Introduction
The crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) represents one of the most urgent yet consistently underreported human rights violations in the United States. Although thousands of Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been murdered across North America for decades, their stories rarely receive proportional attention in the American legacy and digital mediascape. This disparity in media visibility became especially evident during the 2021 disappearance of Gabby Petito, whose case dominated news cycles for months while numerous missing Indigenous women in the same region remained virtually unacknowledged. The dramatic imbalance in coverage raises important questions about victim selection, erasure, media gatekeeping, and the ideological frameworks guiding American news performances. This media research paper will compare the United States (U.S.) legacy and digital media performances from 2021 to 2025 regarding the highly publicized disappearance of Gabby Petito to alternative media coverage of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) during the same period to determine whether the MMIW crisis has been censored and propagandized through patterns of erasure, marginalization, historical omission, and racialized victim selection in American news reporting.
Research Methodologies
This media research paper utilizes a comparative textual analysis approach to examine legacy/digital media and alternative media performances concerning the Gabby Petito disappearance and the ongoing MMIW crisis. Research was conducted using multiple search engines including Google and DuckDuckGo, to account for algorithmic differences, search history biases, and commercial prioritization of certain websites. Search queries included key phrases such as “Gabby Petito media coverage”, “MMIW news Wyoming 2021”, “missing Indigenous women media analysis”, “Indigenous erasure news”, and “Indigenous media coverage”. These terms were intentionally varied to counteract algorithmic sensitivity to synonyms and phrasing. Five legacy/digital media news sources were selected based on ownership by horizontally or vertically integrated media corporations and article length above 500 words. Five alternative media sources were selected according to their independence from corporate ownership and historical consistency in covering Indigenous issues. Each article was checked for sourcing practices, depth of reporting, frequency of coverage, ideological framing, evidence of marginalization, and relevance to the Propaganda Model. This methodology is a best attempt at transparency while allowing for patterns of propaganda and censorship to emerge through comparative analysis.
Background Information
The crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is rooted in centuries of colonial violence, gendered racism, and jurisdictional failures that have disproportionately harmed Indigenous communities in the United States. According to the Urban Indian Health Institute, Indigenous women face some of the highest rates of homicide, disappearances, and sexual violence in the country, yet these cases often remain unsolved or uninvestigated due to overlapping tribal, state, and federal legal frameworks. These jurisdictional complexities make timely reporting, coordinated searches, and criminal accountability extremely difficult. Despite the severity of these conditions, national awareness of MMIW remained minimal until Indigenous activists, tribal nations, and alternative media organizations began documenting cases and exposing systemic failures ignored by mainstream news outlets.
The 2021 disappearance of Gabby Petito highlighted the profound imbalance in media attention given to missing persons cases across racial and cultural lines. Petito, a young white woman, received constant coverage across all major U.S. news networks, even prompting special broadcasts, investigative segments, and a Netflix docuseries. During the same time frame, dozens of Indigenous women and girls were missing in Wyoming, Montana, and Utah, yet their stories received little to no national media attention. This phenomenon, often referred to as “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” reflects deeper ideological norms within American media institutions that favor certain victims over others based on race, perceived innocence, and legacy media loyalty. Understanding this provides essential context for evaluating how legacy/digital media performances from 2021 to 2025 censored and propagandized the MMIW crisis.
Legacy and Digital Media Performance Analysis
The legacy and digital media sources uniformly construct Gabby Petito as a nationally significant victim while offering little meaningful visibility to Indigenous women. In the FOX 13 Tampa Bay article “Gabby Petito’s Legacy: $100K for Domestic Violence Hotline”, published September 22, 2022, author Bobby Caina Calvan emphasizes the philanthropic efforts created in Petito’s name, highlighting her family’s foundation and the $100,000 donated to a domestic violence hotline. This article quotes the Petito family extensively, reiterating their statements about raising awareness and “helping others in Gabby’s honor.” The publication reinforces Petito’s image as a symbol of systemic reform, elevating her case to national significance by tying her story to advocacy, funding, and institutional change.
