Census records and other data, and spoke to former government leaders and witnesses for their in-depth reporting on these stories. . . .”

Amberly Sanchez had a job as an accountant at a real estate company in Albuquerque, N.M., when she was laid off due to the pandemic. Then an electrical fire destroyed her apartment building, forcing her and her 16-month-old daughter Avery to stay in a $400-a-week motel. She’d lost everything, The New Mexico Human Services Department caseworker fixated on an unexpected question: Who was baby Avery’s biological father? (Credit: Adria Malcolm)

Law Gives Single Moms an Untenable Choice

“Women who apply for welfare often have to identify who fathered their children and when they got pregnant, among other deeply personal details. State governments use that information to pursue child support from the dads — and then pocket the money,” reads the subheadline over a story Friday by Eli Hager for ProPublica.

Hager wrote, “For struggling mothers in New Mexico, a state that often ranks last in the U.S. in child poverty and well-being, this federal requirement means that they must either forgo desperately needed assistance for their children or risk complicating what are often already fraught, and sometimes abusive, relationships with their children’s fathers, if they’re even in contact with them.

“It also means that contrary to the popular understanding of child support — that it is intended to go to children —​ more than $1.7 billion in child support collected from fathers in 2020 was seized by federal and state governments as repayment for mothers and children having been on welfare, according to a ProPublica analysis of federal Office of Child Support Enforcement statistics.

“Close to 3 million of the nation’s poorest families had child support taken from them last year, amid the pandemic, for this reason. (Most other child support cases are initiated through a divorce or a legal action by the mother; for the majority that don’t involve a mom who has received TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] , the money does go to the kids.) . . .”

Short Takes

Lorraine Ali’s analysis of the Emmys received prime display on Monday’s print edition of the Los Angeles Times.
Malika Andrews said, “It’s an incredible time to cover the NBA — a league that is full of characters and stories that have resonance far beyond the sports world.”

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