Introduction:

Joy Reid, an MSNBC Host, was exactly right when she dubbed the extensive and continuing news coverage of the disappearance of Gabby Petito a case of “missing white woman syndrome” and questioned if people of color involved in similar cases are given the same level of attention by the media. She correctly observed that when a white woman went missing, that missing person report received massive media attention. Women of color, crickets. 

Ms. Reid missed the opportunity to report on the equally obvious and far more fatal “dead black man syndrome” where the 1% of black male deaths caused by cops are major and lasting media events, and the other 99% go unnoticed and  unmourned.

That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode.

Continuing:

Most so-called news sources are focused on pandering to their target audience; “details” like real news and the truth are not merely lower priorities–they are seldom considered at all. If you want the truth, and who doesn’t, there is no one source any more. You must go to several disparate sources, ignoring various amounts of anger and bias, and distill the truth on your own. 

Joy Reid followed the example of researchers who came up with the name “missing white woman syndrome.” Michelle Jeanis, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, says it has been in existence for decades. Ms Jeanis studies the relationship between missing persons and the media. She contends the news media’s use of a “cautionary tale framing” around white women as victims is lucrative to the industry and reinforces systemic social biases, especially on social media. “Young, beautiful, typically middle class, white women are incredibly newsworthy when bad things happen to them,” she told the BBC.

The media have the right to focus on any stories they wish. Publications like People and Star Magazines and the National Enquirer have very different selection criteria than, say, the Wall Street Journal. From the Enquirer you will get headlines like, “Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby,” and from the WSJ, “China Declares Cryptocurrency Transactions Illegal; Bitcoin Price Falls.”

I have no problem with the National Enquirer publishing stories about Ms. Cinton adopting an alien baby. No one with a room temperature IQ takes that publication seriously. And People magazine is clearly all about so-called celebrities and gossip. But Fox News, CNN, The LA Times and many more hold themselves out to be hard news sources, when in fact they curate their content and editorials to play to their selected audience. In other words, they are frauds. These three and more are versions of Star Magazine masquerading as hard news sources.

It was not always this way; for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Cronkite (Walter Cronkite) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS_Evening_News (CBS Evening News) for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as “the most trusted man in America” after being so named in an opinion poll. Many people preferred to get their news from CBS because they liked Walter, but you could go to NBC or ABC, CBS’ rivals, and get the same information. Only the personalities were different. 

Mr. Cronkite was a liberal, but more importantly to him, he was a professional. He had many wonderful qualities including sincerity, calmness and a professional demeanor and delivery. Perhaps the greatest compliment that I can give Cronkite is that I had no idea what his political leanings were until after his death in 2009; he simply never turned that card over, either explicitly or implicitly. No one can say that about a single news source today. Not. One.

Most of us know the story of the six blind men working to determine what was in front of them, then announce to the world what it was. Working