[ExI] [wta-talk] LA Times: Unlimited space for untold sorrow

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Feb 5, 2008, at 6:27 PM, PJ Manney wrote:
>
> In fact, if we based risk assessment on American media exposure in
> general, you'd think the only people at risk were young, blonde women,
> preferably those who made some error of judgement and died as a
> consequence.  According to CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc., they seem to be
> the only people who suffer from senseless deaths.  And there's a
> reason for that... but I hope I don't have to explain that to you,
> too.


Your analysis of this is backward.  The news reports the extreme and  
unexpected, not the mundane reality.  That is the nature of news  
reporting. Everyone knows hispanics and blacks are victims of homicide  
every day in Los Angeles -- that is the mundane reality.  The whole  
"good-looking, young, blond, white chick" fixation of the news is  
precisely because it is relatively unusual, as supported by the very  
statistics you posted.

When a brown person in the bad Mexican neighborhoods of Los Angeles is  
murdered, it is not news.  Even if it was not happening, everyone  
would *assume* it was happening.  When Nancy Prom Queen gets waxed it  
is a spectacle in no small part because it is rare.

Of course, some of it is selective reporting.  They never seem to  
develop an obsessive fixation on the ugly white girls.

J. Andrew Rogers