New calculator tackles inequality in missing persons stories
By DAVID BAUDER
AP Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The Columbia Journalism Review has unveiled a tool that allows you to guess how much attention you would get from the public if you go missing. It’s an attention-getting device in itself, done to highlight “missing white women syndrome.” That’s a reference to the media’s tendency to pay extra attention to missing young, white women. The late Gwen Ifill coined the term to describe it two decades ago, and Columbia says there are few indications that news organizations have changed their habits since then. The online tool is based on actual statistics of missing people and stories devoted to them.
