Our Media
Let's get this clear: I feel awfully sorry for Gerry and Kate McCann, although I have never met them, as their four-year-old daughter Madeleine is still missing in the Algarve. It must indeed be "every parent's worst nightmare" to lose a child. Worse still, to not know where she is, and to have the eyes and ears of the world on your every grief-stricken appearance. However, my thoughts on this matter are not straightforward. I see far more here than a missing child.
The British media is currently and unhealthily fixated on this story. It's the lead news story on most bulletins, and has been since Maddie was snatched from the apartment where her parents had left her while eating tapas. (They were popping back to check on her, and the twins, every half an hour, which reminds me of what my parents used to do when we were very young and they attended a house party in our street - although this was the early 70s, when we used to leave the back door unlocked and the garage open, and it wasn't in a foreign country.) Even though leads seem thin on the ground (one suspicious local has been arrested, the parents attend a vigil, some millionaires have been shamed by the News Of The World into stumping up a ludicrous reward, as if we are in a cowboy film), the papers are pedalling madly to find fresh material from Portugal to fill their pages. Am I the only person who finds this uncomfortable? I bet I'm not.
We are invited, indeed encouraged, to "feel" for little Maddie and her distraught parents, to "identify" with their plight, to "pray" for her safe return (whether we believe in a deity or not), to question the efficacy of the Portugeuse police forces (useless foreigners!), and to "remember" the last missing child who so dominated our news media for days and days on end. This story may end badly, as the Soham kidnapping did, or as Sarah Payne's abduction did, but you get the feeling that deep down, the newspapers would rather it dragged on a bit longer. Hope sells papers. Followed by tragedy. Followed by postmortem. But let's pray for a bit more hope before the possible tragedy, shall we?
It's not exactly controversial of me to detect a certain unscrupulous ambulance-chasing venality on the part of the papers, especially the tabloids, but what does it say about us as a nation that we allow ourselves to get caught up in it? To be emotionally blackmailed in this way? Are we actually incapable of feeling empathy or sadness or alarm about less "photogenic" tragedies, the sort that unfold all around us every day, and in countries much further away and less familiar than the Algarve? People are killed, abducted, abused and made miserable all the time. So please don't let's lose sight of the bigger picture as we wring our hands over a family we have never met.
I actually saw a handmade poster on the gate of a house down our street this morning urging me to call Crimestoppers if I had any information about Maddie's whereabouts. What's that about? Whose conscience is that assuaging? I think we are collectively losing our marbles. Look what Princess Diana did to us.
Remember: at the end of the day, all that newspapers want to do is sell more newspapers. News Of The World didn't rustle up that bounty, by contacting the offices of Phillip Green, Richard Branson and Bill Kenwright, because they care. It's because they knew it would sell them a few extra copies on Sunday. And I bet they did. It's a great spin on a story lacking in new detail. This is the newspaper that thinks naming and shaming anyone on the paedophile register will help "our children", when "our children" are more at risk from abuse within the family than from shady looking strangers in dirty raincoats by the roadside. They don't care about your children. But it's not just the tabloids, is it? They dress it up more soberly but all the papers are chasing the same prize. Radio 1's Newsbeat has been leading with Maddie all weekend, with, again, nothing new to add. How are we ever to put this complicated world into perspective when the media weight individual stories of tragedy so heavily against less "sexy" ones. (I hate to use that word, "sexy", but are you telling me that the newspaper editors didn't use it, or think it, when the story first broke? Missing girl, distraught, good-looking young parents, holiday nightmare, possible dirty foreign moustachioed paedophile on the loose?)
I sincerely hope that Maddie is alright. I really do. Who with a heart beating inside their ribcage wouldn't? I hope she is reunited with her parents, and they never let her out of their sight ever again. Actually, I don't wish that - we should not cosset our children, or they will grow up unworldly and inexperienced and dependent, which does not make for a better world, especially the precarious one they will inherit, where the sanctioned plight of one little girl is officially more important than all the others. Her parents are blameless in the media circus. That's not of their making. All they can do is take advice and try to use the media to get their daughter back, but they are not in control.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 9:22 AM
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72 Comments:
I can't understand this fixation either. It's not like it's the silly season and there is no news, though Gordon Brown aside there's not a lot at the moment.
Could it be that the parents are doctors, therefore she's a nice white middle class child and it's too close to home for every newspaperman and woman who has children in Britain? Hence the blanket coverage.
I find it odd that not much has been made of them leaving the children on their own. How often do the papers villify parents who leave children on their own in this country? What's the difference? Just because they were on holiday it was okay? Yes, were left alone as children over the age of seven or eight, but as you say, things were different then.
I do hope she turns up, I really do, but somehow I think we've probably seen the last of her. Today's developments with the media-friendly neighbour being 'interviewed' by police means there's perhaps more to it than we thought. This man is now the new Ian Huntley.
So expect the papers to filled for some time yet.
"I find it odd that not much has been made of them leaving the children on their own. How often do the papers villify parents who leave children on their own in this country? What's the difference? Just because they were on holiday it was okay? Yes, were left alone as children over the age of seven or eight, but as you say, things were different then."
It's because they're nice NHS doctors, pillars of the community. If they were 'scumbags' the press would be jumping all over them.
