Brittany Zimmerman was found murdered on April 2nd. Earlier that evening she had managed to call 911. Not hearing anything on the line, the 911 operator did address the situation as an emergency. Turns out that when the 911 tapes were released, you can hear signs of struggle. The county has of course come under scrutiny for this lapse in procedure. Her murderer has not been found.
This morning I opened up cnn.com to find this cold case has the top headline slot. And there was a very large picture of Ms. Zimmerman.
Let's look at Ms. Zimmerman. She's white. She has pretty blue eyes and red hair. She was young, she was pretty, and she was in college. This fits a very old pattern of affluent white women and girls getting extensive media coverage when it comes to their cases. Wikipedia calls it Missing White Woman Syndrome; though I'm not sure that's the correct term, the entry lists a lot of cases of white women hogging the spotlight. The easiest example is Natalee Holloway. Elizabeth Smart, Laci Peterson, and Caylee Anthony have all also been extensively covered by the news media. And yet Ramona Moore was a black college student who didn't get nearly the attention- her family even had trouble convincing the police that she was in trouble. Because she was black.
This saturation of coverage of while women needs to stop. It's great that CNN is keeping cold cases going, but why not feature Chanel Petro-Nixon, a equally pretty young student who's murder is also a cold case. Why Ms. Zimmerman? CNN will likely defend their choice by saying the 911 tapes make it an extraordinarily interesting case. But CNN sometimes covers interesting local murder cases, but I have never seen one get the top headline unless it is a white girl or woman.
The cold cases featured on cnn.com are all from Nancy Grace's television show. Ms. Grace bills herself as a victim's advocate. She's made herself famous with her passionate and bullheaded attacks against those she sees as hurting weaker humans (namely children and women). I'm not a fan of her show, so I'm not sure if Ms. Grace falls into the White saturation pit, but the pieces that I've seen have been her covering Ms. Smart's case, and Caylee Anthony's case.
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I go back and forth about the ethics of this type of question, but basically, CNN has a product to sell. If they think that more people are likely to watch a story about a young attractive white woman than any other story, then it is the duty of their management to their shareholders to run that story, and not another. Of course, that's just perpetuating an ethical problem, but now we have two ethical problems in conflict.
The rights of shareholders in CNN to expect their management to make the best possible (legal) business decisions, vs. the rights of... well the morality of discriminating among things like news stories based on race.
Basically, do companies have an obligation to behave morally above what is required legally of them? Or does that violate the expectations of their investors. Interesting question. I'm sure most people will have a snap answer that they are completely sure of.
Usually I love your responses. You point out annoying, yet necessary, snags in arguments. That's a very useful thing.
But this time- really?
Maybe I know less than I think about business, but I've never heard that businesses doing anything to make a profit is an ethical obligation. I thought the opposite was true. I thought pretty much everyone agreed that people like Rockefeller are bastards for "making the best (legal AT THE TIME) business decisions", and that's why we have all those laws saying that you can't take business decisions to the point of being unethical.
Sooo what we have here is not two ethical problems. We have an ethical problem versus a money problem.
Could you at least elaborate on this idea that businesses are obligated to make the most profits possible so as to not disappoint their investors? Who says that?
Actually, it is the law. Corporations have a fiduciary duty to their share holders to make the best business decisions possible aka make the most money.
Now, one can argue that morally-deficient decisions will hurt the company's reputation and later hurt it's business, and use that to try and get a corporation to make a less profitable decision in the short term, but which will make the company more money in the long term. And of course the company can't break the law, but other than that they're bound to make the best decisions to prolong the life and profits of the corporation.
This.
Actually, shareholder theory is a thing of the 70s, and many of the more current laws concerning corporate behavior acknowledge corporate responsibilities far beyond the fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Otherwise, corporations would be legally obligated to pollute public spaces, exhaust shared resources, engage in predatory behaviors such as price-fixing, and exploit their employees. All of these things are, at least minimally, prohibited by law, suggesting that corporations have legal responsibilities that extend beyond their shareholders.
