Madeleine McCann: What Shannon Matthews Is Worth, Asda And PR
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann and Shannon Matthews
THE SUN: “£20k reward in Shannon hunt”
THE Sun yesterday offered a £20,000 reward to find missing “little princess” Shannon Matthews.
Good on the paper. But does a reward help? Has it helped Madeleine Mccann? And why £20,000 when Madeleine McCann garnered so much more? Is a reward index linked to the missing child’s age? Or is it because Shannon’s parents are not middle-class - not doctors - and smaller amounts mean more to them?
We also printed posters urging our vast army of readers to help in the hunt for the nine-year-old schoolgirl. And last night her anguished mum Karen, 32, said: “I’m so grateful for all you are doing. It’s a fantastic gesture and means so much to us. We just hope it brings her back.”
Then, hugging Shannon’s stepdad Craig Meehan, 22, she added: “Our message to people is never give up . . . because we won’t until we find her.”
THE TIMES: “Poor little Shannon Matthews. Too poor for us to care that she is lost?”
“Her family may seem feckless. Neighbours can’t afford to run a PR campaign. How the public spotlight faded on missing girl.”
Shannon..?
Sarah Payne, smiling in her school uniform; Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, in their Manchester United shirts; Madeleine McCann, staring inquisitively with her distinctive bleeding iris . . .The names and faces of these girls who have disappeared are etched into the public’s collective memory.
Camera crews camped out in their home towns for weeks or months. Donations totalled thousands — even millions — of pounds. Members of the public, many of them strangers, came in their hundreds to offer help and prayers for their safe return.
Yet the trauma and mystery surrounding the disappearance of one nine-year-old girl almost two weeks ago appeared to drift from public consciousness within days…
She’s not Madeleine McCann. No doctors. No logo. No Maddy Catty. No watching the parents. The media treatment is no fault of the McCanns. But are we bored of missing children stories. Have the press caught Maddy fatigue?
Contrast the media-savvy McCann campaign with the brave efforts of Petra Jamieson, 30, a friend of Shannon’s mother, who managed to persuade her local branch of Asda to donate 24 white T-shirts on which the girl’s photograph had been printed.
What happened to Shannon Matthews? Who can we blame? The parents?
A deprived background, a dysfunctional family and a down-on-its-luck Yorkshire mill town: none of this is Shannon Matthews’s fault, yet it seems that she is paying the price.
No holiday scene. No excuse for hacks to go to hotter climes. Yorkshire in winter. Grey. Grim.
GLASGOW DAILY RECORD: “Mother’s Day Wish”
THE distraught mum of missing schoolgirl Shannon Matthews last night cried: “All I want for Mother’s Day is my princess back.”
DAILY MIRROR: “ALL I WANT FOR MOTHER’S DAY IS MY PRINCESS BACK”
Shannon Matthews’ desperate mother last night movingly declared: “All I want for Mother’s Day is my princess back.”As police continued searching thousands of homes for the missing nine-year-old schoolgirl, mum Karen, 32, said: “It is a special family day and we would all spend it together.
“Shannon would usually buy me a present or make me something at school.”
Stepfather Craig Meehan, 22, added: “It is going to be a heartbreaking Mother’s Day.”
LIVERPOOL ECHO: “Where’s media cry for poor Shannon?”
HOW disturbing that 10 days after Shannon Matthews disappeared, we still know so little about her. Her favourite band? The school she attends? The name of her best friend? All details that should be on our lips but aren’t.
But we do know her favourite song.
Somehow the vanishing of this little girl with her pony tail and fringe has failed to capture the media’s imagination; a story regularly consigned to the inside pages.
Why? Why do some cases attract saturation coverage and others don’t? I suspect it’s down to image, which stands for everything, and the skill now needed to work the notoriously fickle media.
Madeleine McCann’s parents have been criticised for employing a professional PR and for playing the media game, providing photo opportunities and press calls. But it’s paid dividends. The world now knows their daughter’s name and what she looks like.
Shannon’s mum can be no less distraught than Kate, but whether she has the support or the finance to get a media campaign on the road is doubtful.
But at the end of the day there is a little girl out alone in a harsh, cold world. And we should all be working together to get her home.
What part does the media play in finding a missing child? Don’t we have the police to search for Shannon and crack the case?
THE OBSERVER (Blog): “Speaker gets new spin doctor”
A Whitehall spin doctor who was a spokeswoman for Madeleine McCann’s parents has been hired to help the Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, deal with the media, it was announced today.
