When Gabby Petito disappeared and the national news media went crazy, I headed straight to Facebook where, on Sept. 20, I posted this: With all due condolences to Gabby Petito's family, Oakland has just experienced its 100th homicide of the year. Most of the victims are men of color. Yet I don't see the national media obsessing with them, the way they do with this pretty, white young woman. Why?
It seemed to me then, and my sense is even stronger today, that this coverage of Petito was—with all due respect to her loved ones—a blatant and terrible confession of the media’s utter irresponsibility and lack of professionalism. Just this morning—barely a week after my Facebook post—Oakland is reporting its102nd homicide of the year, which puts us on the dubious path toward a record murder rate in 2021. Yet is there a single one of you who can name any of those victims? We all know about Gabby Petito and her husband who’s on the run; we know about their van, and their “altercation,” and of the FBI’s manhunt. But we know nothing of these 102 victims.
It’s just not right and it’s just not fair.
We also learned today that one of KTVU-TV’s news anchors, Frank Somerville, was suspended by the station, after many years of outstanding work, because he “wanted to add a brief tagline at the end of [a] report that questioned the extraordinary level of media coverage devoted to the [Gabby Petito] story. Sources said he wanted to point out that the U.S. media often disproportionately covers tragedies involving young White women, while largely ignoring similar cases involving women of color and Indigenous people.”
I am outraged. Somerville tried to do the right thing, and someone fired him. Count me as one of many, many people who are insisting that KTVU reverse course. I sent their news director this email this morning:
“Hello, I’m a longtime viewer of KTVU, especially the morning and 5pm news. I feel like staff—not just news, but sports and weather—are an extended part of my family. I remember when news of Gabby Petito’s disappearance first hit the news on a national scale, my friends and I immediately wondered why it is that when a pretty, young, white female “disappears” under mysterious circumstance, the national media jumps on it…while at the same time, we never see that level of media excitement over the disappearance of people of color. This is a very natural, rational observation that any fair-minded American would make. It seems to me that Mr. Somerville made the same observation—which is what one would expect from a journalist.”
And now, I am aghast at your suspension of Mr. Somerville. Honestly, KTVU, with this act, you have done enormous damage to your reputation and credibility, and also, I suspect, to morale within the news division. Whoever was responsible for this stupid, irresponsible act should really lose his/her job, and Mr. Somerville needs to be immediately apologized to and rehired.”
I can’t even begin to fathom the mindset of someone who would object to Somerville’s tagline. Pretty, young white women are not worth more than Black or Brown murder victims. And yet our newsrooms—all too many of them, anyway—have been taken over by people who apparently believe that a Gabby Petito is a bigger news story than 102 dead Oaklanders. This is shameful, and it’s made even worse by the fact that KTVU-TV is headquartered in Oakland and should know better. I would also like to know if Fox News, KTVU’s parent company, played any role in this; with their rightwing, often racist and propagandist approach to reporting, it seems likely that someone from Murdoch world wanted Somerville out.
If you want to share your own thoughts with KTVU’s news director, here’s the email: ktvunewscomments@fox.com
Steve Heimoff