Another story buried beneath the obsessive reporting of missing white women

[theHandpuppet]

Amazing, isn't it? While the airwaves are once again bombarded with 24/7 reporting on another missing Peterson (how convenient for them the unmistakable alliteration!) there really are other things happening in the world. You'll have to pardon my cynicism but I just caught the first half hour of The Today Show and the major reports are on Stacey Peterson, a missing student in a European love triangle, and Marie Osmund fainting on Dancing with the Stars -- and that's just in the first half hour! I guess some stories must be deemed too boring for public consumption. After all, who cares about working people, especially if they come from Appalachia? Striking workers aren't glamorous and who cares about a part of the country relegated to stereotypes and derision? Oh yeah -- there's a major nurses' strike going on in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia....

Nov 16, 7:03 AM EST
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NURSES_STRIKE?SITE=OHCIN&SECTION=AMERICAS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Nurses' Strike Drags on in Appalachia

By SAMIRA JAFARI
Associated Press Writer

HARLAN, Ky. (AP) -- Jerry Blevins has stood for weeks on a picket line with his fellow nurses, thinking about his mortgage, his tearful wife, his four children.

Pam Pace has been called names and listed on the "wall of shame" posted outside her hospital for crossing the picket line and continuing to work. Last week, her tires were slashed. "Someone's got to stay in here and take care of the patients," she said.

It's been a stressful seven weeks for the 750 registered nurses at Appalachian Regional Healthcare, the region's largest hospital system, which has nine facilities in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. Six hundred nurses have refused to cross the picket line.

Some, like Blevins, have put their livelihoods on the line since Oct. 1, saying their goal is to ensure better care for patients. Others, like Pace, say they either cannot afford to walk off their jobs or don't want to abandon their patients....

[leftchick]

1. Don't Forget Barry Bonds being Indicted!

That was the LEAD on every channel this morning! Like, is anyone shocked about that?

:crazy:

[Breeze54]

2. I can't stomach the morning shows anymore...

but I know there are other things happening in the world.

The morning shows are NOT a news source, at least not for me.

[Darth_Kitten]

3. Yeah, enough about missing white women........

they aren't regular people. They don't matter.

[theHandpuppet]

4. Sorry but these current stories don't warrant 24/7 coverage

You want REAL stories about women in America? How about these stats?

Every day in this country four women are murdered a the result of domestic violence.

Two to four million women of all races and classes are battered each year. At least 170,000 of those violent incidents are serious enough to require hospitalization, emergency room care or a doctor's attention.

Every year 1.2 million women are forcibly raped by their current or former male partners, some more than once.

Women are 10 times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate. Young women, women who are separated, divorced or single, low-income women and African-American women are disproportionately victims of assault and rape. Domestic violence rates are five times higher among families below poverty levels

Approximately 17 percent of pregnant women report having been battered

Of course a lot of these women probably aren't perky and young and white so their stories will never be told. They won't "qualify". If the media wants to focus on the issue of violence against women they can start dealing with real statistics rather than their sensationalist "TV movie of the week" approach, aimed only to boost ratings while the inconvenient truths end up on the journalistic scrap heap.

And hundreds of women died in Bangladesh yesterday but what I really want to hear about is Marie Osmond fainting on Dancing With the Stars, which just got its second segment on the same morning show.

:sarcasm:

[Breeze54]

5. Men need to stop killing women!!

:grr:

Just get a divorce and move on, move out!! Murder is NOT the answer!!

--------


Read my post, in case you missed it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2295116

[Darth_Kitten]

6. Even perky white women with a semblance of beauty are human beings..

Nice statistics, I NEVER would have known. :eyes:

I guess white women have perfect lives.

[malaise]

7. I posted a thread about the nurses' strike yesterday and it sank

like a stone. Bravo nurses.