The top news story in the world?
March 7, 2008 at 10:24 am by Andisheh Nouraee in NewsEve Carson’s shooting death yesterday was horrible and sad. But is her death really one of the most important news story in the world today? CNN seems to think so.
Here’s CNN.com’s front page this morning:
My heart goes out to her family and friends.
My heart also goes out to the families and friends of murder victims who were not as pretty, not as blond, not as white, and therefore not as worthy of CNN’s attention.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Am ex-girlfriend is a producer for a network news room and her response to a similar news event a few years back was “It isn’t NEWS when someone gets killed in the hood, but it is news in this case.” Basically, affluent, pretty white girls getting killed is news because it happens so much more rarely than the non-pretty, non-white, non-affluent girls.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I forgot to add that she became an ex soon after that and I began to get more and more cynical about the media.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:49 am
She was the student body president at one of the top institutions of higher education in the world. Kind of elevates this beyond the old “pretty white girl gets all the publicity” agument, huh?
I’m guessing if the student body president at Harvard, Duke, UNC, Yale, Stanford etc. were brutally murdered, it would be covered, regardless of race. Nice try.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:57 am
and that merits world wide coverage on the CNN homepage?
March 7th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
And if Eve Carson had once been quoted as saying Andisheh Nouraee was a non-ridiculous writer this whiney little blog post would never have happened either.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
@Louise Bryant Park
Huh?
March 7th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Brian –
I didn’t say it’s not important news. I’m not even saying it’s not front-page news.
Do you honestly think it’d be top story on CNN.com if she was not an attractive white woman?
Andy
March 7th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Yes, I think if the president of the student body and a member of the board of trustees at UNC-Chapel Hill (or any other top tier college in the U.S.) was murdered, it would be a top story, whether the person was male, female, white, black, native american, etc.
Note that there is not a story about the young woman from Auburn on the CNN page, and she was also an “attractive white woman.”
Note that it is no longer a top story, but is the fifth most popular story of the day. I don’t know how long that they held it in the top spot.
Overall, I feel silly debating this as it is a tragic event and I don’t want to belittle or add to any controversy surrounding it, however minor.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I agree with the fifth paragraph completely. He speaks for me too.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
“Do you honestly think it’d be top story on CNN.com if she was not an attractive white woman?”
She was the President of the Student body at UNC. So there’s a very good chance that it would still be the top story on CNN.com whether she had been White, Latino, Asian, Black etc.
You’ve got some serious issues, Dude. And you’re obviously projecting them onto this story because she was “pretty” “blond” and “white”.
Boomer
March 9th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
You’re right, Boomer.
What kind of nutjob accuses the employer of Nancy Grace of exploiting attractive female victims for ratings?
Only a crazy man could conceive of such a thing.