Madeleine McCann: Sean And Amelie Get Speaking Parts, In Pictures
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: Up until know we have heard nothing from the McCanns’ twins, Sean and Amelie. But today we get:
McCann Twins: We will fight man who took our sister Maddie
What man? What kidnap? The Daily Record says a “beast” took her. If the kids are going to be crime fighters they need to understand the facts. And the facts are two: Madeleine McCann in missing. There are no suspects.
The media gets to work staring at the kids who we watched go to school, who now have speaking parts in the media circus:
Mirror: “‘The twins both know the person who took Madeleine has done something very bad.. they just want her back home’”
Madeleine McCann’s four-year-old twin siblings are now slowly grasping the horror of her abduction, their parents revealed yesterday.
Posted: 4th, November 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (9) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Alan Johnson, Satellite Images And Barack Obama
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann: Justine McGuinness sues, Alan Johnson, Gordon Brown, Barack Obama and a satellite image…
Press Gazette: “People in payout over Madeleine Fund libel”
Justine McGuinness is back in the news:
A public relations expert who helped in the search for Madeleine McCann accepted a donation to charity today over a claim that she overcharged the fund set up to find the missing child.
Another day and with it another libel case.
In 2007, The People story “alleged that she had charged the fund £20,000 in excess of her agreed fee and that, following a discussion with Gerry McCann in the summer of 2007, she was forced to part company with the fund.”
Melville-Brown said MGN Limited had accepted that the allegations were incorrect and apologised. So damages?
It agreed to make a donation to an undisclosed charity of Ms McGuinness’s choice.
PRs know how to handle their own PR.
Says her brief, Amber Melville-Brown:
“The public is entitled to know, indeed demands to know, the truth, and the press fulfils a vital role in servicing our need for news. But Fleet Street must guard against rubbishing reputations in the process through the inaccurate and sensational reporting of emotive stories.”
Nice idea. But the public demands entertainment, and the papers demand readers. If you want the truth, you need to digest a lot of news and make up your own mind. Or read Anorak.
Which brings us to this story in the Sunday Express:
SATELLITE CLUE TO MADDIE KIDNAP
HOME Secretary Alan Johnson is prepared to ask US spy chiefs for satellite images which may show the face of Madeleine McCann’s kidnapper, following intervention by the Sunday Express.
Posted: 18th, October 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (14) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann Is Playing In London’s Negative Space
MADELEINE McCann has been entertaining media ghouls for three summers. But she’s not been a play. Until now.
As the poster shows, the play should be best watched through a piece of smoked glass and with a Simon Says machine pumping out the notes to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Hey, any reaction to the play is better than none, right?
And after the films and the telly shows and the omnibus and the books and the jokes and the PR and the armchair detection you can watch the play.
It’s called Negative Space, and it’s playing at London’s New End theatre. Writing in The Stage, Jonathan Lovett has more:
A missing child is one of the most devastating events in the history of a family. Not knowing if they’re dead or alive induces a form of paralysis that corrodes its sanity as they wait forever for some kind of closure.
As do we all. Grab an ice-cream and bag of Revels - save the orange ones for good causes. Are missing kids your bag? Go on:
Set in the same year as the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Sternberg and Wayne’s bold attempt to portray the grief of another distraught family is thoughtful and provocative, even if it ultimately fails to mine too deeply the pits of emotion such a tragedy provokes.
Posted: 18th, September 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Investigating The Detectives’ Failings
MADELEINE McCann Watch: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at Madeleine McCann in the news - Private detectives fail, Private detectives do PI and PR and the Madeleine McCann Foundation is famous…
Daily Mail: “So why did Madeleine McCann detectives ask so few questions after major breakthrough?”
Dunno. Why?
Private detectives leading the hunt for Madeleine McCann faced questions last night after a Mail on Sunday investigation revealed apparent shortcomings in chasing a ‘strong lead’. The detectives failed to make even rudimentary inquiries before announcing a ‘significant’ development in the worldwide search for the six-year-old.
Watching the detectives… Following the news that “Victoria Beckham” possibly abducted Madeleine McCann, it occurs to the Mail that the private investigators may be clutching at dried grasses:
The Mail on Sunday, however, has established that members of Mr Edgar’s team who had visited Barcelona:
• Failed to speak to anyone working at the seafood restaurant near where the agitated woman was seen at 2am.
• Failed to ask the port authority about movement of boats around the time Madeleine disappeared.
• Failed to ask if the mystery woman had been filmed on CCTV.
• Knew nothing about the arrival of an Australian luxury yacht just after Madeleine vanished until told by British journalists, who gave them the captain’s mobile phone number.
• Failed to interview anyone at a nearby dockside bar where, according to Mr Edgar, the mystery woman was later seen drinking.
• Failed to ask British diplomats in Spain for advice before or during the visit.
* Succeeded in getting the missing child back in the news and kickstarting the belated Third Summer of Our Maddie. They say PI. Some say PR.
Last night Mr Edgar said: ‘We are not above criticism and I take responsibility for any shortcomings. If somebody has not done what they should have done, that’s my job to deal with that.’
