Disappearance of Lauren Spierer: Difference between revisions

The heavy press coverage of the disappearance has been dubbed an example of [[missing white woman syndrome]], a phenomenon wherein the news media disproportionately covers missing person cases that involve young, white, upper-middle class females.<ref name=Davis>{{cite news|last1=Davis|first1=Victoria|title=Hidden Identities|url=http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/news/article_8e564508-f7e1-11e3-9493-0019bb2963f4.html|agency=Indianapolis Reporter|date=June 19, 2014}}</ref><ref name="white woman">{{cite news|last=Barton|first=Robin|title=The "Missing White Woman Syndrome"|url=http://www.thecrimereport.org/viewpoints/robin-barton/2011-08-the-missing-white-woman-syndrome|date=August 22, 2011}}</ref> The Indiana University paper ran a story documenting the disparity between their own coverage of Spierer's (who was enrolled at the university) disappearance and their coverage of another local disappearance, a woman named Crystal Grubb (who was not a student of the university). Grubb, 29, iswas also Caucasian, but came from a working-class family wherein many relatives had criminal histories. Following Grubb's disappearance in 2010, the student paper ran a total of seven stories on the case compared to multiple front page articles and the extensive volunteer presence and national awareness of the Spierer case.<ref name="spierer grubb">{{cite news|last=Majchrowicz|first=Michael|title=Beyond the posters: How demographics factored in Spierer, Grubb cases|url=https://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=84052|newspaper=Indiana Daily Student|date=November 9, 2011}}</ref> An acquaintance of Grubb's commented: "When Crystal went missing, it was in the newspaper like once. For Spierer's disappearance, everyone's here and there's posters everywhere, people walking around. Definitely nothing like that was afforded Crystal. I don't want to say it's because she was of a lower economic class, but that's what it seems to me."<ref name=Grubb>{{cite news|last=Cohen|first=Shawn|title=Another Bloomington mystery: Killer never found for other woman who went missing|url=http://www.lohud.com/article/20110609/NEWS02/106090420/Another-Bloomington-mystery-Killer-never-found-other-woman-who-went-missing|newspaper=The Journal News|date=June 8, 2011}}</ref>