Missing white woman syndrome

I found this interesting article on Wiki. I've always felt that way too much importance and attention is given to a few missing persons. Never realized though, that it's almost always pretty white girls.

Missing white woman syndrome (MWWS), also known as missing pretty girl syndrome, is a term used to describe alleged disproportionate media coverage of white female victims. The essential element of the syndrome being that the victim's gender, race, relative attractiveness and age matching the "damsel in distress" stereotype is alleged to result in positive discrimination in terms of media coverage and public interest in her case.

The National Missing Persons Helpline has reported on the degree to which the news media devote attention to vulnerable missing persons, noting that despite its efforts to generate news coverage for all missing persons cases, the news media themselves will only cover those cases that fit their publications. The NMPH also notes that those cases that generate the greatest publicity are those where the missing person is white, middle-class, female, and from a stable two-parent family, and where there is no indication that the missing person ran away from home. Two cases are given as contrasting examples: the murder of Hannah Williams and the murder of Danielle Jones. Despite the fact that in both cases the victim was a female teenager, there was far more coverage of Jones than of Williams. It is suggested that this is because Jones fulfils the criteria of being a model middle-class schoolgirl, whilst Williams, a girl with a working-class background whose parents were estranged and who had a stud in her nose, did not.

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There is also a list of possible instances of MWWS.