Posted: 16th, August 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (34) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: McCanns Consult With Victoria Beckham
MADELEINE McCann Watch: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at Madeleine McCann in the news - Madeleine McCann is missing and the celebrity face of Victoria Beckham is linked to her vanishing.
It’s The Third Summer of Our Maddie and four newspapers – The Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Star and the Daily Express – all lead with the hunt a woman who looks a “bit like” Victoria Beckham”…
Daily Star (front page): “MADDIE: find yacht oz woman.”
She had a yacht with her? Well, no. She was Australian. Well, she might have been. She was a woman? Yes. Unless… Such are the facts.
A worldwide hunt was under way last night for a Posh Spice lookalike who cops believe could be linked to Madeleine McCann’s kidnapping.
No, not cops – private detectives who used to be cops.
This woman was seen pacing nervously up and down on the quayside outside the El Rey De La Gamba seafood restaurant in Barcelona’s trendy Port Olimpic district at 2am.
Posted: 7th, August 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (11) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Michael Jackson Ends Hunt For Madeleine McCann
MADELEINE McCann Watch: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at Madeleine McCann in the news - Case remains closed…
Portugal News Oneline tells readers: “Recent reports not enough to re-open Maddie case -Attorney General”
This was to be the Third Summer of Our Maddie, in which the story of the missing child would give the newspapers something to fall back on should Big Brother fail and a shark not be spotted off Bournemouth pier.
But Michael Jackson has died. Iran is broiling. Andy Murray is doing well. And as Sky News – live from LA tells us – it’s Tuesday so it must be Farrah Fawcett’s burial.
Portugal’s Attorney General has this week voiced its opinion that recent reports about British paedophile Raymond Hewlett, who was embroiled in the Madeleine McCann [sic] after it emerged the former convict had been staying in the Algarve at the time of her disappearance, were not strong enough to re-open the case.
Well, if there is no evidence…
Posted: 27th, June 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (6) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: McCanns Want Hewlett To Co-operate
IT’S the media’s Summer of Maddy - and Clarence Mitchell, Kate and Gerry McCann’s spokesman, is talking about Madeleine McCann and a Raymond Hewlett.
Mr Hewlett has denied any involvement in Madeleine’s abduction.
Posted: 23rd, May 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (11) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: The Story In Pictures
MADELEINE MCCANN - ever since Madeleine McCann went missing and the single thread story began to be spun by a voracious media, taken up by a mawkish commentariat and vain MPs, enjoyed by armchair detectives and turned into a public spectacle, Anorak has followed the story of the girl who became the media’s Our Maddie.
We now bring you the Madeleine McCann story in pictures:
Posted: 7th, May 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (15) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Oprah Winfrey Community Blames McCanns
MADELEINE McCann Watch: Introducing Daniel Morcombe and Oprah’s online community point the finger at the McCanns…
Brisbane Times: “’Keep searching’ Morcombes tell McCanns”
The disappearances of Sunshine Coast teenager Daniel Morcombe and British toddler Madeleine McCann, who vanished in completely different circumstances and different time zones, have drawn together families both desperate for closure…
Posted: 6th, May 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (40) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: What Kate Told Oprah Winfrey In Pictures
MADELEINE McCann is on the cover of the News of the World. Her face peers out. The headline:
“Kate: I still talk to Maddie.”
Kate McCann also talks to Oprah Winfrey, and their chat has been televised for broadcast in an hour-long TV special. Oprah won the bidding war, and to her the tissues: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 26th, April 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (46) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Brand McCann, Selling The Commodity And The Media Feeding Frenzy
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann
BBC: “Madeleine ‘treated as commodity’”
“COPS: MADDIE IS STILL ALIVE,” says the front page of the People. But they don’t know. Not for sure. To put this headline on the front page is bad reporting, offering false hope. It smacks of opportunism, using Madeleine to sell newspapers -Anorak, May 13, 2007
Madeleine McCann was treated as a “commodity” by the UK press, her father Gerry has told MPs.
Posted: 10th, March 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (33) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Murat, Opik, Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen And Jade Goody
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann, featuring special guest star Robert Murat, Lembit Opik, Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Jade Goody and a heated debate
AFTER a winter-long hibernation, Madeleine McCann returns to the newspapers and front-line debate.
The University of Cambridge’s organ tells its readers: “Robert Murat holds Cambridge Union spellbound in tabloids debate”
The debate, which brought together some famous names from the media, was notable for emotional highs and lows, as well as some colourful tabloid-style language and plenty of laughter.
Speaking for the motion were Michael White, Associate Editor of the Guardian, Robert Murat and his lawyer Louis Charalambous, and the Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik, whose personal life has regularly been splashed across the front pages of the tabloids.
Posted: 10th, March 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (12) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Robert Murat, MPs And Gerry McCann’s Heated Debate
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann, featuring special guest star Robert Murat
Madeleine McCann is missing, still missing. She is now missing from the papers. The story is not of a missing child. The story is of the media, how the single thread story became a maelstrom of speculation and clai, and now introspection.
