The saturation of coverage triggered a backlash among some critics who argued that such extensive media attention validates the "missing white woman syndrome" theory, which argues that missing-person cases involving white skinned women and girls receive disproportionate attention in the media compared with cases involving white males or people of color. CNN ran a segment criticizing the amount of coverage their competitors gave to the story despite what they characterized as a lack of new items to report, with CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper calling the coverage "downright ridiculous".