Without googling do you know who Taiwo Balogun is

[newjobnewstartihope]

?

No

No I didn’t, and I’ve just googled. How sad for the poor woman, I hope she’s at peace now.

Re NB - everyone saying it’s similar case, I don’t think it’s been ruled death by suicide has it? Do they know she didn’t fall in?

I hadn’t heard of Taiwo Balogun, but just searched and that is so, so sad.

I would have thought that WOULD have been a national news story. I don’t think we can ignore the fact that ‘white mother from a village with menopause issues’ going missing is always going to be a bigger story than ‘black woman from Kent with mental health issues’. And we all know exactly why that is.

I mean no disrespect to NB and her family. Tragic case and I’m glad it got coverage. But it’s pretty stark when you look at the paltry media coverage of TB.

The main thing is that she was white, MC and a good poster person for the whole ‘missing person’ story.
Same then we heard about Sarah Evans.

I personally have never seen such attention from the media when the woman missing is black, looking poor etc….

Who is Sarah Evans?

Spot on. One can tell a lot by the apathy in some posters comments

No, but I do think it's human nature to be more interested in people we can relate to. I can only speak for myself, but my interest was higher because my 7 am until 10 am routine would have been very similar to NB's ten years ago when my children were in primary school - right down to the car, the type of dog and the fields/water type of walk. There's an element of 'That could be me/my mum/my sister/my friend etc.' I think all people are like that, not just white British people? Also, as pp have said, the mystery surrounding her disappearance, enhanced by the distressed dog, within a nation of dog lovers.

How is it a race thing though? Theres a white woman missing in my town for two years now. Was last seen in the corner shop and has never been seen again, left a big family behind. Theres only been local news coverage of her and even very little. Two years on her family still appeal on Facebook.

It’s well known that some women get more coverage than others. I am aware that as a mixed race, normal woman from a northern ex mining town that’s run down, I have less chance of coverage if I disappear.

However it’s not just related to race. Plenty of white women don’t come to press attention. My friend went missing last year. Was missing a few days, had PND. Her body was found, which it did make some news. Then made the papers when her husband was quickly arrested after her body was discovered. She was white.

But she was from a poor background, from a rundown town. Someone who is middle class is likely to get far more attention.

Then attractiveness comes into it. As does age. Again, many white women near me have gone missing in recent years and ended their own lives and not made the news. Not conventionally attractive or under 50.

In the Sarah Everard Case she had friends and friends of friends who worked with or within the media. Which also helps. In the NB case, I have no idea what her partners or friends jobs were. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a media connection.

It happens a lot though. For example, I thought the terrible case of Nosheen Akhtar, who was set on fire and killed BY HER OWN HUSBAND, would get blanket coverage. Same with Valentina Cozma who was murdered the same way (by her husband). But there was very little coverage about both of them.

I do think it might be to do with the class and ethnic status of most jurnalists, they are mostly white and middle class and privileged, so they're more interested in cases that involve people 'like them'.

I think also in the cases of Nosheen and Valentina, the media is very wary of talking about so-called 'honour killings' because there are a number of sensitivities around them.

She was found before NB went missing so maybe that was why there was more of an increased profile? In the hope there would be a positive outcome this time?

I'm
Very disturbed about the lake at blue water shopping centre though... presumably there must have been lots of people around? So very tragic. She had lost her daughter at just 15 too a few years ago.

Yeah kind of
But also there are so many similar stories
I don't even think it's a good thing Nicola Bulley got so much media coverage ultimately after all the family have had to go through

I saw that about Nosheen and was also appalled it wasn't national news

I don't think it's just race I said in one of the other threads a woman local to me went missing for three weeks and was found dead yards from her home in the end . Nobody crying foul play or demanding a police enquiry there either

Agreed. Particularly since it happened at a time of heightened national discourse about domestic abuse and VAWG.

I wonder if family involvement has anything to do with it, though. For example with Nicola Bulley, the family were putting out lots of appeals. Same with Madeline McCann for example. Whereas with Nosheen's case, and maybe also Taiwo's too, the famiy very much eschewed any media profile e.g. refused to give interviews, etc. As is their right. But that might also be a deciding factor in how much something gets picked up or ignored.

Yeah true
The thing is if the public knew just how common it was for someone to enter a body of water not be found despite extensive searches and then emerge a while later they hopefully wouldn't be coming up with such awful theories that she must have been dumped there by someone and wouldn't possibly leave her family behind

I think the reason it got so much attention with Nicola is that there was only a ten minute window in which she vanished. That in itself is fairly unusual. Many people saw it as a true life crime thriller. And started to come up with outlandish theories.

If it hadn't been for that, and social media folks deciding they could somehow 'solve' the case, I don't think it would have become the circus it became.

Once a certain amount of people start posting about it on SM, the algo picks up that this is popular and starts pushing it out proactively. So it caught the attention of more people. Classic snowball effect. I don't think the media helped either.

No they didn't and her family are sadly seeing the toxic side of courting the media now . Such a double edged sword

In cases of other similarly vulnerable persons with concerned family, wouldn't police also be alerted / start taking action within a very short time though, possibly even 10 minutes? I don't think it was the 10 mins thing on its own - it was the whole "she lives, loves, laughs, and has no mental health issues" thing that cloaked it in seeming mystery.

Exactly this. Mass media attention isn't the blessing that many seem to think it is. NB's family have had to experience nasty speculation about their lives, body language, all their words picked over, and ghouls trawling through their social media. When her funeral happens, there will be media and Tik-Tokers there, so a deeply private occasion will become a public spectacle. They will forever be The Family from the Missing Woman Case.

Taiwo Balogun's family will be left alone to grieve privately, with the support of their loved ones.

A woman named Laurel went missing not long back. She was found dead after 11 days.
The only reason anything was written about her was because she was related to a reasonably famous person. I doubt we would have heard otherwise.
She was white and in her 60s.

Yes very true