A second FOX 13 Tampa Bay article, published more recently on February 17, 2025 by Jennifer Kveglis and Michael Ruiz, focuses on emotional quotes from Petito’s ex-boyfriend, who states she was “scared to leave Brian Laundrie.” The article quotes documentary producers, family members, and law enforcement narratives, constructing a layered emotional portrait of Petito and reinforcing her status as a cultural figure.
Caroline Anders and Meryl Kornfield write in The Washington Post September 21, 2021 article, “A Throng of Internet sleuths are on the Gabby Petito case. Why Has It Sparked So Much Interest?”, quoting TikTok creators, digital culture experts, and criminologists, explaining why Petito became a viral phenomenon. The article explicitly connects her virality to what experts call “the ideal missing-person profile”, which is a young, attractive white woman whose Instagram-ready lifestyle resonates with mainstream audiences. The article acknowledges that Petito’s case “overshadowed dozens of missing Indigenous people in the same region,” but does not delve into those cases or name them.
Forbes similarly foregrounds the mechanics of social media in “Gabby Petito’s Disappearance and Clues Debated on Social Media”, an article from September 21, 2021 by Peter Suciu, quoting specific users whose viral posts “provided clues” in the Petito investigation. The article lists thousands of hashtags (#GabbyPetito), citing algorithmic amplification and documenting how the public felt “emotionally invested” in the case. While acknowledging the existence of missing Indigenous women in Wyoming, Forbes also fails to name or detail any of their stories.
The only legacy/digital media addressing Indigenous women is Fox News’ “Native American Women Refuse to Live in Fear…Take Gun Classes”, an article by Emma Colton from September 7, 2023, frames Indigenous women primarily through the lens of crime and self-defense. It features sources exclusively from firearms instructors, shooting range operators, and police departments, who emphasize “skyrocketing crime rates” and “self-protection.” Crucially, the article provides no Indigenous-led commentary, no quotes from MMIW advocates, and no analysis of missing persons or state failures. Instead, it promotes an individualistic crime-prevention narrative, distancing the topic from systemic injustice.
Alternative Media Performance Analysis
The alternative media sources provide specific names, data, and firsthand voices that the legacy sources neglect in the reporting of MMIW. In Indian Country Today’s May 5, 2021 article “MMIWG: Known and Not Forgotten,” journalist Vincent Schilling lists the names of missing and murdered Indigenous women, including Hanna Harris and Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, offering detailed timelines of their disappearances, the failures of law enforcement to investigate, and the community’s long-term struggles for justice. This article directly contrasts the near-total absence of named Indigenous victims in legacy media coverage.
The Democracy Now! story segment from September 30, 2021, “Missing White Woman Syndrome: Media Obsess… Indigenous Women Ignored,” features an interview with Cherokee Nation citizen Mary Kathryn Nagle, who explicitly states that the FBI refuses to do its job when it comes to Native people, that law enforcement is failing them. Nagle links MMIW to historical erasure, federal inaction, and centuries of settler violence. The segment also discusses statistics from the Montana statewide commission, noting that from 2000 to 2020, a fifth of all homicides in the state were Indigenous people.
Another Democracy Now! story from August 22, 2019, “2020 Candidates Address Historical Trauma, Missing Indigenous Women & More at Native American Forum” focuses on interviews with guests Mark Trahant – editor of Indian County Today and citizen of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe, Christine Nobiss – Plains Cree-Saulteaux of the George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, and Mark Charles – Native American activist and writer and tribal citizen of the Navajo Nation. Trahant explains how U.S. media and political institutions have erased Indigenous histories “to maintain the myth of American democracy.” The segment connects MMIW to broken treaties, jurisdictional gaps, and centuries of federal neglect from all Native perspectives.
