Madeleine McCann: WMDs, Princess Diana, Credit Crunch, England And Bingo
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann
NEW STATESMAN: “The Real McCann Scandal”
What scandal? A child went missing. She is still missing. And that’s it. Although after a year and a half of breathless reporting not all newspapers can agree on where she went missing from.
Brian Catchcart details how the British press set out to systematically destroy the parents of Madeleine McCann.
All the press? Surely not…
You may have missed it: at the High Court in London on 15 October, Express Newspapers agreed to pay £375,000 in libel damages to the so-called “Tapas Seven”, the friends of Kate and Gerry McCann who were with the couple in Portugal when Madeleine McCann disappeared.
Missed it? Who reads the New Statesmen who could have missed that news, it being on every news bulletin? Read about it here.
The Tapas Seven victory, it seems, was treated as a minor footnote to a burned-out story; few people were likely to be interested.
Not on Anorak. But why would the Sangria 7 be a big splashy story? A child is missing and libelling the friends of the parents is not the main story, is it? The story, such as it is, is about a missing child.
Well, they ought to be interested, because the McCann case was the greatest scandal in our news media in at least a decade - an outrage far worse than the Andrew Gilligan “sexed-up dossier” affair of 2003 - and those responsible are now slinking away almost unpunished.
The dodgy dossier, with its links in a paper chain to an iffy war and the deaths of Dr Kelly and Our Boys in Iraq, is a less great scandal than newspapers sensationalising on a single thread story of a missing child? So says this left-wing, Labour-supporting organ.
The editors and proprietors of the papers responsible for the great balloon of speculative nonsense that was the McCann story had the power to kill off discussion of what went wrong in the press, and they used it. When their balloon burst, they simply began pretending it had never existed.
They moved on to another story. Some papers – the Express being the chief culprit - were simply sued and paid up, or settled out of court. The McCanns won money for their cause, and the story once more featured in the national press.
Not one editor and, so far as I know, not one reporter has lost his or her job or even faced formal reprimand as a result of the McCann coverage.
Daily Express editor Peter Hill has left the Press Complaints Commission. If anyone knows a reporter who got a bollocking do tell us.
Catchcart then plays the most reaching game of Tabloid Bingo we’ve seen for a while:
Our national press is unforgiving when things go wrong, and the problem doesn’t have to be as apocalyptic as the banking crisis.
Credit Crunch and Our Maddie.
Ask Steve McClaren, pilloried so comprehensively for his performance as England manager that he now coaches at a small club in the eastern Netherlands.
In-ger-land and Our Maddie.
Ask Sir Ian Blair, the former Commissioner of the Met, whose scalp was demanded by most of the right-wing press even though crime figures were improving.
Menezes and Our Maddie.
Ask the two BA executives who had to go after the disastrous opening of Heathrow’s Terminal Five (Willie Walsh, their boss, survived a clamour of calls for his own resignation).
Big business and Our Maddie.
Ask, indeed, the long line of government ministers from Charles Clarke back to Cecil Parkinson and beyond, who have been ordered out of office by editors and leader writers whose high expectations they failed to satisfy.
Politics and Our Maddie.
If anything like the same standards were applied to the people running national newspapers, at least three or four of them would have been dispatched to their nearest jobcentres months ago for their conduct in the McCann coverage.
What is the job of newspaper editors? To sell newspapers? Does Madeleine McCann sell newspapers? Is it bingo yet?
Very few stories have commanded such intense public interest since the death of Princess Diana.
Bingo!
No explanation has emerged besides the obvious one: that this was all done to sell newspapers.
(We have has one debate, though.)
Now we’re getting somewhere. Do you have to buy newspapers? Do you have to buy newspapers as you would have to go to war, use money or have elected leaders? Cathcart has made his point. He wants answers. He now asks:
Perhaps this judgement is harsh.
Now we’re getting somewhere. (How many words to go. Ed?)… And what of the punishments?
The sums are far below the levels that might alter behaviour in Fleet Street; indeed, editors laugh off such penalties when, as in this case and in the recent Max Mosley sadomasochist sex scandal, they can be set against extra copies sold.
Indeed, the fines are not all that much for national newspapers to stand. So says Cathcart who has just told us:
If it didn’t add sales, then at least it helped a paper compete with other titles doing the same thing.
Did sales go up when Madeleine McCann was on the front page? In his piece on the weakness of newspaper reporting Cathcart does not say…
But, then, Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University.
Madeleine McCann - Still missing
Posted: 24th, October 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (161) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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October 24th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
SpongeBob
It is Willo who thinks I am a racist. Lola was quoting him from the previous thread.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
GF
I think you have got it - thanks!
He did speak a bit of German and took part in the war, so that would fit nicely.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
A song for Madeleine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRrU-tG9uZw
October 24th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Lola Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
follow the money
*************
It leaves by the Front door and enters again at the rear
October 24th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
The Real Stig Says:
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:46 pm
My father had an expression for a distasteful person - Gow Lighter. I asked him what it meant and he said it was a person who lit gas street lamps. I must have misheard or have misspelled the name because I have tried to find it
**********************************
Pronounced Gow-lighter -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauleiter
October 24th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Lola
We have been saying “follow the money” for quite a while. Tropuble is, no one in
the Police Force or Press is willing.
October 24th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Lola
What makes you say that Stig is a racist? I haven’t read anything as such in his posts - what are you on about?
October 24th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
follow the money
October 24th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
willo Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 5:00 am
I still think that the payouts are all part of the cover up.
So……
Felons sue
Papers roll over and pay.
Felons reward papers via back door, enough to cover payouts and a little extra to oil the wheels.
