Matthew Parris Is Feeling Sick Over Madeleine McCann
MATTHEW Parris has followed Anorak on to the Jeremey Vine show on BBC Radio 2 to talk about Madeleine McCann. I was also on Radio 4.
Vine reminds Parris that the story is popular on the internet. But Parris thinks the media can and should turn the volume up and down.
The fact is that ever since the little girl’s sad and horrible disappearance, there has been no news. Nothing has been learnt. Nothing has emerged. Tomorrow, five weeks will have elapsed during which there has been no fact worthy of the name to report.
Yet the story has dominated the news, and several innocent people have been indelibly defamed.
What good has this done? Nobody questions the motives of those who have worked to keep it in the headlines, but the confluence over a protracted period of heavy and continuous news coverage with a complete absence of news ought to prompt some soul-searching. You may say “mystery” is in itself a story, but I’m afraid this is not really a great mystery. There is something faintly but unmistakably sick in this prolonged churning of public sentiment and public fascination.
It gets us back to who sets the news agenda - the audience or the editors? And how in this new media age the readers are beginning to get their voices heard.
Posted: 7th, June 2007 | In: Twitterings Comments (36) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
- eggman on Virginia Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki Hails The ‘Hero’ Nidal Hasan’s Lap-Dances For Allah
- sissysandler on Using Nidal Hasan’s Duane To Comfirm Your Own Prejudices
- sissysandler on Using Nidal Hasan’s Duane To Comfirm Your Own Prejudices
- Cheryl on US Forced Fort Hood Murderer Nidal Hasan To Join The Army
- allaha FUBAR on Virginia Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki Hails The ‘Hero’ Nidal Hasan’s Lap-Dances For Allah
June 9th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Joanne….. well said again. Kate and Gerry, are going through unbearable pain in their search for their beloved daughter - I don’t even dare to think what Madeleine is going through!!! But what the Mccann’s do NOT need, is as you say, all this negative stuff flying about. It is so unhelpful in every which way and serves NO purpose at all. Least of all for Madeleine…surely this little innocent girl deserves better than that. IF people cannot be behind the search in a positive way, in order to help Madeleine - why don’t they just leave it alone. Throwing blame and abuse at the Mccann’s does NOT help Maddie!!!!
“Reality” - I agree with your “rat story” - too much info is being given out to the general public, and consequently that is info that the abductors have access to, as well as every one else. ALL we really need to know it that ALL is being done to get Madeleine home - we do NOT need details which then put Maddie in even more danger!!!
Poor little love - may she soon be reunited with her loving family - so they can all start to rebuild their lives.
June 9th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
And in respect of the term ‘international celebrity’. Do you think this is what the McCanns want? They dont want an international celebrity. They just want their little girl back and are doing everything they can to get her back.
I wish people would stop being so negative, pessamistic, vindictive, petty.
What’s wrong with just accpeting that the McCanns are in an unthinkably sad situation and are welcoming support. Can’t we just offer that support, without being abusive? Can’t we find a bit of humainty inside instead of pointing fingers and being cynical?
June 9th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Reality - as you said, you would continue to look if there was no body. So why were you going on about her being 99% likely to be dead? What did that contribute to the debate? Were you suggesting that the McCanns should give up? Or carry on, but with a reduced amount of hope because of some pointless statistic?
And with regard to the publicity, How odd then, that the approach is fully supported by Scotland Yard in this approach?
The head of SY has said this is the best way forward as ‘everyone knows it is the public who catches criminials’. Kerry Needham has also stated that she thinks they are doing the right thing and wishes she had been in a position to raise the profile when little Ben went missing, but the Internet wasnt around back then.
The mother of the kidnapped Austrian girl (the one who was found 8 years later), has been quoted as saying “the worst thing that can happen is that people forget about the kidnapped child”, or words to that effect.
Most people who seem to have a worthwhile knowledge of the subject seem to think that keeping it in the public eye is a good idea.
Britains most wanted and Crimewatch are examples of regular appeals to catch criminals.
The police get results by appealing to the public for their assistance. It is a tried and tested method that works. I appreciate what you are saying and it is a risk the McCanns will have considered at some point. They will be taking the advice of people who really do understand this sort of stuff. It wont be just the McCanns thinking “OOh lets release some balloons and see if we can get Sky to come back round and take some more pictures”.