Not Campbell?
Sheree Dodd is an experienced communications expert who worked for John Prescott at the time it was revealed he was having an affair with his diary secretary.
Just another job…
Madeleine McCann- The PR Storm
Posted: 1st, March 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (798) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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March 10th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I thought it was me, wondering why the media are not bothering with the girls disappearance. But you have summed it up so very well. They are poor and dysfunctional.
The £20k reward for her, so much more for Maddie, its hypocrisy. I pray there will be a good ending for this family.
I saw today they were saying it could be the stepfather……as he smacked once!
Carry on Mr Murdoch, your doing a splendid job of ruining peoples liefs, without of getting out of your chair.
March 8th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Shannon is very likely a victim of the money campaign that is spinning out of control. SOME US sites have found the missing from there appeals and volunteers, and in their website press releases and tours.
I have know victims asked for money from websites in US. I have and do know real credible trackers who do find children in US and we do not have the resources they do. That organisation is humbling and I am humbled and its name is Cuecentre. It is a rich tapestry of people who unite and work together as unified invisible individuals, and I am proud to endorse it.
In Shannon’s case she is seen in her shirt so is clearly meeting someone as she enters the cold evening as we are told she hates the cold and dark. It is my prayer that whoever thinks they are a ‘good samaritan’ hands her back to the authorities or a hospital or police station at once. There will be no celebrity role play nor million pound reward. It is England and a poor council estate, so value is placed on the reward. Let Shannon take her place in grammar school, let her try and why not? Why not indeed?
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I must compliment Anorak on the good job they do with these Madeleine McCann stories. Although this one was primarily Shannon Matthews. For both, though, whoever writes these articles has the gift of making the investigations and media coverage laughable without poking fun at the little victims.
Don’t you forget about them!
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 am
704
brandon flours Says:
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:50 am
Day 302: 29/02/2008 Day:
“……….SNIP from Gerry’s blog…
PACT (parents and abducted children together) is a much smaller organisation founded by Catherine Meyer. PACT is positioned primarily as an advocates for change in how missing children cases are handled and identified very early how poorly data on missing and abducted children are collected. PACT would like to see a national centre in the UK similar to NCMEC in the USA. It was uplifting to see how Catherine has maintained her passion, drive and commitment to try and make effective changes even after ten years of campaigning. Kate and I will work with the various non-governmental organisations to influence the policy makers who decide these important decisions.
************
Brandon, I see K & G will work with non-governmental organisations… presumably money will be raised for this ‘charity’? Do you know how effective NCMEC in the USA has been in actually finding missing children?
Perhaps I’m being too cynical in believing PACT will sound very busy, but in reality can make little or no difference to the number of abductions, real or otherwise, or to the outcome.
The fate of children at risk in these circumstances is genrally sealed very quickly, and no amount of organisations will make an iota of difference.
As I understand it, laws are in place to deal with neglectful parents, but I can’t see K & G being keen to advance their implementation. Still, so long as they get a decent ’salary’ from this venture, why worry?
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:22 am
Arise and repent ye sinners, tis the day of the Lord, all roads lead to hell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vemi01A7eH8&feature=related
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:54 am
A Welsh man buys several sheep, hoping to breed them for wool.
After several weeks, he notices that none of the sheep are getting pregnant, and phones a vet for help.
The vet tells him that he should try artificial insemination.
The farmer doesn’t have the slightest idea what this means but, not wanting to display his ignorance, only asks the vet how he will know when the sheep are pregnant. The vet tells him that they will stop standing around and instead will lie down and wallow in grass when they are pregnant.
The man hangs up and gives it some thought. He comes to the conclusion that artificial insemination means he has to impregnate the sheep himself. So, he loads the sheep into his Land Rover, drives them out into the woods, has sex with them all, brings them back, and goes to bed.
Next morning, he wakes and looks out at the sheep. Seeing that they are all still standing around, he deduces that the first try didn’t take, and loads them in the Land Rover again. He drives them out to the woods, bangs each sheep twice for good measure, brings them back, and goes to bed exhausted.
Next morning, he wakes to find the sheep still just standing round. Try again. he tells himself, and proceeds to load them up, and drive them out to the woods. He spends all day shagging the sheep and upon returning home, falls listlessly into bed.
The next morning, he cannot even raise himself from the bed to look out of the window. He asks his wife to look, and tell him if the sheep are lying in the grass.