I find it unbelievable they were left on their own. It's okay saying they were checking on them 'every half an hour', but half an hour's a long time for a small child if they wake up. They'll be rueing that decision to their graves, I'm afraid.
I really do hope she's okay, but what can we do?
I think you put it well in your blog post. I find the media circus around this sickening.
It's not just the editors who look on these big sexy (there, I did it too) tragedies as opportunities - the rank and file hacks do too. I know, I used to be one, and, believe me, there's nothing like a horror story for showing what you can do as a writer. Why else the scramble amongst columnists to file the most "poignant" piece? It's pure look-at-me journalism, dressed up as compassion.
On the other hand - the public gets what the public wants, innit.
I agree that the Media coverage is mad - Sky News last night was absolutely ludicrous. But - and I'm wary of saying this - having two young girls myself, I can't help but find myself getting sucked in a bit. Mainly because it really is every good parent's worst fear, to fail to look after their children properly to the point where they let one of them down. The McCanns will (rightly) rue their decision if Madeleine isn't found alive and well, not just because of the pain of losing a child, but because they'll know that she will have been crying for them and they didn't come and help her, and she won't have understood why. If it comes to the worst, they'll never know how she felt and they'll never be able to put that right - they'll just know that they let her down in the worst way possible.
So whilst I would never do what they have done in terms of leaving my kids, because being a parent does make you a paranoid guilty mess at times events such as this stil have a "There but for the grace of god go I" element to them, I would love to see this little girl returned safe and well, because the world would bea better place for my family to be in, and it'd be an easier place to be a parent in.
So yeah, the coverage is hysterical and over the top, but when a story like this does connect with you on an emotional level for whatever reason sometimes you can't just let it go.
All in my opinion, of course...
Another person here who agrees with your point of view. There is just something uncomfortable about it all. I was going to have a big rant on my blog until I read an article in The Times on Saturday which illustrated how Madelines father is doing everything he can to keep the story in the media spotlight knowing that once the story becomes chip paper, the chances of finding her diminish. So we certainly shouldn’t feel sorry for the media intruding when they are walking along the beach because the reason they are walking along the beach is because they are striving to keep the media interested as much as possible.
Very well put Andrew. I've had a nagging feeling of disgust at the news coverage of this for a while now, and with each day the media seems to whipping itself up into an even bigger frenzy.
Watching Sky News a couple of nights ago, I was amazed to see the reporter in Portugal actually sobbing and unable to complete her link. Would she have cried if she was reporting on the scores of children killed needlessly in this pathetic war in Iraq? It's a simplistic comparison to make of course, but I feel it links into your perceptive point about this incident's "sexiness". It just seems that the 24 hour news channels repeat their stories again and again with little insight or genuine fact, until everyone loses all sense of perspective and reality.
Lovely piece, Andrew. What makes me very queasy is not just the media circus, but the public's willingness to be part of it. The poster you saw, the text my friend recieved asking her to 'light a candle for Maddie tonight at 7pm', the incessant demand for 'news'. If she's found, then 'the public' will have helped find her with their good wishes, posters and candles;if the news is bad, we will grieve and sympathise. Why can't the majority just accept that what they do makes not a jot of difference. Send good thoughts and hopes, but don't pretend you're a part of the whole sorry story.
I'm actually sickened to the very core by the press machine's treatment of the 'story'. Quite right, it's newsworthy, but as AC points out, there has been so little to report (before yesterday's arrest) that it's all turned into xenophobic treatment of the Portugese - police and potential suspects alike.
The fact that it may well turn out to be an ex-pat is equally worrying, I can see the headlines now. UK PAEDOS ABROAD - NEW DANGER.
The alarming UK press fixation on child abduction - has it always been like this? Or did it start with Jamie Bulger? Serious question - I was 15 when the Bulger murder took place so I can't remember what preceded it...
I agree with this entirely Andrew, I'm not a parent so I don't feel like I can comment on this without that fear induced by this media storm in parents but I, like you, want a positive outcome to this but really want this "Day 10 of Maddy Watch" off the top of news bulletins and front pages. Literally nothing has been added to this story day to day, I understand why they would want to keep the story in the news but the willingness to share in a strangers grief is something that, post Diana, this country does too well.
You've put into words exactly the way i've been feeling about this. The media coverage has been making me feel increasingly uncomfortable.
Both Alan Johnston's and Madeleine's abductions are horrible emotional experiences for anyone connected to them, and I don't want to understate that, but they are also interesting illustrations as to how our media operates. Readers might be interested in this (blog) article about bias in the BBC, and the continued attempts to keep Alan Johnston in the news. (It is written by someone who works for the BBC and who has previously worked with Alan, and thinks he's a good bloke.)
As good a piece on the whole circus as I've read, Andrew.
Spot on, Andrew. As I was falling asleep last night the midnight news on Radio 4 led with the report of a villa being searched in Portugal. It described the owner as 'an eighty-year old British woman, whose 41-year old single son Robert is also said to be a regular occupant of the villa'. Read between the lines: "41...single..stays with his Mum...must be a paedo," Never mind that there was no mention of anyone having been actually charged with anything.
