Shannon Matthews is nine. She vanished on her way home from school two weeks ago in Dewsbury West Yorkshire.
Madeleine McCann is three. She vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal last May.
Why is Maddie still earning page leads in national newspapers while poor Shannon is already relegated to a few paragraphs at the side of the page?
Is Kate McCann more distraught than Karen Matthews? Why does almost everyone in Europe know Maddie’s face yet few of us are quite sure why Shannon’s name rings a bell?
Are we so shallow that we care more that the missing child has the cuteness of todlerhood?
But surely we couldn’t attach less worth to Shannon because her parents are divorced and they aren’t as well-to-do as the McCanns?
None of the explanations are likely to put the papers – or the readers who like-it-or-not fuel demand for stories – in a particularly good light.