“No”, she says, “they’re all in the Land Rover, and one of them is beeping the horn”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feegxv4goKo
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 am
SteveT
Or was it Men and Motors???
It was my brother’s T.V. I was watching it on.
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:56 am
SteveT
Monkey is not bad!!!
I’ve been watching it on Bravo - it’s brilliant.
Monkey magic! Monkey magic!
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:53 am
A McCann Supporter
They had something to do with Madeleine’s disappearance - they left her alone in an unlocked apartment…
That makes them idiots.
If they’re murderers as well, who knows…
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:22 am
A Mccann supporter:
…..and they have all said that they can understand why the McCanns left their children as they did because they, along with all the hundreds of holiday makers who have been there in the past, who have done the exact same thing, were lulled into a sense of security because, until 3 May this town gave the appearance of being completely safe.
Ah well - if one of my kids had something of the sort, I would have said ’so fine, just because other people go jumping off bridges or robbing stores it’s an OK to do?
Dear Mccann supporter, I have been to Portugal many times, I absolutely love that country, I know Algarve rather well but prefer the hills and mountains of Algarve which are undoubtedly a zillion times ’sleepier’ than Praia da Luz - for places populated by tourists… how can they actually be called sleepy?
Tourist resorts by definition are populated by sets of people who change on a weekly if not daily basis, it’s virtually impossible to spot any outsider or stranger in a place where most people are from abroad.
But one thing seems to escape your attention - leaving kids alone is always a great risk, even without taking abduction into the equation.
And do you really go with the ‘back garden’ justification line? The norm for homes and gardens are to be within one enclosure, and to be mostly within seeing and hearing distance - all criteria that Tapas Bar/Mccann’s apartment did not meet. As I already said before, it is reasonable to assume that on’e own house/garded has been throughout made child-proof and child-friendly, whereas holiday apartments and hotel rooms of full and I repeat FULL of hazards and dangers. And Kate and Gerry as doctors ought to have had to deal with childhood accidents more often than I did, and yet lo and behold, I always proactively did things to avoid these dangers to my kids whereas they didn’t.
So, do I think K&G are culpable? Of neglect certainly (and not naiveté, which is borne of inexperience, which in turn the doctors cannot claim)
Guilty of manslaughter? I don’t know, let’s say that for Maddi’e sake I hope it’s what happened, rather than her being abused by a paedo
Have a nice day
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 am
733
annie1 Says:
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 am
IF you are a MCCann supporter - then you would support their cause not just them - so instead of sitting banging on a keyboard - why are you not in Yorks. helping the family of missing Shannon to come to terms with the issues involved and encouraging them to enlist the support of the likes of you - why are you not there - supporting the very cause that the McCanns are fighting for - come to think of it - why are the McCanns not there with Shannons family - up there in sunny Dewsbury?? WHY - because everyone associated with the McClan are shitting themselves - because they KNOW that if justice is done, the very least that they can expect is a custodial sentence for blatent child neglect -(all in my opinion
—————————————————————————————
I don’t bang as much as you do!!! Are you in Dewsbury??? Didn’t think so.
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:10 am
726
brandon flours Says:
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:17 am
Apart from Gart and other weirdos and a few that avoid a direct question and repeat blind faithness for the Mc Canns I havent had the chance to ask!
—————————————————————————————
Just read your statement again, this is precisely why the supporters of the McCanns don’t answer you, we are not weirdos, I object to being called names because I don’t fall in with you anti’s, and I do not have blind faith in the McCanns. I strongly believe that they had nothing whatsoever to do with Madeleine’s disappearance.
I believe that the ‘only’ crime that they are guilt of is that of leaving the three children alone in an unlocked apartment. I have spoken to people who have been to Praia da Luz and who have worked in the Mark Warner Resort, and they have all said that they can understand why the McCanns left their children as they did because they, along with all the hundreds of holiday makers who have been there in the past, who have done the exact same thing, were lulled into a sense of security because, until 3 May this town gave the appearance of being completely safe.
As far as the question of the time lines are concerned, I believe that when you are on holiday you do not clock watch, and if you are called on later to recall specific times things happened or didn’t happen you would be super human to remember exactly. Why should you, you are on holiday, and before this unbelieveable tragedy happened no one could possibly recall exact times.
Questions have been asked about when Madeleine was last seen, and ludicrous ideas have been bandied around that she was most probably ‘killed’ accidently or otherwise the day before. How come the children’s nurses at the Kids Club have verified that Madeleine and her twin brother and sister had their afternoon tea there on the evening of May 3, and Kate and Gerry picked them up at approximately 6 p.m.?
