Always refreshing to find a new article that doesn't have climate change in it, although climate change may be why more blonde females are being kidnapped.

My first reaction was Bah Humbug! and then to thought, hmmm, yes, sort of.

The Yorkshire Ripper (Sutcliffe) killed mainly dark haired women but none got the publicity of the American girl. It's fairly clear in the Ramsey murder that the media thought the parents (the father?) did it. That adds impact and conflict.

I'm not so sure the media works for the public. The media works for itself and is more of a blind giant dancing than an inquisitor. It feeds quickly and then moves on.

It seems like in America and South Africa the voters prefer black people. I am not sure what the voters fascination is. Maybe someone should do a study on it.

It's an easy target, but ignores the fact that the same kind of bias is universal. I don't think Asians and Lebanese particularly care about the middle class white girl that went missing in America. People are concerned about their own. The bias is more obvious in the west because we have actually allowed mass migration of foreign cultures into our own. Where are the missing white girls in Lebanon, reported or unreported?

I don’t think JonBenet Ramsay was targeted for particular interest because she was blonde..

I think it had far more to do with her pageantry exploits and the criticism her parents received for daring to expose their daughter to such pursuits and then the mystery of the first bungled police investigation.

I have great personal sympathy for her parents, they were unjustly pilloried for the way they brought their daughter up.

As to this article… i think it is a "filler", something written to meet a quota or contractual obligation. Thus it is the stuff of fairy-floss, all appearance and no substance…

Like a lot of blondes I have known (and a couple who I married)

As I said the brunette I dated yesterday, I look into a lady’s eyes and if there is no one home, I walk on by.

And, in that regard, it is surprising how many blondes I find are "not at home" when I look in the eyes, doubtlessly out, thinking about shoe shopping or having a fake tan applied…

Forgive me my ignore Col Rouge, but what sort of 'quota' or 'contractual obligation' is being referred to here?? And, on that note, how is this related to the various brunettes and blondes you have dated?

TanyaR “Forgive me my ignore Col Rouge, but what sort of 'quota' or 'contractual obligation' is being referred to here”

I did not think I had mentioned or referred to any “quota or contractual obligation”, nor did I read it in the article, so I do not have a clue of what you are refering,

“how is this related to the various brunettes and blondes you have dated”

It is not, other than the article is about “blondes” versus “brunettes”

try reading the article Tanya, if you can (read) or get someone to read it for you, it helps (what does the R stand for… (R)etard?)

PS yes, I will forgive your ignorance.

Col Rouge, it seems you have taken an extremely surface reading of this article. Blondes versus brunettes?? Hardly. This article is more about the media's focus on appearances as a means of 'entertainment value' - considering the manner in which society views certain individuals as 'more important' than others due to their physical features. The mention of hair colour is an example of a deeper issue - hardly the central issue in itself. I would also argue that racial issues are more of a focus here than 'blondes versus brunettes'.

My question about the quota or contractual obligation was in regards to your comment - "i think it is a "filler", something written to meet a quota or contractual obligation. Thus it is the stuff of fairy-floss, all appearance and no substance."

Just wondering why you believe this to be the case?

Can you believe what is reported in the media?

The flat answer is NO!

Unless the reporting is purely factual. Which very often, it is not.

Melaine Phillips did a good expose' on a number of stunts conducted by the palestines that were dutifully reported by our tame media. Please note the media has not admitted that they had been had.

Well it is a blonde article and that explains a lot.

The Jo-anne Lees case also received world wide saturation coverage and she was definitely not blonde it had more to do with the unusual aspects of the case, I think the same is true in the Jon-Benet Ramsay case. You don’t often see glamorous show girl photos of kidnap victims dancing on stage. Also the fact that she was found in the basement of her own home was different and puzzling.