Result : Felons look innocent. It scares off other media. Set a benchmark for innocent ex-pat payout who deserved more. Everybody happy.
Except, Madeleine, Amaral and those others who seek true justice.
The British legal system is being politically controlled.
Why so after the death of a mere 5 year old girl?
Could be understood maybe if justice were tweeked to prevent a nuclear war. But interfering over a five year old? What is really up?
Someones arse or several arses are being covered by political forces.
And don’t go on about the great clean upright British justice system. It’s bent the rules and fucked up this time. Corruption is present. Not in Indonesia or Zimbabwe, in Britain.
I await that mods speel about stand up and be proud to be British. Pffft. Your legal system is as bent in parts as much as any so called third world country.
Difference is corruption in other places is somewhat unorganised and random, bent officials look after no.1. In Britain it looks like it is more organised and the ‘upper classes’ benefit a lot by the turning of blind eyes.
October 24th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
It is interesting that the organizations sued are those which are guaranteed to pay up. With his press background, CM must be able to offer guidelines in this matter. The press, by printing their biased account can be relied upon for a steady supply of cash. It makes for an interesting pattern.
October 24th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Time for some eats.
Good sleuthing !!!!
October 24th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
The Real Stig Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Film is always helpful when filming, indeed.
October 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Matt
I have no idea. With any luck, the lawyer used film - I know I do
October 24th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
The Real Stig Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I note the word “apparently did”.
Yes , a foolproof tool for detecting/unmasking photoshopping would be
good.
Have the original photo’s and cam been checked, or wouldn’t that help
resolve the matter ?
October 24th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Matt
That’s OK, because her lawyer apparently did. I haven’t looked at the JM site but it sounds to me like people have been taking photos of Leonor with bruises, Photoshoped them to remove said bruises, then claimed that the sanitised ones are the originals and the genuine ones, fakes. Just guessing at the moment, might have a look later.
The sooner Adobe releases it’s tools for detecting/unmasking Photoshoping, the better. It is getting so out of hand that I think they should have a web based service for doing that as a public service.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
“”and the director regrets not having ordered photographs of this period to be
taken”"
What a very careless and negligent Director she was.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
BF said:
“Allegedly Faked or Photoshoped Pictures of Leonor Cipriano with (and without) bruises have just emerged in the Media. ”
I say:
“The prison director
Correia then spoke to Odemira prison director Ana Maria Calado, who confirmed Leonor Cipriano’s account, noting how shocked she was about her conditions, with black marks, haematomae and bruising in her face, mainly around her eyes, her head and ribs, mainly on her sides. She assured that the physical marks clearly indicated a violent aggression and not a fall down some stairs, something the legal-medical report also confirmed. She noted that Cipriano’s conditions worsened a week after she was tortured, as the blood that had gathered at the height of her brows was so much that it ended up falling over her eyes, leaving her practically blind for almost a month, and the director regrets not having ordered photographs of this period to be taken. She also said that relations between Cipriano and the prison guards and other prisoners were good, and that she did not believe that she had attempted suicide.”
Unless this account is false, there will be eyewitnesses to the condition of Leonor.
It appears to me the cleaners are out, trying to sanitize everything in site, bit like Britain and Menezes.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
National police director Alipio Ribeiro last night confirmed that Mr Amaral had been removed from the case and demoted, saying it was a “decision I took myself”.
Forensic tests were conducted on behalf of the Portuguese police at a government laboratory in Birmingham. Portuguese police leaked to the local press that the evidence indicated DNA from Madeleine was in the boot of a rental car the McCanns used after her disappearance, and led to them becoming formal suspects. However, Mr Ribeiro said the forensic tests were inconclusive.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The actuality is somewhat different BF.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Maddie book to be made into film
October 24, 2008 - 10:05AM
The account of a Portuguese detective is being made into a film.
A book by a Portuguese detective who investigated the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann will be adapted for a television documentary, according to its producers.
Ex-detective Goncalo Amaral — who has sold 180,000 copies of Maddie - The Truth of the Lie - will narrate the documentary, which began filming this week in Algarve, the region where the girl went missing in May 2007.
“This documentary, currently being filmed, is based on the book by the former judicial police inspector,” Cristina Valente, a manager in the Portuguese production company Valentim de Carvalho, told AFP.
Portuguese private television channel TVI has acquired the rights to the film.
In his 214-page book, Amaral repeats accusations of involvement by Maddie’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, in their daughter’s disappearance.
Amaral, who was sacked from the investigation in October 2007 for criticising British police, reiterates his belief that Maddie died in a “tragic accident” in the apartment in which she was sleeping the night she disappeared.
Portuguese authorities closed their investigation in July and lifted the “suspect” label from Maddie’s parents due to lack of evidence.
Madeleine McCann went missing on May 3, 2007, days before her fourth birthday, from a holiday flat in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz as her parents dined at a nearby restaurant.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/film/maddie-book-to-become-film/2008/10/24/1224351498436.html
—————————-
he’s not disgraced, and they werent cleared . At last some sense.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
cheeky git !
give me the qpr fellas email
October 24th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
that will be 100’s of names then
October 24th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
well there you go then!
Brandon for a boy, flower for a girl
I am sure if you say that, she’ll get out a list the size of my majestic wine order list
October 24th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
We haven’t got any names yet at all!!!!
October 24th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
lone i hope brandons on your list of names
October 24th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
SteveT
ain’t we all
October 24th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
brandon flours Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
October 24th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Lone,
Im a silly billy!
October 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
can’t live with them can’t live without them
October 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Men !!!
October 24th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
brandon flours Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Can’t say any more as the matter is continuing.