Right, corporations cannot break the law to fulfill a duty, obviously. We're talking about moral and ethics questions that are not governed by law.
I was replying to the comment that stated that it's the law that a corporation has to do whatever it can to maximize the shareholders' profit. These laws do reflect shareholder theory, but there are also many laws which reflect stakeholder theory, so it's inaccurate to say that corporations only have a legal obligation to make money for the shareholders.
Also, thank you for your supportive comment.
Ah, the old duty-to-shareholders argument. A classic. The thing is, nobody in business ethics thinks this is defensible anymore. The more current theory is stakeholder theory. The category of "stakeholders" includes anyone who has a stake (stands to gain or lose based on corporate activity) in your company, so for most companies this includes employees, suppliers, contractors, vendors, retirees, the community in which you operate, etc, as well as shareholders. So it seems that a pretty strong argument could be made to include the general public in the category of "stakeholder" when it comes to news corporations. In fact, the FCC seems to agree with this.
This is fascinating. As far I know, the duty to shareholders stands as the standard of law. Where is the stakeholders law? Federal/state common law? What jurisdictions? Federal/state statutes? In what circles is it most used? I'm not playing smart, I am genuinely interested to know if my corporations law knowledge is outdated. Do elaborate please.
Back in the 70s Milton Friedman articulated shareholder theory, and up to that point shareholder theory was pretty much the theoretical basis for corporate law. However, since then the shift has gone toward stakeholder law (first articulated by R. Edward Freeman in the 80s), and more recent legislation reflects this. Any law which recognizes an obligation corporations have toward anyone other than their shareholders reflects this. Laws which prohibit exploitation of workers, pollution of the environment, depletion of shared resources, etc reflect an obligation corporations have to think of the interests of their stakeholders, not just their shareholders. Along with this, corporate tax breaks for charity and special contributions to their local community is a way for the gov't to encourage companies to view themselves as bearing a responsibility to more than just their shareholders.
I agree that stakeholder theory is much more common now; it's most of what we focused on in all of my business classes. However, I also think it's almost a pointless theory. Saying that people have a duty to regulate their behavior based on anyone that it might affect is just obvious. Why else would anyone have a duty to regulate their behavior other than that it might affect people? You're not gaining any new knowledge by just labeling "stakeholder" the category of all people who might be affected by a business. Moral obligations outside that context can't exist, so you've just labeled an already recognized class.
This topic is a perfect demonstration. We have a new category of "stakeholders" in media companies; namely all minorities or women who might be ultimately adversely affected by their choice of which story to run. Well yes, the companies choice will affect those people, but how much of a duty to them does it have, and how does that duty balance against their duty to their shareholders? The question is the same regardless of whether you have stakeholder theory, it's just phrased differently.
Saying that people have a duty to regulate their behavior based on anyone that it might affect is just obvious
Obviously it's not, since several commenters here maintain that a company is only obligated to think about its shareholders.
And "all minorities or women who might be ultimately adversely affected by their choice of which story to run" is not the "new" stakeholder we've allegedly identified in this case. Society as a whole benefits when we drop our privileging of certain groups and become more inclusive and realistic about who is affected by things like crime and systemic oppression.
Let me be more specific. What I mean is, when we're talking about shareholders, company obligations will be obvious. Be profitable, be sustainable. Well when you say stakeholders, now there are tons and tons of competing interests among everyone who might be affected. So you can make decisions by saying "what benefits shareholders", trying to do that with stakeholders requires infinitely more consideration about ramifications in all sorts of areas. So what I'm saying is a company can't have an obligation to all of its stakeholders, because their interests will often conflict. How do companies weight the balances? Well the first thing to do is check the law, because any obligations to things like workers rights or the environment will be spelled out clearly.
Talking about what will benefit society as a whole is a prisoner's dilemma. As companies are more concerned with everyone else, they are less concerned with being more efficient and so forth, and so all of their overall efficiency goes down. Overall production slows. Maybe everyone's relative apparent income goes up, but it has less buying power as overall output goes down. Economic issues are always too complex for making simple rules.
