Madison Bell's Disappearance Gets Media Coverage!

Ohio woman goes missing and the nation is talking about it.

Missing white woman syndrome once again. Again, I want to the U.S. Justice Department to find this woman safely.

I am not condemning the nation's response to finding her.

I am condemning the junk food media's obsessive coverage of a missing white woman. For every white woman that's attractive missing, there's thousands of women of color, children of color, men and the forgotten missing everyday.

Why does one white woman get more coverage than others?

An Ohio woman goes missing after running an errand. She went to a tanning salon and her family believes that she was kidnapped.

Ohio woman disappears after running an errand.

Highland County, Ohio is the place where Madison (Maddie) Bell went missing.

The 18-year old woman told her mother she was going to the tanning salon in town. She didn't return home. Mother got concerned. The sheriff found her vehicle, her phone, her keys and purse. They found it located in a church parking lot. Now the search is on for a vehicle with out-of-state tags.

Madison's mother Melissa Bell told the junk food media this is not like her to just up and leave.

"This would be her senior week of high school, so we had a lot of events going on this week that she wouldn't miss," she said.

Highland County Sheriff Donnie Barrera said that he's following all leads and is asking for the FBI and Ohio Bureau of Investigation to get involved.

Ohio's Republican governor Mike DeWine slipped Bell into his presser this afternoon.

Since Sunday, more than 300 people have joined the massive effort to find Madison. Groups have spent a combined 4,000 hours searching for the teen.

According to reports, the church parking lot is being considered a crime scene. Police said they are looking for a white Nissan sedan with California plates.

Bell's mother tells the nation that if they see her, bring her back safely.

Meanwhile, the woman's mother said she’s thankful for the outpouring of support from their neighbors and friends.

"We're a small town, but this what they do when something happens," she stated. "They all come together and I can’t thank them enough, it means the world to me."

Missing white woman syndrome is a term used by social scientists and media commentators to refer to extensive media coverage, especially in television, of missing person cases involving young, white, upper-middle-class women or girls. The term is used to describe the Western media's undue focus on upper-middle-class white women who disappear, with the degree of coverage they receive being compared to cases of missing women of color, women of lower social classes and missing men or boys.



Although the term was coined to describe disproportionate coverage of missing person cases, it is sometimes used to describe similar disparities in news coverage of other violent crimes. Instances have been cited in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa.

Missing white woman syndrome has led to a number of right-wing tough on crime measures that were named for white women who disappeared and were subsequently found harmed. In addition to race and class, factors such as supposed attractiveness, body size and youthfulness function as unfair criteria in the determination of newsworthiness in coverage of missing women.

News coverage of missing black women was more likely to focus on the victim's problems, such as abusive boyfriends or a troubled past, while coverage of white women tends to focus on their roles as mothers or daughters.