Here is the story of four young women, their fates all unfortunate and horrific and, for some, deadly. But the coverage of the cruel and inhumane injustices done to these young girls/women, was totally different.
Back in December, just a few days after Christmas, a 6-year-old girl named JonBenet Ramsey was reported kidnapped from her home, but was later found dead in her home.
This murder occurred in Boulder, Colorado, but before too long the world was bombarded with pictures of the young beauty queen, as her face was soon plastered on television and magazines. But this time, the young beauty would never be able to walk down the catwalk and thank the people for their support.
On January 9, a 9-year-old girl was "viciously" raped, choked and left for dead in the stairwell in the Chicago housing project known as Cabrini-Green, or "Cabrini-Hell" to its residents, but this story was neither spread across televisions screens, nor did "Girl X's" face make the cover of any magazines.
This was a horrible and cruel crime that happened to this young girl, just as that which happened to Ramsey. However, I didn't see any coverage about her near-death experience on the major networks. I learned of this young girl's unfortunate fate on Black Entertainment Television.
Although she is now recovering in the hospital, and her attacker has been captured and charged, her story has yet to be part of nationwide concern.
Of course, we could attribute the lack of coverage of this young girl's story to the fact it was not of local concern. However, if we make that summation, we should also try to calculate how Ramsey's story equaled nationwide coverage.
On April 3, Laura Smither, a 12-year-old Friendswood girl, disappeared as she jogged near her home, as required for the physical education credit for her home schooling. Soon after the young girl was reported missing, local news stations began covering the disappearance of the young girl.
Her community quickly bonded together in its namesake and began to form extensive search parties to look for the young girl. Members of the Marine reserves and the Texas State Guard were even sent out to aid the community in it's search for Smither.
Around the same time that Smither was reported missing, the Crouch family of Houston was searching for their 20-year-old daughter who had been missing since March 25.
Raquel L. Crouch disappeared after she left her job in the Astrodome area. She had been missing for nearly a month before I saw any intensified coverage of her disappearance, or her community's efforts to find the missing young lady. Again, I learned of this young lady's disappearance through unconventional means.
A friend who knew Crouch told me about the girl's disappearance, and she also relayed her concerns of the coverage, or in her mind, the lack thereof. Crouch's face wasn't plastered on the television screen or on the front page of the newspaper.
In a search effort launched by her community, unaided by the Marine reserves or Texas State Guard, the search party found the remains of what turned out to be those of the missing young woman.
These young girls/women all had different backgrounds and circumstances surrounding their disappearances, murders or rapes, but one thing that they all had in common was the fact that they all suffered horrible injustices at the hands of their attackers.
With this said, these young women shouldn't continue to suffer the same types of injustices in the media coverage of their deaths, and what remains of their lives.
If you think that I am being too "sensitive" about the subject, and am maybe reading too far into it, I suggest that you read the April 21 issue of the Houston Chronicle. In it, the discovered remains of an unidentified body that fits the description of Smither made the front page, and the identified remains of Crouch barely made the front of the Metropolitan section.
Get the story ?
Roberson is a sophomore journalism major.