You started out somewhat promising, but then you use anecdotes to try to support your view. The big flaw with that is that your anecdotes are cherry picked to support your point, and are just as easily defeated with other anecdotes.
E.g. in Europe the story of Madeleine McCann, a girl that disappeared in 2007 is still regularly getting headlines, not just in the UK where she grew up, but elsewhere as well (I'm Norwegian, and regularly see her covered in the Norwegian press, for example).
When I wanted to look up the year she disappeared, autocomplete on google brought up her name by the time I got to "mad". A search for "madeleine" on google.co.uk brings "findmadeleine.com" in the first spot, and a picture of her and three headlines from the last two days related to her case, and a further 4 links on the first page.
Why? Because the parents have raised hell, and because of all kinds of intrigue (allegations of all kinds of things flying from her parents against the investigators; by some people involved in the investigation against the parents; and more).
Add to that fame, and the amount of attention the Lindbergh story got was "nothing special", especially given the circumstances:
In the Madeleine McCann case, there is no body, no real suspects, and there's been little news for the last 3-5 years or so.
In the Lindbergh case, after two months the baby was found, the subsequent investigation lasted for "only" two years, and then came the court case and trial. The whole thing was 4 years where there was a steady availability of actual new developments: The race to try to find the baby; finding the body; the hunt for suspects in what was now a gruesome baby murder rather than "just" a kidnapping; the court case, with a suspect that insisted on his innocence; the execution, with a suspect that still insisted on his innocence. Coupled with a famous couple as the distraight and grieving parents. It was an intense human interest story.
If anything, the Madeleine McCann case shows that it's possible to sustain media interest far longer than with the Lindbergh case, even for parents that were not celebrities, even today, as long as the human interest angle is there.
Syria is poor comparison: At some point when the number of people go up, our empathy dampens. That's nothing new - it's basic psychology: We can't deal with the numbers; we can't personalise it.
It's something e.g. aid organizations (like psychologists) have known for decades, when they parade some little malnourished girl in ads and ask us to adopt her, by name, rather than give us the raw numbers, that ought to be far more horrifying and get us to react far more strongly.
Showing that we are reacting even less to mass deaths would be big news, and requires rather more than some anecdotes.
E.g. in Europe the story of Madeleine McCann, a girl that disappeared in 2007 is still regularly getting headlines, not just in the UK where she grew up, but elsewhere as well (I'm Norwegian, and regularly see her covered in the Norwegian press, for example).
When I wanted to look up the year she disappeared, autocomplete on google brought up her name by the time I got to "mad". A search for "madeleine" on google.co.uk brings "findmadeleine.com" in the first spot, and a picture of her and three headlines from the last two days related to her case, and a further 4 links on the first page.
Why? Because the parents have raised hell, and because of all kinds of intrigue (allegations of all kinds of things flying from her parents against the investigators; by some people involved in the investigation against the parents; and more).
Add to that fame, and the amount of attention the Lindbergh story got was "nothing special", especially given the circumstances:
In the Madeleine McCann case, there is no body, no real suspects, and there's been little news for the last 3-5 years or so.
In the Lindbergh case, after two months the baby was found, the subsequent investigation lasted for "only" two years, and then came the court case and trial. The whole thing was 4 years where there was a steady availability of actual new developments: The race to try to find the baby; finding the body; the hunt for suspects in what was now a gruesome baby murder rather than "just" a kidnapping; the court case, with a suspect that insisted on his innocence; the execution, with a suspect that still insisted on his innocence. Coupled with a famous couple as the distraight and grieving parents. It was an intense human interest story.
If anything, the Madeleine McCann case shows that it's possible to sustain media interest far longer than with the Lindbergh case, even for parents that were not celebrities, even today, as long as the human interest angle is there.
Syria is poor comparison: At some point when the number of people go up, our empathy dampens. That's nothing new - it's basic psychology: We can't deal with the numbers; we can't personalise it.
It's something e.g. aid organizations (like psychologists) have known for decades, when they parade some little malnourished girl in ads and ask us to adopt her, by name, rather than give us the raw numbers, that ought to be far more horrifying and get us to react far more strongly.
Showing that we are reacting even less to mass deaths would be big news, and requires rather more than some anecdotes.