Poynter on the Record

A case that spotlighted whether the national media only care about missing persons if they're young, white women is about to get its day in court.

Christopher Hampton, 26, is accused of killing Tamika Huston, 24, in Spartanburg, S.C. His murder trial starts [Monday, April 1].

Huston disappeared from her home there in late May 2004. Her body wasn't found until mid-August 2005, after Hampton led police to the remains. In the 15 months between, her family telephoned and e-mailed journalists. They pointed out the similarities between Huston's story and those of other missing women then in the news, including Laci Peterson, Lori Hacking and — later — Natalee Holloway. Like those women, Huston was young, attractive and had vanished. But unlike those women, Huston was black.

Her case got almost no attention from the national media, until some (including USA Today) examined whether the media were ignoring minorities and men. ...

But lack of interest in Hampton's trial should not be taken as a sign the media are still only interested in missing white women, say both Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson and Keith Woods, dean of faculty at the Poynter Institute, a school for professional journalists. Both were critical last year of the media's work.

Now, Woods says, "we can celebrate some progress." Most recently, the cable news networks and other national media quickly picked up and reported on the March 19 disappearances of two black boys in Milwaukee. Quadrevion Henning, 12, and Purvis Virginia Parker, 11 ...

Robinson sees "a few more instances of people of color popping on and off the media's radar screens."

Some in the media concede, though, that there's room for more progress.
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