After the body of a missing 22-year-old woman Gabby Petito was found earlier this week and ruled as a homicide Tuesday, ABC was already politicizing the young woman’s death. On Good Morning America, co-anchor T.J. Holmes criticized the media for not giving enough attention to missing people of color and urging them to follow the left-wing Black Lives Matter movement.
Holmes seems to have been inspired by MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who voiced the same criticism on her show Tuesday night. He started off his report citing a few high profile missing person/homicide cases to illustrate how they were all white women, and argued missing minorities don’t “get the same media attention”:
There are some names that become household name, Laci Peterson, Natalee Holloway, Elizabeth Smart, Gabby Petito. There are others like Kierra Coles names like Jelani Day names like Daniel Robinson, why don’t you know those names? Those are people of color who’ve gone missing that didn’t get the same media attention. And a lot of people online are taking advantage of this moment to not just highlight other cases but also highlight the disparity in the media's coverage of them.
This is plain to see, but what's the reason? Holmes claimed the media has an "infatuation with missing white women."
But here's the despairing truth. Gabby Petito is one of so many reported missing each year, at the end of 2020 the FBI had over 89,000 active missing persons cases, 45% of those cases, people of color. Petito's story has renewed debate about which cases get attention and the media's seeming infatuation with missing white women but her case also sparked a call to action to bring others home.
From there, he highlighted three missing person cases of Jelani Day, Daniel Robinson and Maya Millete, all not white women, to show how they weren’t household names. The elephant in the room is why ABC didn’t cover their stories when they went missing to begin with. Not to mention the dozens of minorities who are killed by gang violence every few weeks in places like Chicago, doesn’t get the notice of the networks. So the media themselves are the ones responsible for catering a narrative that diminishes the importance of black lives.
After playing a heartbreaking clip of Day’s mother worrying that her son’s case was not getting the attention it deserved due to racial disparity, Holmes chimed in to confirm her concerns. But instead of calling out his own network, he went political, urging the media at large to follow the liberal BLM movement:
It's important this is not an either/or situation. You can still say that the Petito story is worthy. It should make headlines. You can feel for her family but at the same time say these other stories about minorities missing are important to highlight as well. We went through summer last year, Black Lives Matter. That had to do with equity and police treatment of African-Americans. But this same idea of Black Lives Matter is important in all of our responsibility as media coverage when you highlight certain stories of certain people and not others you're perpetuating the idea that some lives matter more and this is why this conversation is important to have.
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Read the transcript below:
Good Morning America
9/22/21
TJ HOLMES: There are some names that become household name, Lacey Peterson, Natalee Holloway, Elizabeth Smart, Gabby Petito. There are others like Kierra Coles names like Jelani Day names like Daniel Robinson, why don’t you know those names? Those are people of color who’ve gone missing that didn’t get the same media attention. And a lot of people online are taking advantage of this moment to not just highlight other cases but also highlight the disparity in the media's coverage of them. Her story has dominated news headlines. And mobilized a legion of social media users #findgabbypetito gaining over 700 million views on TikTok.
...
FBI INVESTIGATOR: Psychologically people just felt very close to her because of social media.
HOLMES: But here's the despairing truth. Gabby Petito is one of so many reported missing each year, at the end of 2020 the FBI had over 89,000 active missing persons cases, 45% of those cases, people of color. Petito's story has renewed debate about which cases get attention and the media's seeming infatuation with missing white women but her case also sparked a call to action to bring others home. Like Daniel Robinson, a 24-year-old geologist who went missing in the desert outside buckeye, Arizona, in late June, his jeep found mangled July 18 about 4 miles from where he was last seen, the police department there says, investigators are utilizing every resource possible to locate him including assistance from partner agencies and information provided by the public. His family has also organized searches in the desert heat.
…
HOLMES: It's important this is not an either/or situation. You can still say that the Petito story is worthy. It should make headlines. You can feel for her family but at the same time say these other stories about minorities missing are important to highlight as well. We went through summer last year, black lives matter. That had to do with equity and police treatment of African-Americans. But this same idea of black lives matter is important in all of our responsibility as media coverage when you highlight certain stories of certain people and not others you're perpetuating the idea that some lives matter more and this is why this conversation is important to have.
ROBERTS: It's not either/or. It's and.
HOLMES: You can do both. All of these stories are worthy.
ROBERTS; Jelani Day, I had so many people on my timeline wanting help in searching for him as we have for others.
HOLMES: Yeah, so hopefully, hopefully, again, oftentimes it doesn't actually lead to the cases being solved but it's value and important in making sure and highlighting that all these lives are important.
