PBS journalist Gwen Ifill used the phrase at a 2004 journalism conference to describe how cable news covered certain cases nonstop while ignoring others. The pattern held in later cases that drew national attention, including the 2021 disappearance of Gabby Petito, which prompted renewed discussion of missing Indigenous and Black women whose cases received little coverage.
Research supports the claim. A 2016 study by sociologist Zach Sommers in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology compared news coverage with FBI missing persons data. He found that Black missing persons were underrepresented in coverage, and white women were overrepresented. A 2021 Wyoming state report found that only 18% of Indigenous female homicide victims there received newspaper coverage, compared with 51% of white victims.
Coverage matters because it brings tips, volunteers, police resources and public pressure. When some cases are treated as national news and others are ignored, families of color have fewer tools to find their loved ones. Groups like the Black and Missing Foundation and Indigenous-led MMIW organizations formed in part to fill that gap.