Addressing Issues Regarding Racial Inequity in the Media
When travel blogger Gabby Petito was reported missing on Sept. 11, social media platforms, primarily TikTok and Twitter, were flooded with posts regarding her disappearance. Petito was traveling with her fiancé Brian Laundrie in a cross-country van trip when she disappeared around Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Only six days later, on Sept. 17, Laundrie went missing, though the general consensus was he was hiding, given was named a person of interest two days prior. A body found in the Bridger-Teton National Park on Sept. 19 was speculated to be Petito; this was confirmed with the coroner’s report on Sept. 21, the autopsy revealing her cause of death to be homicide (American Broadcasting Company News). This tragic story was amplified throughout the media, with countless news articles, posts and videos sharing Petito’s story.
However, there was radio silence about another missing persons case happening concurrently. Jelani Day, a graduate student at Illinois State University, went missing on Aug. 24, and his body was finally recovered on Sept. 25 after his mother spoke out criticizing the lack of urgency in the search for her son compared Petito. Day’s mother, Carmen Bolden Day, called out the clear racial discrepancy between the treatment of missing white people and people of color (POC), expressing how frustrating it is that “this young white girl is getting that attention and my young Black son is not” (Newsy). Petito’s case makes it explicitly clear how much the media fails to cover missing persons cases that involve a POC such as Day, or simply stories regarding POC in general. Only when Bolden Day spoke out did media outlets and social media activists begin to cover his story, which expedited the discovery of his body.
We have seen the power the media holds in spreading awareness for racial issues; take the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which reached its height in the summer of 2020 due to ample media coverage about violence against Black people at the hands of the police. This influx in online discussion led to protests, petitions and demands for legislative action to be taken. Since that summer, however, the BLM movement has become less prominent on media platforms. In order for the social media algorithm to magnify certain topics, users must interact with related posts through likes, comments and shares; as less people are interacting with content regarding BLM, there is less widespread discourse about the still-pressing issue of police brutality. Just last week, on Sept. 26, there was an incident regarding officers within the Missouri police department allowing a police dog to repeatedly bite a Black man before arresting him (National Broadcasting Company). Though there is a video of the incident, there was hardly any sign of it in the media; instead, feeds were flooded with a police bodycam video of Petito following an argument with Laundrie. As important as this video was as evidence in Petito’s case, there were an excessive number of posts relating the same footage, leaving less space for stories like Day’s and the incident in Missouri to be heard. There is room in the media for multiple topics to be discussed at once, and users must be conscious of the impact their interactions with posts have on the circulation of information. It is important for white social media users to actively try to boost POC stories, as a like, comment or share can go a long way in expanding the information’s reach.
Though Petito’s case is not less important than any other, it is not fair to highlight one story while neglecting to give the others the appropriate amount of attention. There is clear power in media coverage, particularly with the increasing presence of digital media in everyone’s lives, and it is important to acknowledge all missing persons, not just those who are white. We must continue to amplify POC voices, as they too often get lost in the midst of the ample coverage of white people’s stories.
