Philadelphia Magazine (which describes itself as "a monthly publication aimed at the educated and affluent Philadelphian interested in information having to do with lifestyle, beauty, and travel. Primarily aimed at women, the 140,000 circulation mag, which was founded in 1908, covers such issues as dining out, events, parties, social date books, the best of Philly, the top doctors, etc." and which is considered "a very informative source of information" in the areas of local restaurants and entertainment by their readers) has apparently gone into communications analysis in a heavy way.

You folks may have heard about LaToyia Figueroa, a missing young woman of color whose case was languishing until Philadelphia bloggers took it up and made it a cause

A few days after very minor local stories about the Figueroa case, Cranium (real name: Richard Blair) wrote a blistering assault on the disparity between the coverage of a missing young white women and a missing young woman of color. His piece became a cause celebre in the blogosphere and led to massive publicity about the case, both locally and in the national media. On Aug. 20, police found Figueroa's body in a remote area of Chester, Pa., and charged her ex-boyfriend Stephen Poaches, with the murder.

The story didn't end the way that her friends and family had hoped, but the grim discovery and the arrest of Poaches did bring some closure.

Philadelphia Magazine writer Noel Weyrich has another explanation for the media's behavior in the Figueroa case

The news media does indeed have a guilty secret, but it's got nothing to do with race. It's about the cunning exploitation of tragedy for lurid amusement. Newspeople are loath to talk about it, but a murder mystery can keep its hold on a national audience only if it offers a compelling, coherent narrative. Out of the thousands of murders and disappearances of women every year, only a few cases have that stranger-than-fiction quality powerful enough to transfix a boob-tube nation. As Martin Scorsese might say, the story has to track .

Yes, there are missing and murdered black women who don't get the Natalee Holloway treatment on CNN. But a lot of white women also disappear and die outside the media glare. It takes about 10 minutes trawling Lexis-Nexis to find cases from all over the country. Most only receive passing mention in their local papers. Why? The details are too depressing. Many involve women who hook up with bad men in bad circumstances and come to a bad end. It's sad. It's tragic. It's not news.

News professionals know too well that nothing kills a promising story faster than a fuller grasp of the facts. You think you've got something special, but you make some calls, do some research, and end up with nothing worth pitching to an editor. Bloggers—unedited and unaccountable—get to run with whatever they have at hand. Dick Brain and his brethren bloggers (the Dick Brain Trust) live in a state of blissful ignorance because they are, in general, defiantly ill-informed amateurs. LaToyia was black, her disappearance was unnoticed, therefore it was unnoticed because she was black. Don't confuse them with the facts. Their minds are made up.

Whether a missing woman is black or white, her case won't attract national media interest if there is any chance her poor judgment or bad behavior helped seal her fate. If Scott Peterson had had a prior criminal record, if Laci Peterson had been a battered wife who stayed with the jerk, her case never would have made Larry King or the National Enquirer . Instead, she was a sweet and trusting expectant mother, preparing to live out the American Dream with a handsome, responsible husband—who just happened to be a homicidal sociopath.

Laci's story was Hollywood. LaToyia's story—unmarried, scratching out a living, knocked up by some lowlife probationer—isn't. Push the hot button of race, however, and it's very easy to make an oversimplified case that the media puts a higher value on missing white women.

See, they'd cover the disappearances of non-white women but they only cover the disappearances of women who aren't trash, and unfortunately, as anyone who does the homework will see if they look at the existing coverage, while quite a few of the missing white women are trash, all the women of color who disappear are trash. Trashy white people don't get covered even if they're white. It's just like that.

This is apparently part of Philadelphia Magazine's current race relations project (I assume it's not part of their push into alternative media). See, Philadelphia Magazine's demographics are not all that promising in the long-term, when you consider that their typical reader is a 51 year old white woman, while your typical philadelphian is a 36 year old woman who stands a better than one in four chance of not being white. The publisher would like to change that, to the extent of contracting for a year's worth of articles on race in Philadelphia.

CP: I'm just guessing, but I imagine that your magazine's demographic doesn't include many blacks -- which begs the question, who are you writing this series for?

LP: I think we have about 12 to 15 percent readership that's African American. Our demographics are elite. It's for the elite and those who aspire to join the elite in Philadelphia and the region. There is a vibrant African-American elite and African-American middle class that we'd like to have read our magazine in greater numbers than they do already. And so it is both for our readers and the pursuit of other readers, newer readers.

about twelve to fifteen? The man started a year-long discussion on "the most important issue of the day" (which he acknowledges that they've avoided talking about in the past) to attract more elite african american readers and he doesn't know exactly how many african americans read his magazine? (Raise your hands if you think this guy doesn't follow his demographic numbers.)

CP: Why has Philadelphia magazine never had a black staff writer? And, considering that you’re going to take this leap into covering a subject over the course of a year, do you feel the need to hire one?

LP: I'd like to -- at some point. I have no plans to make any hires now. But it would be nice. And as to the historical question, I don't know. I think it deals with something we spoke about earlier, which is that Philadelphia magazine has at best ignored race and most of the time I think it’s considered itself not writing for African-American readership, which I’d like to change. And it would be good in brainstorming sessions to get outside viewpoints of people who haven’t lived exactly like some of us here have. My three predecessors were all white, male Jews from Penn. And I like to say, I’m a white, male Jew who went to Syracuse, so I’m affirmative action -- Philadelphia magazine style. [laughs]

The first article in the series addressed race relations in Philadelphia in terms of being the thoughts on race relations in Philadelphia of a writer who only arrived in Philadelphia the year before, but, you know, he is an elite african american (if you look at him as a black employee at Philadelphia Magazine, he's one of just two, and how elite is that? The other one's an art director. She's also a new hire).

In closing, Mr. Weyrich? You work for a lifestyle magazine, dude. Unless you're writing about art openings and blackened turbot, your work is put in the hands of a hundred thousand people or so (or approximately 1/61 of the city that is your only subject) every month and they flip past you to get to the art openings and the blackened turbot.

I can see that it might make you peevish that there are bloggers out there who have stuff to say that people actually seek out and read - in some cases, more people in a single day than read even the blackened turbot review in a month.

Sorta makes you wonder who the little guy poking at the media giant to get attention is in this situation.