They are finding decomposed bodies in the Cleveland home of  Anthony Sowell,  eleven lat last count. Police had visited the house before the discovery and noticed the smell, but never followed up, even though they knew the owner was a violent sex offender. No ethics controversies so far: the police were obviously careless and incompetent, and Sowell was, well, a serial killer. There are no ethical serial killers.

The ethics issue that screams to me in this story, however, is all about the women: all missing for months or years, all young, from poor families, and  black. Did you see any national media stories about them when they were missing persons and not abused corpses? I didn’t. I saw story after story about missing blonde co-eds, and young female professionals, though. I heard ad nauseum about Natalie Holloway, the young woman who disappeared in Aruba after a night of partying; saw dozens of pictures of her, too. I didn’t ever see a photo of  Gloria Walker, or Tonia Carmichael. There were some media stories about them in Cleveland, apparently. But nationally? Nothing.

This is because you have to be pretty, well-off, and most of all, white, before you qualify as news in the national media And the definition of “news” today in TV news is “whatever makes people watch, no matter how trivial, redundant, or wrong.”

The stories told by frustrated relatives of the dead women in Cleveland talk have a similar theme, how neither the police nor the media will do much about the disappearance of a woman from a poor neighborhood, especially if she has a history of drug abuse. Why should that matter? Yes, drug problems can explain short-term disappearances. These women, however, were missing for a very long time. Natalie Holloway disappeared in a foreign country, not an American city, yet her story got literally thousands of hours of coverage, nightly coverage for months. How can a missing affluent white be national news, and dozens of  missing African-American woman not be news at all?  Drug-using black women are human beings too. They are still victims. They matter. Why does the national media act as if they don’t exist?

Well, we know the answer, don’t we? Young affluent whites in their twenties are the demographic Holy Grail for TV networks. Their audiences are more interested in missing white girls, and so the news shows leave desperate black families to their own resources and the occasional local news story. I can’t begin to calculate the damage this must do to the perception of racial respect and fairness in black communities. It has to be significant. It has to damage trust between black and white citizens.

The news media’s refusal to even try to be even-handed is sadly predictable, but it is also unconscionable. They should make a commitment to feature at least one missing African-American woman for every vanished blonde they turn into a running soap opera—there are certainly many missing and ignored black women to choose from. I am not suggesting a quota , or news-reporting affirmative action. This is simply acknowledging and serving a part of the population that routinely gets the worst police work and the least news coverage, in circumstances that mean life or death. The fact that the neww shows aren’t doing this now tells us all we need to know about their priorities.

Ratings, numbers, and money.

What about helping poor parents who have lost a child? To put that concern’s ranking in perspective, consider this: today on Headline News with Robin Meade (Meade is a drop-dead gorgeous CNN newsreader who handles each story like she’s telling a joke at a cheerleader squad slumber party. I’m sure her most dedicated audience members watch the show with the sound off. I am also certain that every time she speaks, Edward R. Murrow rolls over in his grave. Twice.), the program spent five minutes breathlessly telling us that officials have ordered that Joe Namath’s yellow lab has to wear a muzzle. How could this be news? Joe Namath, an old football star, hasn’t done anything of note in more than 30 years. If he was ordered to wear a muzzle, maybe that would be news. But his dog? Headline News has time to report on this drivel, but doesn’t have the time to tell us about  young black women who have disappeared.

The networks can fix this, any time they want to. If they don’t, it is because they just don’t care. I am sure that is exactly how it is perceived in the black community. and they are correct.

Let’s remember this the next time we hear someone crow about how racial inequity is no longer a serious problem in America.