Shame on the BBC. And shame on most of the newspapers. This is a tragic, horrible story but I won't be tying yellow ribbons to my front door any more than I would have taken flowers to Kensington Palace ten years ago.
[Preface: Andrew, I've just read what I've written below, and I'm sorry to have splurged so many thoughts down in one go. I'm usually wary of rash, naive and ill-thought out blogging in my lunchbreak on sensitive issues. Oh well...]
1) Overall I'm happy for there to be plenty of coverage of Maddie's story, if it a) helps to find her, and b) takes, say, Jordan and Peter off the front page.
2) The huge offers of money seem to me to represent society's current obsession with measuring and quantifying everything, including our emotions, rather than being a particularly practical move towards finding Maddie. I'm sure a reward is helpful, but millions? Do people really need the prospect of a millionaire lifestyle before they do something to help?
3) The fears stirred up by the excessive coverage will no doubt mean that more children in the UK are sat in front of the "safe" Playstation instead of encouraged to get outside to learn about the world and its dangers in gradual, limited doses. This leaves them more vulnerable in the long term. School trips and children's holidays will become further strangled by legislation, led not by a concern for children's safety but by a fear of the courtroom, shame and financial penalties.
4) On the Today programme this morning it was pointed out that the horrific story from the Congo that they broadcast earlier this week - covering torture, rape, mutilation, murder and the worst kinds of depravity that I think I've ever heard - received very little reaction, and virtually none compared to Maddie's story. The News of the World editor sniffily replied that papers cover stories that people can relate to, and people wouldn't relate to the Congo in the same way. "50% of adults in the UK have kids" he said. So surely they'd empathise to some degree with the mother who was forced to murder her own baby? Or is that too much to handle? Or is it to be expected of certain parts of the world - or rather, of certain races?
5) In a different part of the same issue, I hate to see headlines like "Two Britons dead in crash" followed in small print by "Death toll reaches fifty". I just don't understand that mentality, reporting it in a similar way to how you might report Olympic medals.
Well said Andrew. Today's papers, which unfortunately surround me at work, have indeed had a field day. Worst, unsurprisingly, is the Express. On the front page, a caption hysterically noting 'Murat's daughter looks strikingly like Madeline'; inside, the headline 'He had a steely stare'; a report breathlessly observing how Murat "was last night portrayed as an 'odd-looking' man unable to hold down steady relationships or jobs" and documenting, apropos nothing, that he has a glass eye; and worse of all a quote from Murat in which he speaks "chillingly" of his own experiences of...having a young daughter. It's outrageous. Is any Fleet Street journalist noble enough to speak out about the way their profession is behaving?
Andrew
I enjoyed your post and all the comments here - all very level headed amid the media furore. I don't think that things are more dangerous for children these days, it's just that the reporting of it becomes ever more sensational.
Spotted on today's lunchtime news that it was a Sunday Mirror journalist who thought the British guy was 'suspicious', and reported him to the police. So that's the newspapers creating their own news, which will be particularly crappy if the bloke only turns out to be harmless.
I heard that it was a Sunday Mirror journalist who shopped him too... so does that mean if he does turn out to be guilty that she'll be claiming the News of the World's £1.5 million reward? Sorry, but there would be something blackly hilarious about that...
Oh thank you for blogging about this. I feel like you've scratched an itch and my attempts to discuss this with my (Sun reading) flat mates have fallen off deaf ears and accusing eyes.
What irks me so much is the level at which elements of the general public emotionally invest in something that is unfortunately so commonplace among all the tragic things that happen everyday. Yes, it is sad, yes, I cried at the news reports... but why do some people insist on such public displays of empathy? Asking us to think of them, pray for them. Since when was God such a big part of our lives in a secular society, and why does the general public turn to this fictional deity in times of perceived crisis?
I feel that people who have nothing to add other than to send out these e-mail/text chains etc saying things like "find Maddie" are either so lacking in self identity that they want to be seen as such a 'caring' person... Or they are thrill seeking by being on the 'bandwagon' or wanting to be seen as in touch with 'the people'.
Makes me mad. Also makes me sound like a bit of a snob :/
Doesn't sound snobby to me, Alice. To question a mass reaction doesn't necessarily mean you think you are above the masses. The newspapers and news media that cook up all this fuss have complete contempt for the masses. We are just malleable idiots to them.
As for the guilty-until-proven innocent stuff - he had a glass eye, he lived with his mum - this dovetails into the control freak representing the Church of Scientology who kept harrassing reporter John Sweeney on last night's Panorama. Every time anyone speaks out against the Church, they apparently put their well-oiled media machine into action and start smearing their opponents. One guy who spoke on camera to Sweeney was ambushed by the Scientology chap, who read out a list of his "crimes" on camera (indiscretions from his misspent youth, mainly) and loudly proclaimed him to be a "pervert" and thus not worthy of speaking out against the Church. Creepy stuff. Really creepy.
I must write a separate entry about Panorama.
Obviously we are all desperate for information and hope for a speedy if at all possible happy conclusion to this situation but I too have been feeling increasingly uneasy about the media's handling of the story.
Last night Sky news was just foul. Streams of people testifying to his creepy eyes and holding his failed business cards to camera as if that would ease us into believing we the journalist's have found the monster. He may very well be guilty but some restraint should have been shown until the police revealed more. It was blatantly trail by mob television.