In this case I agree with everyone that the media should be more inclusive. But agreeing is never very interesting.
Sure, you can pull out the old stakeholder-theory-is-a-slippery-slope defense, but it doesn't seem all that relevant here. Nobody is asking CNN to consider the effects of their reporting on each and every person individually. In fact, nobody who advocates stakeholder theory thinks you have to take it to that level of specificity. Generally speaking you consider those groups (such as employees and suppliers) who are directly impacted by your company's action.
And we already view media companies as having an obligation to society as a whole. Otherwise, why do we have the regulations of the FCC? Why do we expect media companies to check their sources and do their best to not report untrue things as if they were facts? Why do we want them to at least pretend to be "fair and balanced?" When you go into certain businesses, there are built-in stakeholders. News media happens to include this one. So it's not that complicated, and this isn't some simple rule I'm asking them to apply.
If a general duty to stakeholders was assumed, why would we need those specific laws? It's because you can still trust companies to just do whatever they can to continue to be profitable.
I'm not even sure if we're arguing anyway. I'm hoping we both agree that companies do at least have SOME duty to their shareholders, and that they must balance that with their other duties.
Of course - the shareholders are a part of the stakeholder category. In addition, the obligation to do their best to remain profitable is a duty with regard to their employees and suppliers as well, since these stakeholders would assumably be put out of a job if they didn't. I'm just objecting to the attitude that there are no other considerations that apply other than being profitable.
And note that there are also laws in place concerning a company's fiduciary duty to their shareholders, so not even this is assumed.
"This saturation of coverage of while women needs to stop. It's great that CNN is keeping cold cases going, but why not feature Chanel Petro-Nixon, a equally pretty young student who's murder is also a cold case. Why Ms. Zimmerman?"
Though I understand your point, I think the issue here is not that violence against white women is over-emphasized, but that violence against women of color is under-emphasized. Rather than saying that the stories of women of color should be featured in place of some of these stories, I would argue that they should be featured in addition to, to show a more well rounded depiction of how violence affects women of all different communites. Less "Why Zimmerman?" and more "why not ALSO Petro-Nixon?" The title, to me, seems to imply that white women shouldn't be getting this coverage and I don't feel this is the case.
Sorry if this was not coherent or fully developed, it's finals week.
No, you're right. That's really what I was trying to convey. It's finals week for me too; in fact I'm writing a final right now. ~_^
Not so much just "Why Ms. Zimmerman?" but why single out specific women at all? Don't people go missing all the time? My brain might be warped by too many seasons of Without a Trace, but it seems like going missing is not all that uncommon that it needs to be broadcast for weeks on national news.
And why DOES it become a national news issue? Wouldn't it make more sense for local news to cover it, given that people in NY are probably not going to be much help in locating someone who went missing in CA?
BTW - I like UhOhitzSaro's comment and Destra's clarification of her post. It really seems like a wasted chance when these "missing women" cases are made into sensational stories rather than bringing home the cold reality of violence against women and being a force for change.
remember the sensationalism about the Natalie Holloway case? after a couple of months some news sources pointed out this story of a young black woman missing in philadelphia (i can't remember her name, she got too little coverage), and how her story got almost no attention while the media covered Natalie.
i think the media is obsessed with pretty blond white women's stories no matter what they are - britney spears or paris hilton anyone? on second thought, they usually sensationalize stories where white women have been victims. good for you for catching that.
Currently the missing woman case in the news up here is that of Laura Garza, a Mexican-American woman who moved from Texas and vanished from a club, last seen in the company of a registered sex offender.
While I know one Hispanic woman does not erase all the imbalanced coverage over the years between white women and women of color, perhaps it's a start?
I should also note that Ms. Garza is conventionally pretty. I'm loathe to note it, since it shouldn't even be relevant to the situation, but feel it's worth mentioning since all the news stories seem to make a point of it.
