Reply #118: Nobody is forcing anybody to "follow" stories about missing/murdered [View All]

[smirkymonkey]

white blonde women. There are 2 issues here:

1. The mainstream media spends an inordinate amount of attention on personal interest stories that serve to deflect the focus from important, political real world issues that impact our lives much more directly than that of a missing pretty person.

Many of those stories center on missing/murdered blonde or attractive white women. Why? Probably because sex sells and most of the idiots in this country would much rather focus on a story of prurient interest than on the overwhelming truth of a world that is fucked up beyond belief. Blame the media and blame the fact that most men (and probably many women) would rather focus on something titillating than on something depressing.

The fact of this is disheartening, but face it - the ratings business is brutal and I suspect that war, war and more war eventually wears on viewers who eventually tune out. I suspect that these stories boost ratings, which is why they frequently crop up in the midst of all the violence and corruption that is seemingly endless and impossible to resolve.

2. The second issue - the one that I believe the OP is trying to bring to our attention - is that many here at DU (and elsewhere in progressive cyberspace) seem to take out the fact of media bias and bigotry (as well as the bias and bigotry of the viewers) on the victim herself. I have also been taken aback by the venom and coldheartedness expressed by various DU'ers toward a victim of a violent crime simply because she is FEMALE, white and blonde. This is the issue that many of us are complaining about - that somehow, all blonde, white women are disposable and of no consequence simply because of the media's tendency to sidetrack viewers with more salacious fare.

I see this black and white, "either/or" thinking here all the time. I guess most people would rather have a group to vent their anger at than to see the complexities of the situation.