I got the impression that because the trail will not be in a British court it was fair game to throw up any conjecture without fear of prejudicing a trail
The BBC fairs not much better. this lunch they had a report live from a helicopter over the villa again with nothing new to say. How does that help you, me, the police, the parents or Maddie? They are so terrified on leaving a story on which that they have absolutely no new information because there is this generated pubic hunger that need to be fed.
My 5 year old was made to pray for "little Maddie" in infant school yesterday. And it's not supposed to be a faith school. Whose benefit was that for? Certainly not my daughter's.
It's hard to echo these feelings without thinking I'm stepping out of line. But I remind myself that it doesn't make me feel any less for the parents and hope that she is safe just as much as anyone.
This really does make me uncomfortable in so many ways. As a parent, I really don't want any further excuse to dwell in a paramoid manner on risks to my children which are very unlikely. As an internet user, I can't see the use or point of these email/bulletin board 'copy and pass on' messages about Madeleine. I can see the point of sending a letter of support to the parents or even praying for them if you are religious, but not what pretty much equates to an internet viral campaign. Unless they really think the perpetrator is online and will be shamed into giving himself up?
I also think that if Madeleine's parents had been young/single/unemployed/on a council estate then the story would have been a 'home alone outrage'. I would never leave my kids alone in the house for any length of time - anything can happen in half an hour if their kids are anything like mine for getting into mischief, or even simply getting upset and disorientated to wake up alone in a strange place.
Having said all that, obviously, I feel for the parents and hope with all my soul that the little girl is all right and returned safely.
Of course it goes without saying that everything turns out ok. But just to comment on Andrew's point that this will only encourage parents to keep their children under guard even more than they do now.
Where I live kids play in the road, and when I pointed out to one of the parents that wouldn't they be safer playing in the park which is two minutes walk away I was told that she told them to stay in sight of the house because of 'perverts'. I mentioned that being run over is a much higher risk she just laughed!
Well yesterday evening one of the children was clipped by a car! As far as I know he wasn't badly hurt (minor cuts). But I know that they will be out there again tomorrow (too wet tonight!).
Growing up in the 70s, during the school holidays my Mum and Dad didn't know where I was most of the time and I became much more independent and I think a more rounded person. If this makes parents even more unwilling to let their children experience the world away from them it will be a sad day.
Ian
I think the over-exposure of this case is good, or at least better than letting it slip out of the public eye. The media are clearly exploiting it though, and popular ‘news’ is nothing more than entertainment for the masses, but I will agree with Dom’s (no relation) point that the public want it. If the papers reigned in their sensationalism it would do nothing but decrease their sales. Should McDonalds make their food less tasty and their promotions less enticing and sophisticated because their food is bad for you? I don’t think these companies are responsible for our depravity, I think we’re responsible for not offering anything better (present company excepted, of course). The masses are malleable and ignorant, but they’re not completely hopeless (or, if they are, who cares what happens to them and their children?)
Last night’s ITV 10.30 coverage of the story was a disgrace. Basically it was a case of not having anything definitive to tell us so they decided to speculate instead. So we had a young female hack stood outside the ‘suspects’ house who was asked by the studio to tell us twice in the space of 10 minutes what the mood was like out there. She was replaced 5 minutes later, in exactly the same spot, by a more senior male hack who was also asked to tell us what the mood was like out there. Both referred to the rows of other journalists just out of eyeshot. The female hack also told us in that this was a potential breakthrough in the story. By the time the male hack got on air he was speculating that was probably just another false dawn.
But this story just highlights the continual decline of all TV news coverage. I cite: Ridiculously overblown, over-literal, computer graphics that make The Day Today (12 years old now!) look like 1970 ‘s Open University programmes; endless chit chat between reporters and studio about what they ‘think’ about the news; the news while standing up and wandering about; the ubiquitous female news voice perfected by Kaplinsky which just makes them look gormless; or even worse the ‘I’m only managing to hold this together’ style emoting whilst reading out tragic stories. Oh and that clown of a political correspondent Nick 'young conservative' Robinson and the even worse lightweight double act of Tom and Daisy on the otherside.
A few weeks back there was a story on the 6.30 ITV news (yes I’m addicted to how bad it is!), the subject of which I’ve forgotten, but the newsreader referred to a ‘domino effect’ at one point. ITV felt the need to demonstrate this concept with an 18 foot high graphic of some dominoes being knocked over. Thanks ITV, I really would have struggled to grasp that one otherwise.
Andrew,
I am so glad that someone has finally come and said what you have. It seems we're not allowed to make criticisms in situatons like this for fear of being branded heartless and uncaring.
It's very easy for parents (like me) to say (with hindsight) that they would NEVER leave their own children alone for a minute but it remains a fact that they left their kids on their own and if they weren't such a middle class couple they'd be heavily criticised. If this happened to a couple of junkies in Edinburgh (for example) I'm sure the story would be completely different.
I really hope she is found alive and well very soon.
I didn't watch the news tonight, (I was seeing The Battle Of Algiers) should I just put the Brass Eye special on for the same effect?