Kyle Hopkins’ 2025 ProPublica investigation highlights concrete evidence of systemic suppression in which state officials in Alaska refusing to release names of murdered Indigenous people, despite federal law requiring transparency. In the article titled “Alaska Vowed to Resolve Murders… Refuses to Provide Their Names”, Hopkins cites specific instances of denied Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, blocked information, and families being told they cannot access their own relatives’ records. This investigative detail directly contrasts with legacy media’s lack of inquiry into institutional responsibility.
In High Country News, the article “The Crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women”, published May 4, 2018 by Graham Lee Brewer, provides an analysis of police jurisdiction failures in the Mountain West and citing specific cases where tribal police were unable to pursue suspects off-reservation, and where federal investigators took months to respond to missing person reports. Brewer quotes tribal law enforcement officers who explain how “federal agencies routinely ignore urgent calls” involving Indigenous victims.
Comparative Analysis
Comparing specific details from both sets of sources reveals stark disparities in volume, narrative positioning, sourcing structures, and ideological framing. These differences are structurally embedded within how each media category selects which lives are rendered visible, which are named, and which are systematically obscured.
The Washington Post article by Anders and Kornfield devotes its full narrative to analyzing how TikTok, Instagram, and digital “internet sleuths” pieced together details of Gabby Petito’s disappearance. The article highlights “armchair detectives”, social media posts, livestreams, and amateur analysis of background images in Petito’s van footage. Multiple individuals who had never met Petito are interviewed and positioned as participatory agents in the investigation. The article presents their speculative work as both intriguing and socially beneficial. This attention transforms Petito’s disappearance into a participatory public spectacle that is framed as a new frontier for citizen-powered justice. In contrast, Indian Country Today’s article “MMIWG: Known and Not Forgotten” documents the stories of real Indigenous women such as Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, who was murdered by her neighbors who wanted her baby. Both individuals were convicted, though the murder charges against the male assailant were lifted after. In response to the case, the Savanna’s Act, S.227 was introduced to “address the inequities faced by Indigenous women and girls.” Unlike the social media users elevated in Petito’s case, Indigenous families pleading for accountability are relegated to alternative platforms only.
Similarly, Forbes’s coverage by Peter Suciu catalogs an expansive digital community that analyzed Petito’s disappearance in real time. The article lists content creators, internet collectives, TikTok users, and YouTubers who broke down surveillance footage and online clues. These individuals are presented as valuable contributors to a national cause. In sharp contrast, ProPublica reports that the state of Alaska refuses to release the names and case details of murdered Indigenous people altogether. In “Alaska Vowed to Resolve Murders of Indigenous People. Now It Refuses to Provide Their Names,” Hopkins exposes how state agencies deliberately suppress public records requests made by journalists. Instead of citizens being empowered to investigate and assist, information about Indigenous victims is literally withheld by state authorities, preventing transparency, advocacy, and justice.
This pattern extends to the framing of resources and financial mobilization. FOX 13 Tampa Bay highlights that $100,000 was donated in Gabby Petito’s name for a domestic violence hotline, framing her story as a catalyst for reform and institutional change. Petito is posthumously positioned as a symbol of progress. Conversely, Democracy Now! features Indigenous women and organizers explaining that many tribal communities cannot access funding for search-and-rescue efforts due to jurisdictional deadlocks between tribal, state, and federal authorities. Activists describe how structural neglect, not lack of sympathy, prevents meaningful action. The contrast reveals one victim group receiving national philanthropic recognition, while another is denied the bureaucratic access needed to even begin recovery efforts.
The differences also become apparent in language frequency and personalization. Across the legacy/digital articles, Gabby Petito’s name appears over one hundred times collectively. Her personality, relationships, social media presence, and emotional life are meticulously explored. Meanwhile, none of the same articles name a single missing Indigenous woman, mention a specific tribal community impacted by MMIW, or provide an example of an unresolved case. Indigenous women remain statistical abstractions or anonymous figures, existing only as a generalized “problem” rather than as identifiable individuals whose lives mattered.
