Columbia Journalism Review: Everyone's Pressworthy

Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), the world's most respected voice on press criticism, has today unveiled '#EveryoneIsPressworthy', a campaign aimed at addressing bias in media when it comes to covering people who go missing. Working alongside creative agency TBWAChiatDay New York, CJR has developed a unique data tool allowing people to calculate their press value if they were to go missing, based on current reporting in America. In an effort to open up a dialogue between media publications and CJR on how journalists cover reports of missing people, www.areyoupressworthy.com allows users to publicly share their press value for the world to see. In most cases, the results show vast disparities on how a person would be covered if they went missing, depending on their race, gender, and where they live. The number of people aware of a person’s disappearance has a major impact on their chances of being found. Furthermore, the amount of coverage a missing person receives is often influenced by demographics such as race, age, sex, and even geographic location. Commonly known as 'Missing White Woman Syndrome,' a person's physical attributes can determine if they are front-page news or not featured at all. For example, a white young adult woman who is reported missing in New York could be covered in 67 news stories, according to the CJR data, but a Latino male of the same age would appear in only 17. The gap is even more extreme for diverse members of other age groups, and a middle-aged Black man who goes missing would be expected to receive four or fewer mentions in the press. For information on currently missing individuals please visit https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/ or reach out to (833) 872-5176 or namus@usdoj.gov for additional resources. To learn more on how the biases in the media are affecting unfair press coverage visit www.cjr.org.