An obvious point this but just to say that I agree that a less 'respectable' couple would be treated quite differently by the newstainment world, and that would be sick, but I'm glad there hasn't been much critcism of the McCanns - some things surely don't need to be said.
In much the same way that the British hostages in Iran were pretty much beyond criticism until we knew they weren't going to be killed, the parents in this case will not blamed unless their daughter is returned safe. I don't think it's anything to do with class; it's somewhere between hypocrisy and common decency.
The thing that gets me about the coverage of this case is the fact that we're calling her "Maddie" (or worse "little Maddie"). As far as I'm concerned she should be "Madeleine" to anyone who doesn't know her or the family personally. (I'm not having a go at anyone here by the way: it's common currency now.) It's just another device the news media use to create a false sense that we're all intimately involved and that they're just behaving like concerned friends rather than exploitative wankers. And if you question their motives then you're obviously an insensitive bastard, and quite possibly an evil monster.
Nick White above put it exactly. Whilst I have not had Madeleine McCann and her paretns far from the front of my mind these last two weeks, at the forefront has been the story the woman from the Congo told on the Today programme last week - torture and forced obscenity and murder so cruel and horrible I can't begin to mention it. This has been with me since, but I have not heard or seen anything about this on the news or in the papers.
The media should back off the story and consider the complexity of suffering and human relatedness in our world.
As usual, Andrew provides a drop of common sense in what is turning into a media fuelled ocean of insanity.
Of course everyone wants to see Madeleine safely returned to her family, but the way the coverage of the story has turned over the last 24 hours, its becoming a bit like the Brass Eye episode on paedophiles. How long before Phil Collins appears to tell us we should all have "Nonce Sense"?
I wholeheartedly agree with all the comments above about the portrayal of the McCanns - nice professional, middle class, articulate couple = not the sort of people to be exposed to a baying tabloid frenzy for the fact that they left their very young children unattended. Given that they are nice, professional, middle class & articulate this gets portrayed as a "much needed / very rare / out of character break". As someone with very young kids, I accept that parenthood is all about making choices and compromises particularly with regard to your social life, but for me one of those compromises is that you don't leave the kids unattended whilst you go out for a meal. If you're that desparate to eat out whilst on holiday a) get a babysitter (one was apparantly available) or b) go out earlier and take the children with you. Alternatively, accept the compromise, stay in with your kids and enjoy being a family.
That said, I fear they're not going to see their daughter again, and no-one deserves that to have that happen to them. I just wish the media wouldn't try to manipulate us into a Diana-style national outpouring of grief that of which only the heartless are critical.
You have to hand it to the Independent, boring as they are, for not using the word "Maddie" in their headlines. They prefer the more circumspect "toddler", based on the notion, perhaps, that most of us don't know "Maddie".
I forgot the bit about the babysitting service being available at the apartments. By the reaction here, it's clear we all feel we are not allowed to make these kinds of observations. I think the intelligence of the comments here, coupled with their honesty, is a greater testament to the national character than a load of self-congratulatory hand-wringing.
I don't know if Jamie Bulger represented the pivot in terms of our cloying fascination with missing kids in the media. I'm sure missing kids must have generated publicity in the past. I know for a fact that the public weren't instructed by the newspapers to care about the Yorkshire Ripper when he was "just" killilng prostitutes. It was only when he killed a "respectable" girl that the campaign to find him was really ramped up. (Cold comfort, one imagines, to any women out in Leeds at the time.) What hypocrites we all are, if allowed or encouraged to be.
Spot on, Andrew. Who benefits from keeping the public fixated on shrinkingly rare cases like this, rather than looking at ooh Iraq, for instance.
I'll give you a clue: he grins a lot, he did what he thought was right, and he's going to make a packet when he retires, some of it from the gutter press.
Good piece Andrew.
A piece on the Today programme this morning put into sharp relief the whole subject of the media's ranking of potential tragedies overseas when they covered the plight Lindsay Ann Hawker's parents (more details here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/6660033.stm )
I wonder if their decision to speak out now was motivated at least in part by the ludicrous coverage of the Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
Matt, Lindsay Ann got loads of coverage at the time. Obviously, there is an unwrittne media ranking, which puts pretty small girl close to the top, yet pretty young woman is easily in the top half.
If Lindsey Ann had been a spotty, 22 year old bloke the story wouldn't have got hardly any publicity. It's probably no different in a lot of other countries....
So it's all Tony Blair's fault is it? How predictably tiresome.
Yes, but if you're worried about your kids on holiday, leaving them with a babysitter neither your or your kids know might still be a worry.
I'm off to have a detailed look at Frank Furedi's - he of the Paranoid Parenting theari - website at www.frankfuredi.com.
Of course there were child abductions prior to Jamie Bulger : can you imagine if the Moors Murders had been covered in the same way as this story is being ?
Looking at the press archives for the Hyndley/Brady story you're struck by how subdued the reportage and comment is. Bald statements of fact and the odd quote from a Chief Inspector.
Maybe the lack of a media generated hysteria allowed the police to get on, quietly and at their own pace, with solving the case, rather than having to hold constant press briefing and soundbites ?
Sick of hearing about it now.
Hope she is found but the over emoting is beyond my decency level.
Yellow ribbons and prayers for maddie. Get lost.