June 8th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Oops… I meant to say that I would NOT want my daughter to be an international celebrity. Sorry about the mistype.
June 8th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Joanne, well, they are on the coast of Portugal… pretty easy to hide the body of a little child in the OCEAN isn’t it????
I’m not saying to quit. If I was her parent and there was a one in a billion chance that she was alive… I’d be looking for her. I’d be a heck of a lot more sneaky about it though.
I’m positive that I would want my abducted daughter to be an international celebrity. It would put her in danger. Whoever has her has either killed her or has her in hiding… deep, deep hiding. They are not going to be walking around town with her because everyone in the modern world has seen her face. The key to finding her (given the very remote chance that the massive publicity didn’t cause her death) is to do everything possible to quiet the publicity so that whoever has her will get careless.
A rat does not come out into the living room in the middle of the day when everyone is talking and stomping around does it? It comes out in the dark of night when it think no one is looking.
If you want to catch a rat, you set a rat trap, you go to bed and you certainly don’t tip off the rat that you have set it. When all is quiet…. you might catch a rat.
The people who have Madeleine are rats, they key to catching them is treating them like the vermin that they are. It is unfortunately probably too late though. Her parents and the press have sealed her fate. Sorry, but the truth sucks.
June 8th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Splinter,
?
June 8th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Paul I wasn’t referring to this one article alone. read back through the majority of Anoraks articles on Madeleine and you will find that they are not very pleasant. You should also maybe read some of the comments posted by people who support the Anorak view. My responses were to all reading and commenting, not just to you alone.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Sort it out people if you wanna row about gay issues get on a gay march..Too many people in here not a clue..who cares about your degrees you sad individual..wake up see an feel the real world you inconsiderate degenerate fool
June 8th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
“accusing them (including me) of being demented hysterics, led by red top media, screaming woe in the streets and behaving as they did when Diana died. It is a very ’sneering’ approach and insults the intelligence of anyone who feels sympathy for the plight of the McCann family.
”
Think you’ve made this up Matthew Parris (and Anorak) are talking about the press coverage not any particular person.
I’ve not seen anyone grieving either but the way the some parts of the press are reporting the story it implies the whole country is somehow grief stricken. It’s the media circus I object too not the right of the McCann’s to find Madeleine. But could the press just reports facts not rumour. I fail to see how unsubstantiated stories about international paedophile kidnappers helps anyone.
If the press want to keep Madeleine in the public eye why not just add “A help find Madeleine” banner to the front page and just leave the headlines for when something actually happens.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
ok that comment is well out of order, being abusive does not add to the debate at all. And no I am not gay nor do I know the people you are ‘abusing’.
I dont think I have seen people grieving as such, more worried and hopeful that Maddie can return safely to her family..
June 8th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Paul. This is true, but i’m not sure what you are getting at? As they have no idea what has happened to her, they need to take every possibility into account and abduction is one of the options being explored.
Who have you seen ‘grieving’ over this? I haven’t heard one person outside the mccann family (even inside the family to be honest), who would describe themselves as ‘grieving’.
Any talk of grief has been from the mouths of people like matthew Parris, accusing us of ‘outpourings of grief’.
it’s wrong. I am upset for the mccanns, I am sympathetic, i feel empathy, when dwelling too long I have shed a few tears thinking about what she might be going through. I have not said I am grieving.
My point is that Matthew Parris is making this stuff up. Read my first post again. Im a nutshell I said that he is mistaking public concern and sympathy for what he refers to as’prolonged churning of public sentiment and public fascination’.
Matthew Parris (and Anorak) seem determined to belittle anyone who is offering support for the mcCanns, accusing them (including me) of being demented hysterics, led by red top media, screaming woe in the streets and behaving as they did when Diana died. It is a very ’sneering’ approach and insults the intelligence of anyone who feels sympathy for the plight of the McCann family.
Maybe I seem to be missing you points Paul, I’m not sure what you are getting at? I feel like we are debating but not sure what about!
June 8th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Joanne,
Their is no evidence to suggest she has been abducted either. Just a lot of speculation by the press.
Otherwize,
Not saying you can’t have feelings about the McCann’s but that isn’t grieving. Empathy but not grief.
Deebs,
Think you need some counselling if you can’t express your opnion without being offensive.