Then there is the last photograph of Madeleine - what an absurd suggestion that it has been ‘doctored’ (excuse the pun!).
If the McCanns had wanted to ‘get rid’ of the daughter they tried so hard to conceive, surely it would have been easier to do it at home? Also why would they stay around from May until September, instead of going home and leaving the Portuguese police to continue with their interpretation of the Keystone Cops.
Before anything is said about them ‘fleeing the country’ after they had been made arguidos - they had made arrangements to leave because of the effect them staying was having on the twins, when the police told them they should stay because they would ‘learn something to their advantage’. That was the day before they were taken into the police station and ‘interrogated’ for 12 hours. What a delaying tactic that was by the police!!
Then the delays in the police coming over here to interrogate the friends. Every single day it has been mentioned they have been coming ‘within the next week’. Excuses have been made that they did not send ‘the letters’, now they are saying that the British Government is delaying them. Pull another one, the simple truth is that they have absolutely no evidence against the McCanns and friends whatsoever - nil, zilch, nothing. If they had the evidence that they say they have I am sure the people concerned would have been accused, convicted and sentenced long before now. DNA, scents of death, blood in apartment - what a load of balony. They are hoping now that Madeleine’s disappearance will be swept under the carpet and they will be in the clear. People will return to Portugal for their holidays and forget all about what happened on 3 May last year.
Madeleine will just be another statistic, like all of the other children that go missing every day. But they are sorely mistaken Madeleine will not go away, because the likes of me will keep her image alive in as many peoples minds for as long as possible. And Kate and Gerry McCann will do the same, and are doing, by helping Missing Children sites - which is what you lot should be doing.
I could go on and on about why I believe Kate and Gerry McCann had nothing to do with their child’s disappearance, but it really is time for bed. I am fortunate, in the fact that I will be celebrating Mothers Day with my four children, unlike Kate who does not know where on earth her eldest daughter is, or what is happening, or has happened to her. They, and they alone, are suffering in the fact that they have caused her pain. How on earth can any parent cope with that.
For God’s sake give them a break, and try to help them find Madeleine like compassionate human beings, instead of being like animals baying for their blood.
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:02 am
Goodnight, must get some sleep as well!
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:02 am
Steve - if you go back to the initial reports of sitings - this one was not mentioned - only a brief “in passing” comment. Last week - the first thing to be denied was that there was cctv footage. An hotel of the nature of the one he was said to have dropped them off at would CERTAINLY have had security cameras panning over the foyer and car park - and I think, but stand corrected, that all cctv footage has to be kept for 3 months to support insurance claims etc. Maybe somebody knows a little more about this, but it really is incredible that NOWHERE - either in P de L, or anywhere else has it been admitted that cctv footage of the Mcs movements exist.
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:01 am
Well must be up for it in the morning ,
No matter how much I try to avoid it every week, I have to
goodnight !!
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:00 am
I think the paraffin man is the key to all this!
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:59 am
I dunno about the taxi fella
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:59 am
784
brandon flours
+++++++++++
That’s more like it
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:59 am
Fruit! Now you are taking the piss!
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:58 am
778
annie1
++++++
Can’t agree with you - Pj would have been in contact with him and told him to keep quiet.
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:58 am
779
annie1
Dont mention freezable to the McCanns!
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:58 am
780
dcb
I am now that house sold for £££,££££ssss !!!!
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:58 am
Bet they had a fully topped up fruit bowl too…….
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:57 am
778
annie1
I agree with you. Alternatively the PJ got him to speak out just before the interviews to ramp up the pressure.
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:57 am
Maybe he is planning a holiday or something, and knows that he will be called to give evidence and just wants to hurry things along a bit. Maybe……….
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:56 am
Brandon - Paraffin, tv, purse, kitchen, flannels - you were quite a catch weren’t you for some lucky bugger
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:56 am
sorry - feasible
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 am
I tell you all - I am CONVINCED that the taxi man is the one who will solve this one for the pj. Sad that he probably has got a bit flustrated with the delay in bringing in his evidence and bleeted to the press - wanting a bit of the action maybe. Of all of the sitings, to me this seems the most freasible
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 am
Brandon,
No.
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 am
no we had one, just the immersion heater was only put on once a week on a sunday!
lovely clean bathroom we had!
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:53 am
Brandon,
Flannels, we had to use the dishcloth which doubled as the floor cloth!