Will it ever end? Tonight there is another TV programme about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. It will no doubt attract many viewers. There is a fascination about myseries and conspiracies. Many people are still fascinated more than 40 years on over the assassination of Kennedy. But, tonight's programme is unlikely to be any more illuminating than any of those many conflicting theories about who killed Kennedy. After all, if the Portuguese police with all the assistance of the British police were unable to resolve it, or at least were unable to produce the decisive evidence with which to bring charges, then the likelihood of some private investigator solving the mystery is not very great. The police on TV might rely on Hercules Poirot, but not in real life.
What is disturbing, is that this TV Programme is just the latest part of a two-year long media campaign, which as, I think, it was Bea Campbell pointed out early on, has from the beginning seemed to be more about the parents placing themselves in the limelight than about poor little Madeleine. From, almost the first hours of the disappearance there was a slick Public Relations operation that swung into gear with a website, photo opportunities and interviews, and even an interview with the Pope!!! What is more disturbing is the difference in treatment of the McCanns, as a photogenic couple from a well to do middle class background, compared to the treatment that the media and society normally gives to some poor couple or single parent from a Council estate, who leaves their kid/s home alone, and who would most frequently find themselves in Court, and their kids put on the "At Risk" register.
Except for when it looked like the police were going to charge the McCanns, the media has been most sympathetic, seeing its opportunity for sales and viewers. Compare that with the case of Karen Matthews, whose child also went missing, and who has been reviled as a thoroughly evil person. True, when that story first broke that was not the case, though it was reported in ways that left the door open to the obvious conclusion. No one could really have been surprised when the truth came out, because we know from all of the data on such cases that where children suffer harm, in more than 90% of cases it is the child's parents, close family or friends that are responsible.
No one with children can help but feel deep sorrow for anyone that loses a child by whatever cause. However, in a society dominated by the cult of celebrity, where everyone wants there fifteen minutes of fame as a guaranteed(?) means of obtaining that celebrity status, and the passport to riches it brings with it, I cannot help but feel deep unease at the media managerie that has attended this case from the beginning.
1 comment:
I have to admit I did watch it. I was not too surprised that as you said there was hardly anything in the way of facts presented, or even anything that might have helped find the little girl. It seemed to be just a vehicle for the parents. What was the trip to the US, and the appearance on Oprah all about? As far as I was aware, no one thinks the child is in America!
The only things about the child's disappearance seemed to be some very vague accounts by a couple of individuals that they saw people standing around who they now think were acting suspiciously. In fact, these accounts actually caused me to have further questions. If its being suggested that the girl was kidnapped by people who had planned it then some aspects of that don't seem to fit.
If the child was to be kidnapped why spend time watching beforehand in the daytime. Surely, it was the night time activity of the parents that needed to be observed, to see when an opportunity might arise. Secondly, the programme seemed to suggest that the window to the apartment could be seen ffrom the tapas bar, but in that case why were the kidnappers not seen breaking in through it. It couldn't have been a speedy operation.
Finally, if they'd gone to this length, then why do the accounts from witnesses talk about someone walking with the child in their arms away from the apartment and into the town? Surely, that is thee last thing you'd do with a child you were kidnapping, and who would be likely to be crying and kicking up a fuss about being taken away by a stranger.
Surely, if it was planned in advance, the kidnappers would have operated in a pair with a look-out, and with a car or van outside the apartment into which the child could have been transferred as soon as possible!!
Surely, on that basis the reports of some man walking into the town with a quiet child asleep in their arms amount to nothing more than what you would expect in a holiday resort, which was that some parent was simply carrying their own tired child. Who knows, perhaps as you suggest, and as has always been the case when we've been on holiday with our kids, the man was returning with his child having taken the child with him to eat rather than leave the child home alone.
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