June 8th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Reality. 99%? Well that leaves a lot of kids in the 1% bracket. There is no evidence to suggest she is dead and any parent woudl continue to search for their children. Are you suggesting they just give up and go home?
What about Danielle Cramer? Missing for a year. The police kept looking, irrespective of the fact that people like you would have written her off as dead within 48 hours, and found her in some paedophiles house locked in a cupboard.
Good job they weren’t such a quitter like you!
If you cant offer anything useful then dont bother?
June 8th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Yea!!!
Parris should stick it up some other faggots arse and shut up.
Poofy wingin bastard … go do some actual investigative reporting instead of moaning!!1
June 8th, 2007 at 1:14 am
Below is a quote showing reality. Maddie McCann has been missing for 35 or more days… what are the chances that she is still alive, especially considering the publicity that her parents have put on the case. I hate to be the pessimist, but first her parents abandoned her and now they haver made her situation much more dangerous by making her an international celebrity. Also, every time investigators get a reasonable tip, it is in the news - kinda ruins the investigation by tipping of the abductors, doesn’t it?
Anyway, below is a paste that shows that her chances of being alive are basically nil, particularly now that she is a celebrity. Any abductor would have felt extreme pressure to kill her when faced with all of this publicity. It really leaves them with no other option.
Here is the paste……. from the Fla Dept of Law Enforcement……
You might be able to take a child and hold them captive for awhile, but you can only do that for so long before someone around you says something, the child says something to someone, or you trip yourself up. It’s just not logical to think that all these kids are still out there, being held hostage somewhere.”
Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent Al Danna, who for 25 years has investigated crimes against children, said 44 percent of children abducted by strangers are killed within the first hour. The statistic rises to 74 percent within three hours and 91 percent are killed within 24 hours of being abducted.
Within a week of a child going missing, 99 percent have been killed by the abductor, Danna said.
“Sometimes it’s a matter of the abductor knowing they will victimize and kill a child right from the start, or they’ll let them go,” Danna said. “Or it’s a case where the child does something that panics the abductor, or the publicity of the child going missing gets too great, and the abductor kills them to eliminate the witness. But normally it’s planned and not a spur-of-the-moment outcome. Abductors rarely hold onto children for years.”
June 7th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Paul wrote:
Otherwise,
It’s not a trite question. You don’t appear to know what grief is. I have experiaced grief but it is not feeling sympathy, empathy or sadness for the McCanns .
Paul, all that proves is that you personally only experience grief for yourself or others close to you, not that others cannot link their experiences to the plight of the McCanns. I can’t see why that would make their experience of grief less authentic than yours. Your experience is entirely valid for you but does not define the nature, value and limits of what others can or should feel.
June 7th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Manon,
Why mention you’ve got a degree then as if make’s your point carry more importance ? Passing a degree is like passing your driving test you can drive doesn’t mean you know how to drive though.
So your gay and have gay freinds with no involment with children. So what someone sexuallity isn’t relevant
“Manon formula ‘I’m Gay+ I Know some Gay people = I know all Gay people’”
If your not right why imply anybody who can’t “grasp” your opnion is an idiot because they can’t “grasp” your understanding
Susanne,
Agree the safe return of Madeleine is the most important thing. But I’m not convinced that this media circus is helping. This is just my opnion I don’t pretend to speak for anyone else unlike Manon “I’ve got a degree”
June 7th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
It is late here in Spain…. and I think we should ALL stop moaning and try to send very POSITIVE thought to little MADELEINE……..and simply just wish for her safe return, rather than waste more time on meaningless blaming and arguing. The ONLY impotant thing here is to get Madeleine back home, where she belongs. Good Night!
June 7th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Paul:
Oh so I guess that makes you right then.
Apart from being homophobic that is.
Did I say I was right? I simply pointed out I could ‘read & understand’ which you so patronisingly questioned.
Homophobic, no. I’m gay myself and having many gay male friends I know how uninvolved with children some childless gay mens’ lifestyles are.
June 7th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Joanne, Manon and Susanne,
“Joanne Says:
June 7th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
“There is something faintly but unmistakably sick in this prolonged churning of public sentiment and public fascination.”…In your opinion.
You seem to have mistaken the ‘prolongued churning of ‘public sentiment and public fascination’. It is actually public concern for a suffering family and a suffering child.
Why does that bother you so much? You are relentless in trying to bring about negativity.
