

If there is a missing white woman you're going to cover that every day." Studies, reports and analyses United States At the conference, she said "I call it the missing white woman search syndrome.

Origin of the phrase Īmerican news anchor Gwen Ifill is credited with originating the phrase at the Unity: Journalists of Color journalism conference in 2004. News coverage of missing black women was more likely to focus on the victim's problems, such as abusive boyfriends, criminal history, or drug addiction, while coverage of white women often tended to focus on their roles as mothers, daughters, students, and contributors to their communities. In addition to race and class, factors such as supposed attractiveness, body size, and youthfulness have been identified as unfair criteria in the determination of newsworthiness in coverage of missing women. The phenomenon has led to a number of tough-on-crime measures, mainly on the political right, that were named for white women who disappeared and were subsequently found harmed.

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva categorized the racial component of missing white woman syndrome as a "form of racial grammar, through which white supremacy is normalized by implicit, or even invisible standards". Charlton McIlwain defined the syndrome as "white women occupying a privileged role as violent crime victims in news media reporting", and posited that missing white woman syndrome functions as a type of racial hierarchy in the cultural imagery of the U.S.

Īmerican news anchor Gwen Ifill is widely considered the originator of the phrase. The phenomenon has been highlighted in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and other predominantly white countries, as well as South Africa. Although the term was coined in the context of missing-person cases, it is sometimes used of coverage of other violent crimes. Missing white woman syndrome is a term used by social scientists and media commentators to denote media coverage, especially on television, of missing-person cases involving young, attractive, white, upper middle class women or girls compared to the relative lack of attention towards missing women who were not white, of lower social classes, or of missing men or boys.