Sourcing further reinforces this imbalance. Legacy/digital media sources overwhelmingly quote police officers, federal agencies, documentary producers, and social media influencers. For example, FOX 13 interviews Petito’s family and documentary creators, while the Fox News article on Native American women quotes firearms trainers and law enforcement officials rather than Indigenous advocates or families. These sources reinforce state-centered solutions and individual responsibility. Conversely, High Country News, Democracy Now!, Indian Country Today, and ProPublica cite tribal officials, Indigenous journalists, grieving families, community organizers, and human rights lawyers. These sources frame the crisis not as an individual tragedy but as a systemic, ongoing, and colonial-rooted injustice.
In legacy/digital media, Petito is presented as a catalyst for reform and awareness while in alternative media, Indigenous families cannot even access autopsy reports, police files, or basic governmental acknowledgment. Legacy/digital media construct a narrative of progress surrounding Petito’s case while alternative media document ongoing silencing, obstruction, and erasure regarding Indigenous victims.
These examples illustrate that the contrast between the two media classifications is not merely thematic but that it is purposeful and structural. Legacy and digital media reproduce hierarchies of worthiness, elevate some victims as deserving of national grief and resources, and silence others through omission and decontextualization. Alternative media, by contrast, works to disrupt this hierarchy by restoring names, histories, and structural analysis to those rendered invisible by mainstream discourse.
Propaganda Model Analysis
Filter 1: Ownership
All five legacy/digital media sources examined in this study are owned by vertically and horizontally integrated corporations whose primary goal is profit maximization, traffic generation, and advertising appeal. FOX 13 Tampa Bay and Fox News are subsidiaries of Fox Corporation, a multinational media conglomerate that also owns Fox Entertainment, Fox Sports, and numerous regional broadcast stations. The Washington Post is owned by Nash Holdings, a private company controlled by billionaire Jeff Bezos, whose other corporate interests include Amazon, surveillance technology contracts with the federal government, and data services that intersect with law enforcement and state institutions. Forbes is owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments, a Hong Kong based holding group that functions through an international network of venture capital interests.
These concentrated ownership structures directly affect what stories are amplified and which are silenced. Gabby Petito’s disappearance became an ideal commercial narrative, as it was emotionally compelling, visually documented on social media, widely shareable, and most importantly, unthreatening to corporate or government power. Publishing repeated stories about Petito produced high engagement without challenging state institutions. In contrast, sustained coverage of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women would require confronting police negligence, colonial violence, jurisdictional failures, and government accountability, which are all subjects that threaten both political relationships and advertising revenue.
Ownership structures incentivize sensationalized, individualized crime stories (Petito) over politically charged, systemic cases (MMIW). The fact that multiple Fox-owned entities devoted repeated coverage exclusively to Petito, while ignoring Indigenous cases in the same region, reflects the economic and ideological preferences of these parent corporations.
Filter 2: Advertising
Upon reviewing the digital versions of the legacy/digital articles, advertisements included services such as travel companies, insurance agencies, home security systems, law firms, and streaming platforms including Netflix (which also produced the Gabby Petito documentary). These advertisers rely on “brand-safe” content, or stories that attract wide audiences but remain politically neutral or emotionally familiar. The Gabby Petito story meets those conditions perfectly. It is tragic, engaging, and personal without fundamentally threatening powerful institutions. Coverage of domestic violence hotlines and nonprofit donations (as highlighted by FOX 13’s article referencing the $100,000 donation in Petito’s name) further aligns with socially acceptable reform narratives. These minor reforms create the appearance of progress without requiring real structural change.
Filter 3: Sourcing
Sourcing in the legacy and digital media articles consistently reinforces institutional authority while excluding Indigenous voices. In “The Case Has Unleashed a Throng of Internet Sleuths” by Caroline Anders and Meryl Kornfield, The Washington Post relies on criminologists, digital culture experts, and TikTok users to explain the cultural fascination with the Gabby Petito case. Similarly, Peter Suciu’s Forbes article, “Gabby Petito’s Disappearance and Clues Debated on Social Media,” centers on online analysts and social media participants who monitored the case in real time. These sources operate within platforms that benefit from attention and engagement, reinforcing Petito as a nationally significant figure.