The McCanns are trying to keep this in the public eye because they know that when people forget, and move on then they will stop helping to look for her (albeit financially, sending posters around the world and so on).
If the tabloids are keeping it in the public eye to sell papers then so what? They are a business…Of course they want to sell papers! the McCanns gain the publicity they need - The red tops sell their papers. Sounds like a win win situation to me?
Just like you Anorak - you are contraversial because you want people to visit your site. You don;t report real news either, you just cynically ciritcise anything that is considered ‘mainstream’. You patronisingly berate people who are helping, and consider it down to a lack of intelligence, rather than a simple desire to help someone who is suffering.
Anorak - if you are desperately seeking ‘news’, why don’t you pick up a broadsheet and stop whinging?
And Matthew Parris can disappear up his own arse for all I care. If anything, his constant whining about all this attention on the McCanns is only serving to keep their coverage on the agenda. We will still be debating this in weeks.
Manon Says:
June 7th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Totally agree with Joanne.
Bottom line is: the reason this is still news is because
a) the case has not been solved yet.
b) publicising the case & Madeleine’s photos round Europe is the *only* chance the McCann’s have of finding her.
So the tabloids are sentimental? Then dont’ read them Matthew. I don’t.
I don’t have any problem with the tabloids contributing to something constructive for once, rather than ruining people’s lives as usual.
Susanne Says:
June 7th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Joanne and Manon….well said both of you!!! Mccann keep up your fight, to get your beloved daughter home - where she belongs!!! Madeleine - hang in there little one….. hopefully you will be back home soon! XXX”
I could not have said better myself!
Jan USA
June 7th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Manon,
“I have a double first in Eng lit from Cambridge so I can both read & understand thanks”
Oh so I guess that makes you right then.
Apart from being homophobic that is.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Paul Says:
June 7th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Susanne, Manon & Joanne,
Did you actually read and understand what Matthew Parris saying ?
Whilst I feel great sympathy for the Mcann’s and hope they do get their daughter home safe and well. But I agree with Matthew the supposed public outpouring of grief is sick. How can anyone be feel grief for someone they don’t know and have never met ?
This is just another Diana story where according to the press “the whole country is grieving”. It wasn’t true for me then and isn’t now. What is true is that is sells papers. surely that’s not the reason the press are reporting nothing as news for profit. That would be sick. How can anyone possibly get out of bed every morning if they grieve for every tragic event in the world ? Or should we just grieve when the press say we should.
Paul: I have a double first in Eng lit from Cambridge so I can both read & understand thanks.
I have seen no public outpourings of grief, simply a concern that the girl is found. Why is concern sick? If Parris is uncomfortable with that it’s his own problem, frankly. He’s gay & doesn’t have kids so I can see why he doesn’t understand why people (parents) identify with the story so much. The tabloids are always sentimental, that’s just how they are. If he doens’t like it - he doesn’t have to read them. I don’t.
He has missed the very simple, very obvious point, that everyone else seems to grasp, which is that the reason the McCanns are doing everything to keep this story in the public eye, and the media are obliging, is because it’s the *only* chance they have to find her. Because it’s a holiday resort close to the Spanish border and because the case may involve an international paedophile ring, it *has* to be a Europe-wide, if not international campaign. The aim is to get Madeleine’s photo on newstands, TVs & websites everywhere possible.
As a British crime expert said: “the public are the eyes & ears of a police investigation they provide the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.”
June 7th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Otherwise,
It’s not a trite question. You don’t appear to know what grief is. I have experiaced grief but it is not feeling sympathy, empathy or sadness for the McCanns .
June 7th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
BIGGA YAWN. BRNG BAK MADDI NOW SO WI KAN SEE DA ENDOV THIS CHAT FRED WOTS FOOL OV IJITS
June 7th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
YOUZ ONE MEAN ARSED BIGGOTTED ANTIE GAY MUVVA MISTA JONSON. NOW YOU POLLUJIZE 2 MR PARIS OR WEEZE COMMIN TO BUTSUP YOUR NEECAPS SUMTIN WIKKED
June 7th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Sick? Matthew Parris, by his own admission, is indeed sick. Does he not realise that the only way to keep up the pressure on those holding poor Madeleine is to keep her in the spotlight, news or no news?