Just had a nice debate with a member of staff over the issue who called me heartless for not wanting to wear a yellow ribbon and for not letting them put up the front page of the sun on a notice board. I initially said yes but on the proviso I put up stories about Darfur and the Congo...result, what's that then?
Enough now.
It is getting hysterical, especially with the Express comparing Murat to Huntley, which you just knew that was going to happen.
If the guy is innocent his public life is still over but its the constant search for a new angle on the story... It's winding up to Princess Di type fever pitch. Will the public be throwing flowers at a small coffin if god forbid that is the outcome?
Probably, and it'll be live on TV.
Apparently, some MPs have appeared in the House today sporting yellow ribbons. Matthew Parris was just invited to comment on the PM Programme by Eddie Mair, and he was, uncharacteristically, almost speechless with disgust. He did however do something I never thought I'd hear him do, and quote Jarvis Cocker; "They want to live like commn people, they want to feel whatever common people feel.." He was right.
Gordon Brown has apparently taken the opportunity, as Chancellor, to meet with some relatives of the missing child and has "assured them he will do all he can to help". What - give them a tax break? This is ghastly, ghastly, ghastly.
Didn't see the Express, but how dare they compare Murat to any convicted criminal?
Interesting evidence about the way the Moors Murders were reported from Bill there. Hardly a less emotive story was it?
I don't pick up either of the two freesheets in London, but I saw London Lite over someone's shoulder on the Tube and they went big on Jose Mourinho's pet dog, with just a slim panel about Murat's villa being pulled down, or something. I'm reading Consumed at the moment, a new book about the infantilisation of adult consumers by rampant capitalism. I think this may become my theme for a while here. The media don't want us to be grown up, unless perhaps we spot that the world is actually a horrible place and we stop shopping. It's by Benjamin R Barber, and it's out next week I think. I love Americans who hate the free market. He's one of them. Burn the heretic!
If it's any consolation, the message board for PM (re: Matthew Parris' comments) is almost completely in agreement.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/2007/05/is_matthew_parris_right.shtml#comments
I am pleased to see the topic discussed in such an intelligent way here, as I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the relentless and prurient media coverage of this case. There is, I feel, a very mawkish nature to stories like this now.
Maybe the lack of a media generated hysteria allowed the police to get on, quietly and at their own pace, with solving the case, rather than having to hold constant press briefing and soundbites ?
I so agree with this. The Portuguese police and other authorities must have been horrified at the expectations of the British media here. News should be reported when it is, well... news. I increasingly feel that 'rolling news' is simply 'speculation that attempts to fill the alloted time'.
I hope Madeleine McCann is found safe and well, and soon, and quickly returned to her parents. In the meantime, I would expect any suspects to be treated in an appropriate legal manner, with the media respecting this.
Excellent post. There's nothing to learn from this story and there's absolutely no defense for "keeping it in the public eye" at the expense of genuine news. No one's in any danger of forgetting what Maddy looks like, it's offensive, patronising and bullish to force "reminder" emails and messages onto people who might have their own problems to deal with. It's nothing to do with solving crime, it's a way of feeling involved in some sort of strange superstitious cult. And, you know, I don't blame Maddy's parents for not seeing past their crisis - how could they be expected to? - but there's virtually nothing anyone can do but spectate here.
What horrifies me most, even more than the fact the reward exists at all, is the publicising of the benefactors' names. Why on earth isn't that list anonymous? Why aren't more people outraged about it? I genuinely don't understand. All I know is that I feel much worse about Branson etc, now I know they're willing to use these things to promote themselves (come on, that's what it's about). I'm really sick of this story and I wish it would go away.
For me it's one of the first signs of summer. Good old English tradition of the over-publicised child snatching. It's the first sign of warm season, along with people wearing shorts in the rain and longer daylight hours.
It's always fun to guess which child killing they'll pick up next year and which ones they'll ignore.
You can't be all altruistic about the media ffs. (Or have I got a bit too cynical)
It's all over Myspace & Facebook now. I've been invited to be friends with the Find Madeleine profile which urged me to put it in my top friends in order to spread the word quicker. I would be happy to do this if I felt it made any difference and if a senior police officer said this mattered to his investigation I'd help out straight away. However I think this is a useless activity only serving to make everyone involved feel better about themselves and their own failings. It's like when people who wouldn't bother going to their cousin's funeral were suddenly queing to pay their respect to Diana.
And in an even more weird twist I was invited to join the 'Let's all pray for Madeleine' group on Facebook. The absurdity being the number of my completely non-religious friends already signed up to it. What did they hope to achieve?
I really hope she's returned safely to her family but I'm not going to pretend I can help when I have nothing to offer. And I'm certainly not praying to a fictitious god figure.
Glad to see that there's a lot of commonsense coming through on this blog. It's been a relief to read.
It's awful, what has happened to the McCann family, but I also think the treatment of this Murat guy is terrible. What if he's innocent? A lot of people live with their elderly parents - mother, in his case - why is that taken to be such a mark against him? Even if he is guilty of something, he's innocent until his guilt is proven.
It all makes you hope to God that nobody you know or care for is in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up being pushed into frame by a completely out-of-control tabloid media like this guy has been.