FOX 13’s two articles, “Gabby Petito’s Legacy: $100K for Domestic Violence Hotline” by Bobby Caina Calvan and “Gabby Petito Told Her Ex She Was Scared to Leave Brian Laundrie” by Jennifer Kveglis and Michael Ruiz, rely primarily on family members, documentary producers, and individuals close to Petito. These interpersonal and media-industry sources continue to center her story as emotionally compelling and socially impactful. In contrast, Emma Colton’s Fox News article, “Native American Women Refuse to Live in Fear amid Soaring Crime,” quotes law enforcement officials and firearms instructors instead of Indigenous families, tribal leaders, or advocacy groups. This sourcing choice shifts the narrative away from systemic responsibility and toward individual self-defense.
Across all five articles, authority is given to individuals connected to institutions such as media organizations, social platforms, and law enforcement. Indigenous communities, victims’ families, and tribal authorities are not treated as central sources. This pattern reinforces Petito as a “worthy” victim in the media and contributes to the marginalization of Indigenous women within the American news landscape.
Filter 4: Flak
Although there is no direct evidence of lawsuits or highly publicized punishments against journalists for covering the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis, this absence does not indicate a lack of risk. Instead, it suggests the operation of what the Propaganda Model identifies as anticipatory obedience: media institutions internalize potential consequences and adjust their coverage to avoid conflict before it even occurs. Investigating MMIW requires confronting powerful institutions, including local police departments, state governments, and federal agencies that have historically failed to respond to or adequately track violence against Indigenous women. This type of reporting would require exposing negligence, corruption, jurisdictional confusion, and active data suppression.
For example, the ProPublica investigation revealed that Alaska officials refused to release the names of murdered Indigenous people, even after publicly vowing to address the crisis. This form of institutional secrecy demonstrates how governments actively control information and avoid accountability. If such findings were widely amplified and continuously pursued by major corporate media outlets, it could result in political backlash, restricted access to sources, and legal threats. Rather than risk this form of flak, legacy and digital media appear to bypass the issue altogether.
The near-total absence of sustained mainstream reporting on MMIW should therefore not be interpreted as evidence that the issue is uncontroversial or unimportant. Instead, it functions as evidence of preemptive compliance. Media corporations avoid the risk of retaliation by never deeply engaging with the topic in the first place. In this way, flak operates not only as direct punishment, but as a powerful implicit deterrent shaping what is deemed “safe” to report. Silence itself becomes a strategic decision, reinforcing the systemic erasure of Indigenous women from the national narrative.
Filter 5: Anti-Ideologies and the Construction of Worthy vs. Unworthy Victims
In the case of the Gabby Petito disappearance versus the MMIW crisis, the most applicable dimension of the fifth filter is anti-ideologies, specifically the dominant ideological framework that upholds whiteness, settler colonial norms, and state authority while marginalizing Indigenous lives. American legacy and digital media companies operate within a cultural logic that implicitly reinforces the idea that certain victims are more “relatable,” “innocent,” and “grievable” than others. Gabby Petito is framed as the embodiment of American femininity: young, adventurous, aspiring to fame, and visibly vulnerable. This framing aligns with historically constructed ideals of femininity that mainstream audiences have been socialized to protect. As a result, legacy and digital media elevate her case as a national tragedy, worthy of extensive investigative resources, emotional storytelling, and prolonged attention. The implicit ideology suggests that her life and death matter in a way that demands collective outrage and institutional response.
In stark contrast, Indigenous women are rendered ideologically invisible or positioned outside of the dominant moral narrative. Articles in the alternative media sources such as Indian Country Today, Democracy Now!, and High Country News document how Indigenous women are not perceived through the same cultural lens of innocence and worthiness. Instead, they are subjected to long-standing colonial stereotypes that associate Indigenous bodies with disposability, criminality, or social dysfunction. These stereotypes operate as an unspoken ideological filter in legacy media, discouraging journalists and editors from treating Indigenous women as central victims whose stories deserve national empathy or sustained coverage.