Perhaps Mr Parris thinks the McCanns themselves are merely trying to appeal to ‘public fascination with mystery’ as they travel the world, circulating photographs, posters, and whatever information they can in an effort to find their daughter.
Or perhaps, as a gay man, Mr Parris just cannot understand the heartache felt by a loving heterosexual couple whose own flesh and blood has been cruelly taken away from them?
My advice to Mr Parris is to belt up, straighten up or get behind the McCanns and give them the support they so desperately need. Sick? Indeed you are, Mr Parris.
June 7th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
YOUZE RITE JOANN THOZE MEEDIA SUN AN MAIL PEOPLES GON AN BLOWN DA WISSLE ON DAT LEED DAT WOT COOD AV BEEN DA BESS CLOO WOT WE AVE AN NOW DEY GON AN TIPPD OFF DA BAD PEEDO MUVVA FUKKA EES PROBABLY NOW DUN A BIG BUNK AN MOOVED ON TO ANUVVA CUNTRY.
June 7th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Joanne, you sum it up pretty well.
I keep seeing this trite question:
“How can anyone be feel grief for someone they don’t know and have never met ?”
I’ve no way of knowing if the all the people who ask it are young people who have not had kids yet. Or suffered a major bereavement in their lives. I’m not saying that people who have not experienced those life events are insensitive, not at all. However those two things undeniably alter a person’s emotional focus, understanding and empathy. Both may be common events but if you haven’t been through them you may not realise how differently you can feel when you read of someone else’s tragedy.The feelings of connection you have to suffering parents or others whose lives have been shaken to the core can be very real indeed and not just in the way of “There but for the grace of God go I”. That question becomes something of a no-brainer to be honest.
Many people who have not actually been there also feel deeply, and maybe quite validly, as they make inner preparations for those emotional challenges to come, feel the need to read about and explore those nascent emotions and the fears that go with them. I think there are always people who wail too loudly (empty vessels, as they say, do make the most noise quite often) but it is not the general rule. Few of us stay safe long enough from enough of life’s harsh tragedies not to look at those parents and really need to not look away, to try and share it somehow. And every single one of us has been a child. It is not easy or comfortable to dwell on what Madeleine’s experience might be or have been but we all have it in us to have a clue about it’s dreadfulness.
Some people react to that glaring horror by getting angry and wishing they could block it out but they can’t tear themselves away from constantly discussing it even to try desperately hard to diss it. Of course the media knows that a news story like Madeleine’s whips up a storm of emotion in its readers and they are ready and waiting to exploit it where they can, though even then I suspect that some hardened journalists themselves are trying to make sense of what the right way about it is.
News tonight looks as if some f**kwit reporters aboard that plane carrying the McCanns yesterday (and their newsdesk editors screaming for news back at base) have done a very wrong thing in reporting what apparently occurred yesterday and the Spanish police and the McCanns are trying to undo that harm to a precious possible lead. I was in “jury’s out” mode on the subject of the press’s handling until this but they have apparently, with profound stupidity, put the interests of their media above the interests of the investigation in this. What a bloody mess.
June 7th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Joanne,
Of course I can feel sadness and sympathy for the McCann’s and world events for you to imply otherwise is insulting. But this is not grief “the reaction to the loss of a loved one”. As the majority of the public have never met or heard of the McCann’s prior to Madeleine going missing not sure how they feel grief.
Their are plenty of other Children missing in the world but you hear little or no mention of them in the press what different about their situation ? The reporting by the press isn’t news it’s a macabre circus.
If you got the impression that I was calling you a “red top reading loony” I apologise. I was just expressing my opinion.
“I’m just human” me too.
What vitriol did I spill to the McCann’s ? It’s the press that I’m fed up with.
June 7th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Paul…this is not another Diana story….. she was tragicly killed in an accident!! Killed = no more hope!! Madeleine was stolen - and hopefully alive and well somewhere….. and her family is desperately doing everything they can think of to get her back safely. Of course they are all grieving, for their little girl. The rest of us - are simply simpatising/supporting - if not with them (as some don’t-but I do!!) at the very least with Madeleine, who is the totally innocent little victim in this tragic story. You are right of course, one cannot grieve for every tragic event that happens…. but you can feel for whatever, if you so choose!!
June 7th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
YAWN. BRNG BAK MADDI NOW SO WI KAN SEE DA ENDOV THIS CHAT FRED