These cases become conversation pieces around dinner tables because of the more bizarre circumstances surrounding them. Everybody hates these kind of crimes and sympathise with the victims and their families no matter what race or colour but some just haunt people’s minds more. I do agree if the girl is really good looking does seem to be one of the criteria in the bigger public response. This is true of every situation in life though , mother Theresa never received a quarter of the adulation that Princess Diana did and that was mainly because she lacked Diana’s looks.

Humans are just programmed to respond with attraction to the genetically perfect, it is a desirable trait in a possible breeding partner

I agree with Sharkfin's comments above. I'm a true crime buff and it's more to do with the intrigue and the characters involved. You mentioned the Caylee Anthony case which rivals the Jon Benet case for saturation media coverage in the US also the Laci Peterson case had huge media coverage. Both Caylee and Laci are not blondes but both would be from middle class backgrounds. I think what catches people's interest is that a family can appear perfectly normal on the surface, they could be your next door neighbour but behind closed doors there is all this dysfunction. Jon Benet's case had wealth, mystery, an eccentric mother, child beauty pageants. Just look at the coverage the OJ Simpson case received. These cases are always going to get publicity. I don't think it is a question of race.

There is a definite prejudice in favour of the caucasian victim. Does anyone remember the toddler who was taken from her family home in Sydney around the time of the Madeline McCann kidnapping in Portugal? From a family with a Middle-eastern surname, pretty little girl, mother devastated and unable to front the media. We're still hearing about Madeline McCann from half a world away, but I don't even know if the little Australian girl was ever found. The fact that Jon-Benet and Madeline McCann are instantly recognised by so many says it all.

In 1975 I was in Switzerland when Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin. The loss of 45 lives in an Australian cyclone was front page news in the local paper. Several pages later there was a tiny paragraph about the death of 450 people in monsoon floods in India.

Despite the title, I don't think the real intent of the writer is to focus specifically on hair colour - it's about the concept of what we regard as 'ideal' children. The typical blonde haired blue eyed aryan children have been regarded as this penultimate symbol of childhood for so long that these kinds of stories hit to the very heart of the culture.

So no, they don't specifically have to be blonde to get so much attention - they have to be photogenic, and more importantly, they have to come from the strata of society that the most media consumers can empathise with.

This isn't localised on children or even kidnappers. For just a moment, consider the Schapelle Corby case. I found myself rather mystified by the sheer number of people declaring she was innocent. I felt a degree of sympathy for the harshness of the sentence for a pretty tame drug such as marijuana (the quantity was large, but I don't loathe marijuana dealers and smugglers as I do those involved in say, the heroin trade) but as for guilt or innocence, I didn't see any reason to think she was a special case.

In Corby's case, ask yourself if she'd been such a media sensation if she'd been black? To further prove my point that it's about societal empathy and how attractive they are, it doesn't have to be about race.

Lets say she was caucasian, but 30 kilos heavier and sporting visible tattoos on her neck.

Be honest. How many would have cared then?

Races favouring their own kind is an observable fact, so you would expect the media in a predominantly white society to favour the Ramsay cases:

"Researchers have found some people automatically produce stress hormones when they see someone of a different race."

"The two researchers argue that modern racial discrimination is an overstimulated response to what might be called an "alliance" detector in the human brain."

"That genotypes seek out maximally conducive environments is particularly well illustrated by findings that people select similar others with whom to associate, both as friends and as marriage partners...

...and where animals raised apart show a preference to interact with kin rather than non-kin (Holmes & Sherman, 1983)...

Following the death of a child, for example, both mothers and fathers irrespective of sex of child are found to grieve more for children resembling their side of the family than they do for children resembling their spouse's side (Littlefield & Rushton, 1986). It would appear that people are able to detect genetic similarity in others and act accordingly."

What is harder to fathom is why the media is reluctant to report racially motivated crimes against white men:

"Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Cheshire and a spokesman on race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said it was a fact that it was harder to get the media interested where murder victims were young white men."

Go figure ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97313840
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795581
http://www.euvolution.com/articles/gensim01.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/oct/22/ukcrime.race