Typically, when a murder becomes a national story, it begins with a beautiful young woman or girl who goes missing. Annie Le was very beautiful. This is not entirely a bias of the people who work for news organizations, it is also a bias of the audience, who would rather see a pleasing face. The police or family distribute well-shot photos and often video, to assist in finding the missing person. In the last few years however, Facebook and Myspace have taken some of this role of photo supplier. Facebook seemed to supply some of the necessary high-quality photos of Annie Le. This is important, because it gives television something to show, and allows them to humanize the story and place it more prominently in a newscast.
The missing person usually disappears from near a major media market, in this case New York. This makes it easier logistically for reporters, camera operators, and technical people to assemble, and therefore more likely that they will assemble.
There also must be an X-factor, to make the story stick in people's minds. If a 14-year-old girl is kidnapped, the story is generic. If a 14-year-old girl is kidnapped from an idyllic suburb in Utah, shocking the Mormon community, it becomes much more memorable as the Elizabeth Smart case. The thing that made the Annie Le case instantly recognizable was the fact that she was a Yale grad student.
This tangentially relates to the class, because it is an example of the medium shaping the message, as Marshall McLuhan would suggest. The investigation into Annie Le's disappearance and death has been first and foremost a television story, because it suits the visual elements demanded by television, and because it is gripping and easily understood: A beautiful young woman is missing, and possibly in trouble. TV reporters and producers know what works in their medium, so they will do the story. En masse. When one news medium spends so much time on a story, people become aware of it, and start looking for it in other media (like newspapers) which then must at least follow along. Here are photos I took at the New Haven Police Department before a press conference September 16. I and another radio reporter both counted 21 TV cameras inside, with many more outside for reporter stand-ups. Usually an important local story in Connecticut will have fewer than a half a dozen cameras.
To bring this topic a little more onto the class's turf, I mentioned that I first saw a photo of Annie Le on the New Haven Register's web site. One of the students in the last class (the young woman who had moved around, and had a huge number of Facebook friends, sorry, I forgot your name) said that images of good-looking women get more clicks. I am curious to see if the demand for more clicks, and therefore more ad revenue, prompts newspapers to put more emphasis on stories involving beautiful females on their web sites. Courant.com has seemed to succumb to this pressure over the last year or so, by putting up lots of photo galleries that are excuses to post wire service images of beautiful people -- Not the Connecticut news the print edition of the Courant has been known for. Right now, Courant.com has Celebrity Sightings At New York's Fashion Week and Pictures: 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
This is a horrific human tragedy for Ms. Le's family. If you think it is inappropriate as a blog topic for this class, let me know in the comment section below.
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