PR Assignment: St. Louis in the International Media

On January 8, 2007 Ben Ownby, 13, was abducted after getting off his school bus in Franklin County. Four days later he was found in the apartment of Michael Devlin, 41, in Kirkwood, St. Louis County. Shawn Hornbeck, a boy who had gone missing in 2002, was found in the same apartment.

This is a rather simplified version of the story but it will due for the topic at hand.

The question I'm addressing is "How was St. Louis portrayed in the Media's coverage of this case?".

Given the nature of the event this immediately became an international story. Suddenly there were crews from the BBC, FOX and CNN in St. Louis and the entire city was in the spotlight.

How did we hold up?

I have a friend from New York whose image of St. Louis includes silos, pickup trucks, cows and cups to spit dip in. Now there's something to be said for that lifestyle but I don't feel it accurately reflects the city in which I live.

So needless to say I was a little upset at the initial reports. Mitchell Hults, the boy in Ownby's class that had identified Devlin's truck, was interviewed while wearing all camouflage and a hat with a Confederate Flag on it. He even added a passionate "Git R Done" at the end. I also noticed that he was two years older than his classmate. This was because he failed two grades.
The parents weren't much better.

I don't want to sound pretensious but let's face it, Franklin and Washington County aren't St. Louis and they don't reflect "well" on the city. I was afraid that the entire world would view St. Louis as the "Git R Done" city. I still don't even know what that means.

However as I continue to read articles by CNN, BBC, FOX and MSNBC I've found I have nothing to be ashamed of. The networks are all focusing on how miraculous the situation is. In fact I've found no undertones in the reports that could be considered negative.

In the end the case was so amazing and bizarre that the news media tried to paint St. Louis, specifically Kirkwood, as an everyday place. Devlin was just an everyday person who worked at a pizza shop. In creating this picture of the location the media made the story more interesting and sinister as if could have happened anywhere to anyone.

So overall I feel that St. Louis was portrayed in a neutral light.
But talk about "cruel world" syndrome...