A Blizzard of Innuendo in Boulder

Once more, we may be witnessing history. In other words, could this just be the tot beauty queen murder of the century?

Or . . . maybe not.

There they go again. We’ve evidence anew that much of the media are a movable blizzard. So many of them, so many homicides for them to bury under suffocating avalanches of verbiage and hasty theories in progress. Where is a snowplow when you really need one?

The question, as always, is of motivation: What primordial instinct commands the blizzard to swiftly mobilize, and with so many options, what compels it to make the choices that it does?

I was vacationing on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast late last month when, in a moment of weakness, I turned on CNN in my hotel room and learned of the death of JonBenet Ramsey and of the blizzard’s spread to wintry Boulder.

In a town where once only University of Colorado Buffalo had roamed, an estimated 300 abominable snowmen from regional, national and global media were now doing their customary trampling on behalf of the planet’s presumably transfixed viewers, listeners and readers.

On the screen, a CNN reporter stonily delivered a live update in front of picturesque, white-peaked mountains, and then came a photo of blond JonBenet, the 6-year-old “beauty queen” who appeared much older and almost seductive in full makeup, much like crinolined Baby June in “Gypsy,” although little more than a wee Barbie Doll with crimson lips.

In future days down south, I occasionally returned to CNN. In no time, the murder had reached the stage where it was famous mainly because it was famous, with media coverage assuming the kind of heart-thumping, unstoppable, independent life of its own that’s typical in such cases. I watched, while wondering why so much attention was being given to this murder in contrast to all the others. (Nearly seven persons under the age of 18 are murdered daily in the United States, according to the Department of Justice. Other estimates put the figure much higher.)

Back in Los Angeles, with JonBenet now getting even a People magazine cover, I’m still wondering.

As grisly as it is, her murder and sexual assault have no visible impact beyond Boulder. Local police say it doesn’t appear to be a “serial situation.” Why, then, does this murder of a child presently outrank others on the media’s calamity scale, the sheer weight of their coverage assigning JonBenet’s death more importance than the losses of countless other children whose brutal slayings are either unnoticed or capsulized in a few lines?

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Is it because the Ramsey family is affluent? Because JonBenet was a white “beauty queen” with video and photo portfolios that newscasts could use to wallpaper their stories--as they did with murdered model Linda Sobek, whose full-body publicity stills TV cameras slowly panned like porno peepers?

“What is so special about this case?” a woman in the Atlanta studio audience of “TalkBack Live” asked during the CNN program’s hour on JonBenet’s murder last Thursday.

“Maybe because the high and mighty have fallen, or maybe because people are suspicious of them [the parents],” a lawyer guest blurted out, before confessing that he had no idea what made this case “so special.”

Another answer came from a “TalkBack Live” viewer via the Internet: “It is the stunning beauty of the little girl and the beauty alone that fascinates us. We are horrified someone would snuff that out.”

But less horrified by deaths of unglamorous small victims?

Thursday (more than two weeks after her body was discovered in her home) turned out to be an especially prime day for TV on the JonBenet front. That meant thick packages on ABC’s “World News Tonight” and “NBC Nightly News” and stories on Los Angeles TV that included KCBS-TV Channel 2’s brief live coverage of Boulder Police Chief Tom Kolby’s press conference. Also came stories on syndicated “Hard Copy” and “Extra,” which somehow found it relevant to report the medical history of JonBenet’s mother, Patricia Ramsey, and on “Entertainment Tonight,” which located the case’s show-biz pulse. And finally, there was an evening special (“Who Killed JonBenet?”) on ever-vigilant CNN.

This is the kind of story that CNN anchors itself to with its full tonnage of talkers and live shots, then later asks with a straight face: Did we go too far?

Ask Richard Jewell.

Going too far Thursday included that CNN half-hour special on which reporter Brian Cabell quizzed a Denver radio talk-show host whom he accused, almost angrily, of publicly “pointing a finger” at JonBenet’s parents, with no evidence. Then why give him a forum to do it again?

In addition, anchor Linden Soles cautioned viewers that seepage of “meaningless and unfounded” stories may cloud the case. Then why let them seep?

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JonBenet that day even made it onto the plate of the messy food fighters on CNN’s “Crossfire,” where Marc Klaas, father of murdered Polly Klaas, was asked by regulars Bill Press and Robert Novak to comment on JonBenet’s parents. With customary tact, and in rare agreement, Press and Novak seemed almost to be urging Klaas to implicate the Ramseys in their daughter’s murder. Klaas wisely didn’t bite, saying: “We are not in a position of accusing anybody about anything because we know so little about the case.” Yes, well, no more “Crossfire” shots for him.

As others have, the show’s hosts sought to make something of Patricia Ramsey and her husband, John, hiring separate attorneys, which lawyer guest Gerry Goldstein explained was smart, legally. Yet Press and Novak seemed especially perplexed that the Ramseys also had hired a “media consultant.” Yes, very suspicious, as if those who can afford it should not seek expert advice in dealing with media regarding sensational crime cases. Tell that to Richard Jewell.

Snowdrifts deepened Friday, with Boulder and Denver newspaper reporters making the rounds of network TV interviewers and getting asked to dissect Chief Kolby’s press conference, during which he had the gall to urge reporters to “back off a little and let us do our jobs.” Hey, what’s his problem?

“It was interesting that Chief Kolby was sort of offended by the media attention to the case,” MSNBC legal analyst Jay Monahan surmised, weightily. “And one more observation. . . .”

Unfortunately, there is always “one more observation.”

When Kolby called this an “isolated incident,” he meant the murder, not the coverage.