Aren't there laws against this kind of media speculation and pressure? The thing is - it's not going to achieve a single thing in terms of getting the girl found and returned to her parents, so the only reason to do it is to whip the public up into a frenzy of hate. It's as chilling as the loss of the little girl.
tell me again why did they leave her unsupervised? and why is no media discussing that issue?
anonymous: not booking a babysitter doesn't mean your child deserves to be abducted. What possible use is that question?
Simon Jenkins discusses the subject in today's Guardian, and is in broad agreement with you, Andrew. Of course, there are dubious media practices going on here. If your main focus is media interpretation, it's fascinating and often horrific.
But for some of us, that's the sideshow.
The main fact is chilling: a child's been taken. "Every parent's worst nightmare" is a cliche: until you have children. Like all cliches, it has truth embedded somewhere within. The vast worldwide response across the web and other media, is a sign of our shared humanity, not a lack of it. There's nothing whimsical or weak about showing support, as some have suggested. These actions aren't crocodile tears, they're empathy.
To the last anonymous:
Ah, the old "you can't understand until you've had children yourself" argument. With respect, this is pretty offensive to those of us that don't have children. I've no doubt it is a life-changing experience (etc etc) but to suggest that no non-parent can empathise is to suggest that we're all emotionally stunted. I don't need to have children to see the love and special bond between a parent and child - I was, at least, one of the latter, and can see it in my parents every time I see or hear from them.
Those with children may well empathise (as will those without) but Andrew's point still holds - the media outpouring and the viral campaigns to get us all "involved" are nothing more than a crude form of entertainment in the former case and in the latter, a peculiar sort of "group hug" designed only to make those doing the hugging feel better about themselves. Sadly it has diddly squat to do with finding this poor child.
Just wondering if Andrew is a Guardian reader. I've got a sneaking suspicion he is, judging by his 'bash the media cliches.' Yawn.....
You need wonder no longer, Roger. I was a Guardian reader, then, as older viewers will know, I stopped buying it as it wasn't left wing enough. These "cliches" you mention are based on truth. I work in the media. I know them to be the case. It's an unscrupulous jungle out there.
Sorry to have made you yawn.
It's something of a secondary point, but I'd like to chip in and voice my agreement with Steve M. The assumption by 'parents' that those of us who choose not to have kids are somehow confined to an inferior emotional range, has been stirred up anew in the last couple of weeks. It's tiresome and patronising.
Agreed, ISBW. I don't have kids, but funnily enough, I used to be one, and I think my views count.
The only level at which the "are you a parent ?" question has any bearing is the one that goes :
Q : Are you a parent ?
A : Yes
Q : Would you leave / have left a four year old unatended while you went for something to eat ?
Other than that it's just Top Trumps with the emotional attatchment deck.
I'm told there was a line in an internet version of one of the broadsheets that the child, rather than being taken in her sleep, had woken up and gone to look for her parents - although a google search doesn't help it must be a possibility.
I haven't got anything much to add here (and I'm rather late onto the pitch)....but I do want to add this: lots of people have remarked above about how the McCanns left their daughter unattended as they ate in that restaurant, only checking on her every half hour. A few have added that if they were a less respectable family, then the media would be all over that.
I don't have any kids, so perhaps I'm not best placed to comment on this, but can any parent ever honestly say that they watch their children all of the time? You could be in the same house as your child and they could wander out of the front door as you are in the kitchen. It's simply not possible for them to grow up and be watched all day every day. What about that kid who was snatched out of her house when she was upstairs having a bath and her parents were both still in the house? Were they to blame for not actually being in the bathroom and not preventing that man walking in, bold as brass?
The McCanns will no doubt regret every second that they weren't with their daughter... I'm pretty sure sure they don't need us pointing out to them. I suppose my point is that we shouldn't be so quick to judge them for leaving her.
Good piece though Andrew.
ST
Glad to see a sensible blog entry on this topic and some sensible comments on it too. I'm also mystified as to how wearing yellow ribbons and joining myspace/facebook groups can possibly help her, but if you ask this question then Sun-reader-types will say you're heartless, you're not a parent, etc. They've fooled themselves into thinking they're doing something to help - they're doing something, but they're not doing something useful.
On the point about the media calling her Maddy/our Maddy/Maddie/little Maddie: her parents don't call her any of those names, they always refer to her as Madeleine. Also Jamie Bulger was referred to as James, not Jamie, by his parents.
There were two small children killed just around the corner from where I live the same weekend that Madeleine McCann's parents left her and her two small siblings alone while they went out to eat. Did they make front page news? Did they hell. Guess what colour those kids were.
I wish the worldwide media was legally bound to treat all child dissappearances like this.
Two comments, one directly related to the post and one regarding some of the comments.
First, yes I do agree that the media has gone somewhat mad on this one but given all the pictures that you've seen of her in the past week or so would you recognise her if you saw her in the street? If so, then for all its faults the coverage has given the McCanns the best chance of their daughter being found alive and as the coverage continues it increases that chance.
Second, for the people who feel insulted by the "you are not a parent so you wouldn't understand" thing, can those who are parents feel insulted back by their response? You're just guessing at what it may be like, whereas parents have been on both sides so you would think have a better idea of the difference. And having recently become a parent I found the difference truly shocking in terms of the scope and depth of feelings (the terrors including the joys) that hit me and stay around. I'm not saying that only parents could ever understand the feelings of a parent toward their child but give those who have gone through the experience some credit that they know what they are talking about.
