MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

DAILY EXPRESS: “MADELEINE: £1M WAR FOR MCCANN INTERVIEW”

“AMERICA’S top chat show hosts are locked in a bidding war for an exclusive interview with the parents of Madeleine McCann. Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters have each pledged £1million in an attempt to get them in front of the TV cameras, it emerged yesterday”

Winfrey and Walters - the Pope and Queen Mother of Ameican TV chatter…

Do those shows take advertising? They do. What will the ad-breaks induce viewers to buy? What is the point of the interview? The McCanns cannot discuss the case.

Says the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell: “We are not in the market for selling Kate and Gerry’s story to the highest bidder. And we are not impressed by big names. We talk to media from all over the world”

But money is important. The fighting fun is running low

DAILY MAIL: “Kate and Gerry McCann in £1million deal to tell all to Oprah Winfrey”

“Kate and Gerry McCann are at the centre of a bidding war between Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters.

“Both celebrities are desperate to land an exclusive deal for the couple to talk about their missing daughter. If it goes ahead, it will be the largest publicly-known amount ever paid for a broadcast interview”

Says Clarence Mitchell: “We have been approached by representatives for both Oprah and Barbara,” he added. “They want an exclusive interview with Kate and Gerry. We are discussing it but it doesn’t mean we are definitely doing it. Nothing has been agreed”

Why wouldn’t they do it?

PRESS ASSOCIATION: “US chat shows approach McCanns”
“Kate and Gerry McCann have been approached to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show and for an interview with American network ABC, their spokesman has confirmed.

It was reported that the McCanns were at the centre of a bidding war worth £1 million between Winfrey and ABC star Barbara Walters who both want an exclusive interview with the couple.

THE SUN: “Maddie sketch farmer raped girl”

“The gun-toting pig farmer quizzed in the Maddie McCann hunt was once jailed for raping a British teenager — in Praia da Luz. Joaquim Jose Marques, 31, who bears a resemblance to the sketch of a mystery suspect, served five years. Portuguese cops who grilled him twice at his ramshackle farmhouse nearby are now convinced he is NOT the man in the drawing”

NOT the man. So why is he in the papers?

“But we can reveal Marques and a pal carried out a brutal attack on two British girls, aged 17 and 18, after prowling the beach in July 1995 at the resort where Maddie vanished”

A heinous crime for which he was punished. But what has it to do with Madeleine McCann?

DAILY STAR: “MADDIE WEIRDO RAPED TEEN BRIT”

“The gun-toting Portuguese pig farmer quizzed over Madeleine McCann’s disappearance raped a British teenager yards from where the four-year-old vanished. Joaquim Jose Marques put his 18-year-old victim through a horrific late-night sex ordeal while an accomplice targeted her pal”

Eighteen..

“Now locals fear he is the same man pictured on a ‘wanted’ poster issued by the McCanns as they step up the hunt for their daughter”

Local residents, or local reporters? And is “fear” really “hope”?

DAILY MIRROR: “Madeleine McCann suspect spotted ’spying on little boys’”

“Five women holidaymakers - three British and two German - have seen the “strange and disturbed” man in Altura, close to the Portuguese-Spanish border, in the past two weeks. One of the British witnesses noticed him on the beach on January 21 bending down to talk to the boys, aged about four or five.

“Clearly worried, one of the youngsters started shaking his head mid-conversation. Then a woman ran out of a nearby villa, shouting in alarm. She scooped the children up and hurried them away.”

Adults. children. Run, children, run!

DAILY TELEGRAPH (Aus): “Oprah’s $2m bid for Maddie chat”

“Mr Mitchell said the McCanns would only agree to a deal which would widen the search for their daughter. The couple, both doctors, also want to campaign for a better Europe-wide alert system for missing children, based on an American model”
A campaign

Madeleine McCann: A media event

Posted: 26th, January 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann. Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0