Missing Children in News: Racial and Gender Representation of Missing Children Cases in Television News

**Brooke** Tue Dec 08, 2009 9:34 pm

I thought this was an interesting and relevant study to our forum because it covers which children are covered in the news and why. We'd like to think that coverage is equal for all children but this study shows that simply isn't true - according to the data in this study anyway. (If you read the 'unformatted document text' at the top of each page the font is more readable as compared to the typed version on the page below.) Just food for thought.

All Academic Research

*Abstract*

This research explores race and gender related selection bias in national television news coverage
of missing children cases. When the proportions of ethnicity and gender from the news coverage
of five national television stations between 2005 and 2006 were compared to official missing
children statistics, it was found that African American missing children and female missing
children were significantly underrepresented in television news coverage. It is argued that such
things as newsroom diversity, news operation routines, media ownership, and commercial motives
of media contribute to the race and gender related media bias.

http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/3/0/5/9/pages230591/p230591-1.php