Last night Robert Murat – a media victim - addressed an audience of students at Cambridge University’s Union Society in favour of a motion that “the tabloid press does more harm than good“.
Posted: 6th, March 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (35) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Robert Murat Cambridge University Debate And Maddy PR McGuinness Sues
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann, featuring special guest star Robert Murat and Justine McGuinness (in comments).
Remember Robert Murat who was called names and monstered by the tabloid press?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 5th, March 2009 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (19) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Clarence Mitchell For Hire, PR And Nuts For Kate McCann’s Swimsuit
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann, featuring Clarence Mitchell for hire
Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ PR , is talking with the Indepedent. Now the McCanns are free - no longer suspects in their daughter’s disappearance - why is Clarnce Mitchell needed?
The Independent: “Clarence Mitchell: ‘I am a decent human being. If I can help them, I will’ - The ex-BBC journalist built a career on professional detachment. Then, he went to work for the McCanns.”
“There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever, nothing, to suggest that Madeleine has been harmed, let alone killed,” insists Clarence Mitchell, the former television reporter who speaks for the family of the most famous missing girl in the world. Her face is instantly recognisable. There is no longer any need to use her surname, McCann. And yet, nearly two years since she vanished from the Algarve, there is still no trace.
Posted: 1st, March 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (62) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Matthew Lewis, Tories, Hitler And No Jokes
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann
Matthew Lewis, a Young Tory, has dressed up as Madeleine McCann for a fancy dress do. No, not a Tory Party party, a private party.
Our Maddie is back in the papers. But the story is not about the child, rather it is about who can be the most offended and if political gain can be made from a puerile act.
THE SUN: “SICK TORIES AXED”
So much for the purge on knife crime.
DAILY MIRROR: “SICK TORY: I’M DRESSING UP AS MISSING MADDY”
Last night, Lewis made a grovelling apology. He said: “I completely regret my behaviour and cannot express how sorry I am for the incredible hurt I have caused.”
Grovelling to whom - the nation?
Posted: 10th, January 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
2008 Media Year: Russell Brand, Robert Peston, Strictly Come Dancing And Jonathan Ross’ Dogger Bank
IT’S been a great year for media stories about the media, starring Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, Robert Peston, the BBC, Strictly Come Dancing and fines. The media loves media stories about the media, and so do audiences.
In 2009, the BBC will strive to bring you even more stories about the media, such as how BBC Breakfast presenters Bill Strictly and Sian In Need are never far away from a pair of spoons, and how BBC5 is to be the Beeb’s new TV channel for stories just about the media.
But what about 2008? Phew! It was quite some year.
Posted: 29th, December 2008 | In: Key Posts, Media Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: She Speaks To Spaniard And BBC Scores Points
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann
THE SUN: “Fury at Maddie ‘ghost chat’”
No, not a ghost chat show – it’s not a publicity stunt. It;s not even a follow up to the Daily Star’s front page screamer: “MADDIE GHOST VISITS MUM”. It’s:
A SICK comedy writer has sparked outrage by publishing a spoof interview with Madeleine McCann’s “ghost”. Jose Perez, 28, who writes for Spanish TV, reports in his online blog that Maddie — who vanished in May 2007 aged three — visited his house.
Posted: 29th, December 2008 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (73) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
How The Media Turned Shannon Matthews Into A Madeleine McCann
MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann and Shannon Matthews.
Karen Matthews has been found guilty of kidnapping her child Shannon Matthews and perverting the course of justice. Karen Matthews is “PURE EVIL”. As Evil as Baby P’s killers?
Lest readers not understand that Karen Matthews is “PURE EVIL”, the papers remind them of the fact on their front pages:
THE SUN: “PURE EVIL – Family even tied to scam Maddie fund”
DAILY STAR: “PURE EVIL” – Shannon’s mum had sex and food orgies as kids starved”
DAILY MIRROR: “MOTHER OF PURE EVIL” – In the rush to damn, the Mirror seems to be calling Shannon Matthews “PURE EVIL”. And that’s harsh.
Posted: 5th, December 2008 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (183) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Madeleine McCann: Baby P And Me
MADELEINE MCCANN & Baby P: What Did You Do For Them, Daddy?
The mawkish reaction to Baby P’s horrific life and death has turned into an ‘I was there moment’.
Up and down the land young faces are turning to parents and guardians and asking: “What did you do for Baby, P?”
Posted: 26th, November 2008 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Media Comments (79) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
- June on Oxford Man Parks By Downing Street And Has Car Blown Up
- michelle on X Factor Live: Jedward Do Jive Bunny, Olly Murs Is The Man And Danyl Johnson Is Careless
- Joanna and the Wolf on Katie Price Should Marry Samantha Fox To Give Her Kids A Better Start In Life, Research Says
- annette on X Factor Live: Jedward Do Jive Bunny, Olly Murs Is The Man And Danyl Johnson Is Careless
- stephanie on X Factor Live: Jedward Do Jive Bunny, Olly Murs Is The Man And Danyl Johnson Is Careless