I wonder if there's as much a looks-bias as a race bias in which stories are deemed "newsworthy" and "sensational".
Nancy Grace is obsessed with covering pretty white girls gone missing. And in fact at one point with the Caylee stuff, the phrase she used was "This poor beautiful white girl has been missing for ___ days now..." I just stared, like, I'm sorry? Did you just emphasize her whiteness and beauty as the main reasons we should feel bad for her? For serious? I can't stand to watch more than about five seconds of that woman anymore. Everytime I pass her show channel-surfing and see more about Caylee whatshername, all I can think is, How many more children, how many more women, of all races, have gone missing and/or been found during all the time she spends obsessing over this one little girl?
Oh, and wrt a looks-bias vs. a race-bias in this kind of coverage, I'd say that for the most part they're one and the same. Much has been said in the progressive and anti-racist circles about how anglo features are considered the most beautiful for women, and those women of color who are most successful in appearance-based industries like modeling and acting are generally ones who look the most stereotypically white - thinner lips, nose, etc. - so I would say that a looks-bias also acts as a racial bias in this way.
Let's go a bit further. Why don't we take attractiveness out of this altogether? Like Jadelyn said. It's fucking ridiculous that the way someone looks has ANYTHING to do with how much we should care.
The Onion had a great satire of this:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30112b
"the entry lists a lot of cases of white women hogging the spotlight."
While I totally agree with your point (Australia, my country, has had its own case recently) I really really don't like the way you phrased the above. These stories are about women being brutalised, murdered, vaporised, silenced. They are NOT "hogging" anything.
(Sorry to be pedantic. Like I say, I agree with your overall point wholeheartedly.)
i really really think that the headline and finger-pointing in the post is distasteful. it's not the subject that bothers me, but the way it is being approached - why would you say a murdered woman is *getting* a headline? why would you suggest that these murdered women are *hogging* the "spotlight"?
i'm actually shocked that only one other person has become upset by your post.
this subject can be broached from a different perspective, one that is respectful of the women in these news stories, one that examines the way the *media* handles new stories without saying which woman deserves coverage based on who is "equally pretty"
i think i see where you were trying to go with this but you approached this without sensitivity and without consideration for the subject matter or for the women you accuse of "hogging" headlines by being murdered.
I agree with holmes. I really dislike the way it dismisses this poor woman as 'white woman gets another headline'. It makes it sound like white women who go missing are somehow adding to the problem themelves, rather than the media that gives unfair coverage. That's wrong and unfair, but it doesn't diminish these other women in any way. To put it into perspective, we talk a lot about issues that affect women, but if a murdered person were a white, straight, wealthy male, I wouldn't think it a nice idea to write 'straight white man gets another headline', even though there's more focus on those murders than, say, those of asian women, LGBTs etc.. Nor would a straight victim, even though the media doesn't like to focus on the murder of lesbians, become simply a 'straight woman getting attention' in my eyes.
There is a big problem within all oppressed groups, which is that when there is resentment that some (Straights, whites, wealthy, etc) are given priviledges the others don't have, this resentment is directed at the priviledged people themselves, not those responsible for it. This has always been an enormous problem for feminism.
Oppression is a complex thing because groups overlap, and the multi-layered oppression suffered by minority women and lesbians is very real and not a figment of anybody's imagination. But it saddens me to see women who are victims of male violence held up like this for something else they had no control over. We can raise awareness of the media ignoring minority women without doing this.
Once again the politics of race are used to obfuscate the politics of gender.
disclaimer: racially most people would describe me as African American and I describe myself as black. This is a political position.
Nettle Syrup it seems a contradiction to imply those who are privileged need not account for their privilege when they actively take the fruits of this privilege. Although, I agree with your critique of reactionary politics, I do not go so far as to see privilege as something that is out of the hands of the privileged. Stand point theorists insist that one can speak from the margins even when they are not from the margins or are more privileged than others by engaging in the reflexive process. A process that requires one account for and investigate their own relationship to privilege.
