Missing White Girl Syndrome, such as the Kaylee Anthony and Elizabeth Smart stories, is a terrible subject in our lives today. It provides several obvious unethical boundaries that become crossed every time a story appears on the news. The main ones are the extremes defied in the Golden Mean principle, the Kantian dilemma of treating others how you would wish to be treated, and J. S. Mill's ethical quandry about the greater good.
Firstly, it defies the Golden Mean - people see these stories, every year, all the time reaching an extreme. They're on every news channel, every newspaper, every website. A negative consequence is, therefore, they become desensitized to smaller news stories about missing people. Further, most news stories are reported on with far fewer resources than what is dedicated to these.
Secondly, it defies Kantian ethics, as they do not apply the same attention to all missing people's cases. They could not possibly provide the same coverage for all, however, as these stories are covered on the 24/7 news cycles, and all we would ever see would be constant reporting about missing people.
Thirdly, it defies Utilitarianism and John Stewart Mill's ethics, as it scares people into being afraid of groups of people -- such as villainizing people of races that are different than those of the person being subject to the problem. There was a great South Park episode in regards to this, where eventually it got to the point that the children wound up being segregated from their own parents because the news reported that parents are the people most likely to kidnap their own children.
This is a serious problem in our media environment. The lack of ethics on these Missing White Girl cases is something that needs to be addressed.
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