Expert discusses 'affinity bias' in media coverage of gender-based violence

in the u.s there are new developments in the gabby potito investigation her body was found last month in wyoming authorities are still hunting for her fiance brian laundry on friday police in utah released additional body camera video from an altercation involving the couple in august in the video taken weeks before she was reported missing petito tells the officers about a fight with laundry he remains a person of interest and there has been some debate about why the case of gabby potido is getting so much attention while other similar cases are seemingly ignored these concerns have been raised in this country too in relation to thousands of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls so for more on this topic i'm joined now by hira ali she's an author and speaker and she joins us now from london thank you so much for being with us hira hi arty thank you for having me over so the first question why does there appear to be this disparity when it comes to the attention paid to missing women cases when it is white or women of color um so i believe already there could be a number of reasons to be honest um first of all i believe there is an affinity bias or relatability bias as a result of which a lot of time news correspondents only prefer to cover stories of victims which they can relate to or who look like women in their family or in their circle they could also be confirmation bias a lot of time people are looking for stories or searching for angles that can conform to their opinions of you know certain communities which they already have so because of that i feel that sometimes you know women of color or um you know indigenous women they often do not get that media coverage that they should be getting and so in terms of the case of sabine and nasa for example and just for our viewers there there were two cases that uh were there were similarities drawn between them that of sarah edward that was in march of 2021 and sabine nessa mor more recently both happened in london where these were young women who were essentially murdered and we know one is an ongoing case in the other case of sarah everett there has been a conviction but we know that there are memorials and dedicated coverage towards sabina nasa now so that's because there had been an outcry online uh her name was uh trending online there were demands for her to get the same coverage as sarah everett did that have an impact and does that make it genuine yes so well to be honest you know if she is getting coverage that's welcomed um i can't really comment on the how genuine it is because the fact that you know somebody is now getting uh that attention which you should have in the first place is definitely a positive sign but yes it was it was belated coverage it wasn't there as people claimed that oh it was already there it wasn't there it was only after a couple of days when people you know raised it on twitter there was a hashtag pending say her name and it's only after that that media realized that you know her case should also get attention so what is the solution then to this issue and you know you touched on some of the reasons behind it in some cases it's relatability um partially of media partially of the public partially of what people might see in pop culture and who they feel related to so what's the solution here how do we have it more equal across the board when we come when it comes to these horrible tragedies that are occurring um so anthony i have actually written a book on this with hundreds of strategies on allyship how to support women and people from marginalized communities but to sum it up i would say um i think you know when we talk about institution and i've said this a number of times in the recent articles i've written especially in the last few weeks that when we talk about institutional bias or media pies we're talking about a collective system and when we talk about a collective system challenging that becomes excruciatingly difficult so it's important to start putting responsibility on individuals so i think every individual needs to have that transparency have that accountability it's only then that we'll eventually be able to we'll be able to you know impact the bigger system also the fact that you know when news correspondents are are covering stories i think they all should be asking themselves this question they should first recognize that there is bias you know you can't dismiss and say well there is no bias because there is violence you know we all are biased we can't dismiss science so recognizing this bias and then taking a step back and looking at the stories they're covering you know what exactly are they missing are they certain communities that they're targeting is their confirmation bias are there any assumptions they're making on the basis of gender phase ethnicity or social economic backgrounds so these are the questions if they start challenging themselves i think it is going to have a positive impact and eventually also the organizations do need to make sure that this is linked to the strategic region so whether it's cbc or bbc you know all this or everything within that system you know recruitment appraisal uh meetings battles everything needs to be inclusive and then only will be people motivated to consider inclusion because you know what is the compelling factor there is a huge behavior tension gap usually right so how do you close that behavior intention gap by making sure that you either give them a benefit or they see that okay if i don't do it there's potential to loss so if there is nothing happening no benefit no loss then people will never look into it so i guess to close the gap it is also important for organizations to to think of it strategically and also for individuals to challenge their own stereotypes and assumptions and very quickly just a final question for you yes much of the responsibility as you've mentioned goes on organizations but also consumers of news and we know that they do that on so many different platforms not just broadcast not just online so how should they be viewing things or consuming news in a way that allows them uh to give the oxygen to everyone in a similar way um so i think again question assumptions because particularly with south asian women rt there is this assumption that if there is a murder it is probably on a killing um so j and you know that really impacts the way uh any case is treated so looking at coverage and and questioning you know raising this concern on twitter social media and facebook on facebook because social media is free to use anybody can raise this concern anybody can you know talk about it so the more people talk about the collectively and raise this issue irrespective of their color irrespective of their faith ethnicity background the more people will be heard i think everybody needs to challenge themselves and see what they're looking at we really appreciate your time today on this important topic thank you for joining us hira thank you for inviting me out that was author and speaker hira ali and she joined us today from london

Channel: CBC News

Views: 10,368

Rating: 2.5622642 out of 5

Keywords: Gabby Petito, gender-based violence, domestic violence, violence against women, media, bias, women of colour, black, indigenous, race, BLM, MMIWG, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, CBC, CBC News, News, Canada, United States

Id: X1Vkz9ye0GY

Length: 7min 18sec (438 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021