Who are these people that you speak of that are responsible for simply giving others privilege? Is the media who you are referring to in this case?
The News media runs certain meta-narratives that reinforce racist, heterosexist, and classist politics. The Media attempts to frame the conclusions and discussion of these narratives. I too have reservations about the approach to this topic as the author has framed it but let's be honest about the reasons that women are covered in this way by news media. I apologize for my bad memory but their is a media theorist whose name I can not remember that theorizes that reason that News media covers violence is to suggest the world around us is in constant peril. The narratives in these stories are not new. There is an obvious racial politic at work. Pretty middle-class white women are victims of violence and in need of some type of intervention. If you look beyond just cases of missing white women and look at media reporting of white women in general from celebrity news such as Britney Spears to reporting on rape cases. There is a prevalent gender and racial politic that says middle-class white women go back to the protection of your homes where your fathers, brothers, and husbands can protect you from the hordes of crazy sexual deviants such as pedophiles and rapists waiting to devour your pretty white flesh. Go back to your virtuous behaviors that protect you from unwanted pregnancies that end in abortion, murdering your children or being bad pop star parents. Yes, virtuous white middle-class women go back to the traditions that protect you from the harshness of a world that you are unprepared to fight without the protection of a good middle-class white male defender.
We can add context by looking at the political climate that has made more room for conservative values that often engage in racist, heterosexist, and classist politics.
We can see how the implicit narratives in these stories link to a general politics of fear that is racist because they focus specifically on white women as victims of violence and then insist that white women are those in most need of protection. We can also see how race, gender and class intersect not just for women of color but for All women because All persons occupy intersecting and contradicting positions of race, class, and gender.
Although I agree with the author that there is racism in how these stories are reported, I do not agree that more coverage of women of color will disengage the racist, heterosexist, classist and gender-biased politics that confront us. Women of color are more likely in the U.S. to be victims of violence and yet we are least likely to featured as victims of violence in news reporting. yes, there is racism involved in how these stories are reported. but we can not rest purely on the assumption that racism is the sole reason for this. gender, sexual orientation (we NEVER hear about the violence against lesbian, transgender women and transgender men and when I say never I do mean never. In my experience with mainstream media news reporting, I have NEVER, seen a report on violence against lesbians, and transgender women.)race, and class are often just tools used to support positions of privilege.
The News media runs certain meta-narratives that reinforce racist, heterosexist, and classist politics.
Yes. Exactly. Per usual, pop culture enforces and validates the dominant political views and power structure.
I don't get why people find this issue so confusing. It's really easy to understand if you think like a producer or an editor. Your job is to sell a product in a competitive market. People will not watch your news if they don't find it interesting. End of story and end of your job. Rankings are the end all and be all of the news industry.
Which brings us to the disparities in reporting. Attractive victims sell papers and generate more emotion and sympathy than ugly victims. Thus better rankings. The racial disparity tends to flow from both socioeconomic and racial factors. Poor people die a lot more than wealthy or middle class. This is not news. Something that is commonplace is not news, an editorial maybe but definitely not news. The old saw of 'dog bites man is not news but man bites dog is ' applies here. Minorities make up a disproportionate share of the poor; therefore, for a story to be interesting the victim must have some characteristic that clearly defines them as 'not poor' so their death appears unusual and interesting. It is news when an attractive, upper middle class blond, white girl is abducted because it fulfills all the characteristics of a great news story that people will watch. The most important thing to an editor or producer is that poeple are interested in your story. If it's not you are just one more unemployed journalism major on a soapbox.
Finally, my argument will lead many people to say that this means that journalist and society in general do not care if poor, black women are abducted and killed. This is true, they don't care. If society did care we'd do something about it and if journalist cared we'd be seeing repeated in depth exposes on the underlying socioeconomic factors that lead to decreased societal security. Arguing that they should care is one thing, but it should be obvious why the media doesn't. There is no benefit to them for caring , actually they would probably lose market share and some of their jobs if they did.