In a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, The Sydney Morning Herald, our ostensibly liberal broadsheet, gives broad coverage to a blonde, blue-eyed HSC student (page 7, 17-19 December 2008 issue) over students from Asian backgrounds, while reporting (page 17) on French President Sarkozy's aim of improving the representation of his country's migrants among the elites.

"We cannot ignore the ever-bigger gap between the diversity of French society and the social and cultural samesness of the elites that our education system produces. ... Or selection process bars entire parts of our society from reaching positions of leadership."

It's hard to defend the SMH, where 95 percent of journalists are of Anglo-Saxon background, which approximately mirrors the reality among public office holders.

The story on Kate Bones (pic), a blonde, blue-eyed girl from Lane Cove who attended the North Shore school, Abbostleigh, is about the fact that 23 students in NSW gained a perfect 100 in their matriculation exams this year. She is one of the 23, "close to half [of whom] were from James Ruse Agricultural High School" near Parramatta.

James Ruse, a selective school, is well known to be popular with students from Asian backgrounds. And while Kate Bones gets an entire newspaper column detailing her other activities, the nine from James Ruse - Sen Lin, Christine Zhang, David Pham, Nathan Wong, Caroline Banh, Ruby Kwong, Jane Xu, Victor Chan and Melissa Chen - get nothing.