Jim, as a 35-year-old ugly single bloke, I have to conspicuously not look at children I pass in the street. That's a direct result of the hysterical media response to cases like this. The media could have published all the photos we've seen in a simple "Have you seen this girl?" campaign. Instead we have a who-cares-the-most and who-hates-the-monster-the most competition. It isn't necessary and it isn't helping.
I understand completely that a case like this will play on your anxieties as a parent in a way that it will not for me. I'm glad I don't know what the parents are going through because I imagine it's awful. But really, is this relevant? Not being a parent doesn't mean I care less than you about Madeleine McCann, a girl neither of us knows. Nor does it mean I'm disqualified from criticising the media response. And while I certainly don't think I'm entitled to criticise the parents for leaving their children alone, I don't think it's necessary or appropriate for anyone to do this right now.
It's a shame we've been sidetracked down the parents-versus-non-parents alley. I'm not a parent. Clearly a parent will be feeling a different level of empathy to me over this case, and any other involving missing kids, but I feel horrible pangs if I ever see a "Lost Cat" poster on a lamp post. I don't know the cat, or the owners, but I feel terrible for them. If the cat is lost in my area, I'll keep an eye out for it. For the owners of the cat, this is a dreadful time. (They may be parents, too, of course, I'm just using a touchstone I have every right to use.) For any non-pet-owners, this may seem a trite comparison, but pet-owners will know that it isn't. A member of the family is a member of the family. I think what I'm trying to say is, we can all emphathise. And the conspiracy by the media to keep up hooked on this photogenic story is based purely on a desire to sell newspapers. Nothing to do with parents guilt-tripping parents or non-parents. So let's not turn it into a debate about that. I think it's fair to say that everybody has a heart, and is thus capable of feeling emotion. But the heart is not bottomless, and like a computer using up its memory, you must spread it around with care.
I notice, by the way, that the Maddie coverage has died down this week. Does that mean it's OK to care a bit less now? I'm asking the newspapers. Surely it's no less important that she's found a week after saturation coverage? Having glanced at the Sundays outside a garage yesterday, it looked as if only the Express deemed Maddie worthy of another cover?
Can anyone confirm or deny this?
Madeleine who? If you give me a surname I might be able to help.
Great post. The media have been beyond parody over this. Britain is fucked.
Thank you Andrew for being one of the few talking about this. The British media absolutely love it when something like this happens. The GMTV-style Fiona Phillips types get to ask their inane questions - "So Mr & Mrs McCann, your daughter has been abducted, how do you feel?".
It's the Diana thing all over again, and we've all got the tenth anniversary of that to endure later this year.
I do think it has become excessive and cringe at the thought of chain mails, minute silences and the like.
I don't know how much of this is down to a/media's desire to stir up the story and sell papers or b/peoples' mawkish desire to become part of the story to shore up their own sense of self identity.
Well; whatever.
What I do know though is that the McGanns are understandably desperate and are trying anything to get their daughter back.
I would do exactly the same if I was, God forbid, in their shoes.
What is intelligent though is the use of RSS feeds and online public appeals in different languages to keep the story going. So what if tv/papers let the story slide (as is inevitable); the story, such as it is, will live on in RSS feeds for some time yet.
"Look what Princess Diana did to us."
What exactly did she do to *us*? I don't recall her doing anything to me. I do recall, however, some elements of the press stoking up a so-called feeling of national frenzy that, at least where I lived at the time (Middlesbrough) just didn't really exist. No one I knew either directly or indirectly was even *that* bothered, except in the most abstract of ways, but no more than that. And that's how the reaction played out. Or, as my father-in-law summarised it in true Sun-sub fashion, "Posh single mum killed by pissed-up Frog".
Still there are echoes here: a media stoking up an atmosphere of ersatz "empathy", which just amounts to an opportunity for some to engage in ostentatious emoting for everyone else to see just how much one cares. Those who don't subscribe to the same views are seen somehow as emotional cripples. In that sense at least, Boris Johnson may have had a point in his wider remarks at the time he was lambasted for his (pretty crass) comments about Liverpool.
I'm glad you put into words the way that many people are clearly feeling right now. It's just a pity that it's an opinion that's not finding its way into the mainstream media very easily.
PS: You old mucker Maconie's book about being northern is really rather good isn't it?.
Princess Diana did do something for me!
I had my last driving lesson before my test on the morning of her funeral. Did I cancel it? Why on earth would I?
Which gave me the very memorable and spooky experience of being the only car on the road in the whole of Northampton for about an hour and a half. It was a bit "28 Days Later" (only that hadn't come out yet, so i just thought it was a bit weird).
Then the moment the TV coverage of the service finished, half the town emerged, heading for Duston to watch the cortege (sp?) go past.
Nice post! You have said it very well. Keep going
Regarding the irresponsible equating of Murat with Huntley, the nastiest possibility is that he might end up being a new Colin Stagg. It wasn't comical foreign police who nearly got him put away, it was dear old Mr Plod.
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