This ideological filtering produces a clear division between worthy and unworthy victims. In this dynamic, Gabby Petito is constructed as a “worthy victim” whose suffering is individualized, dramatized, and continuously revisited. Her story is framed as an anomaly deserving of public grief and systemic change. Meanwhile, Indigenous women are positioned as “unworthy victims,” not because their suffering is less severe, but because acknowledging them would force the media to confront uncomfortable truths about colonialism, sovereignty, law enforcement failure, and state complicity. ProPublica’s revelation that Alaskan officials refuse to release the names of murdered Indigenous people illustrates how structural power actively suppresses Indigenous identity, while Democracy Now!’s reporting on underfunded tribal search efforts demonstrates how material resources are systematically withheld. These realities clash with the dominant national narrative of justice, equality, and institutional reliability that mainstream media often reinforce.
The Doctrine of Marginalization is therefore embedded in both representation and omission. Indigenous women are not simply underreported but structurally erased. When they are mentioned, their stories are stripped of historical context and reduced to statistics or crime-based framing, as seen in Fox News’ depiction of Native women primarily as subjects of rising crime rather than as victims of systemic neglect. This constrained characterization reinforces the marginal status imposed on Indigenous communities by the dominant ideologies of the settler state.
Simultaneously, the Criterion of Utility of Disinformation is evident in how silence functions as a form of propaganda. By neglecting to cover MMIW meaningfully, legacy and digital media protect state institutions from scrutiny, allow jurisdictional failures to persist uncontested, and maintain the illusion that justice functions equally for all. In doing so, disinformation is not spread through false statements, but through deliberate absence – arguably the most powerful and efficient form of propaganda in modern American media.
Conclusionary Paragraph
The comparative analysis of United States legacy and digital media performances from 2021 to 2025 demonstrates a consistent pattern of selective visibility, marginalization, and racialized victim prioritization in coverage related to missing and murdered women. The extensive and emotionally driven coverage of Gabby Petito by FOX 13, The Washington Post, and Forbes stands in stark contrast to the nearly complete absence of named Indigenous victims in the same outlets, confirming a pattern of disproportionate attention that aligns with the concept of worthy and unworthy victims. In contrast, alternative media sources such as Indian Country Today, Democracy Now!, High Country News, and ProPublica centered Indigenous voices, identified individual victims, and documented systemic failures rooted in colonialism, jurisdictional conflict, and government negligence. When the Propaganda Model is applied solely to the American legacy and digital media sources, the filters of ownership, advertising, sourcing, and anti-ideological alignment reveal structural incentives to prioritize commercially safe narratives and suppress stories that challenge law enforcement institutions, state accountability, and dominant racial hierarchies. These combined patterns strongly support the thesis that the MMIW crisis has been censored and propagandized in the U.S. legacy and digital mediascape through erasure, historical omission, and racialized victim selection.
For Future Consideration
Future research could significantly strengthen these findings by integrating a larger dataset that measures the frequency, duration, and prominence of coverage between MMIW cases and high-profile non-Indigenous cases such as Gabby Petito’s. This could include statistical analysis of headline frequency, article word counts, televised segment minutes, and social media engagement metrics across multiple major news platforms. Visual graphs comparing term usage, name mentions, and placement on homepages would allow for precise documentation of disproportionality, reinforcing the qualitative patterns identified in this paper.
Additionally, if this study were extended in length, it could include an in-depth, top-to-bottom case study of a single MMIW victim, tracing her experience from disappearance, to family advocacy, to media in/visibility, to institutional response and everything that follows. This narrative mapping would provide a humanized, structural illustration of how erasure operates in real time, further revealing the layered failures of journalism, law enforcement, and public accountability. Together, these expanded approaches would create a more comprehensive and measurable framework for understanding how censorship, marginalization, and propaganda function within the American media landscape.
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