Maddie McCann

[the Deel Rover]

Hedley i don't know why your having a go at sureyouwil, you seem to be saying that he is been overprotective however i agree fully with him.You just can't take chances with your children not in this day and age.   

It's the sanctimonious drivel that gets me. The McCanns were on holiday and did what lots of parents do when they have young children with them, and I have done also........get the children to bed and then take some time to themselves in what should have been a safe situation.
I would not condemn them......I feel for them.

As i said in a earlier quote all that matters at this moment is maddie and the hope that she might be found alive, i also feel for the parents god knows how they feel at the moment, but all i'm saying is that i would not put my children in that situation because if something ever happened them i would not be able to forgive myself.     

[pintsofguinness]

Hedley i don't know why your having a go at sureyouwil, you seem to be saying that he is been overprotective however i agree fully with him.You just can't take chances with your children not in this day and age.   

It's the sanctimonious drivel that gets me. The McCanns were on holiday and did what lots of parents do when they have young children with them, and I have done also........get the children to bed and then take some time to themselves in what should have been a safe situation.
I would not condemn them......I feel for them.

You've left your children at in bed and went out to a bar/restaurant?

[SammyG]

Hedley i don't know why your having a go at sureyouwil, you seem to be saying that he is been overprotective however i agree fully with him.You just can't take chances with your children not in this day and age.   

It's the sanctimonious drivel that gets me. The McCanns were on holiday and did what lots of parents do when they have young children with them, and I have done also........get the children to bed and then take some time to themselves in what should have been a safe situation.
I would not condemn them......I feel for them.

So people who think you should look after your kids, are spouting sanctimonious drivel.    Thank fcuk you seem to be in a minority.

[balladmaker]

There has to be some sort of closure, but that is not guaranteed.  Imagine spending the rest of your life wondering where your daughter is, is she still alive, what is she going through, each birthday not knowing where she is.  It doesn't bare thinking about!

[High Catch]

Things have gone very quiet on the news regarding this wee girl.  Really not looking good.  The search badly needs some kind of breakthrough.  Even if its something really unsubstantial, there is a huge need for something to raise peoples hopes again.

[full back]

On the topic of closure for the parents, on the news yesterday it was interviewing the mother of that young child that was lost 16 years ago, Ben,I think on Kos.
Jaysus it must be terrible for that woman. The cameras followed her back to the island & it was showing how the islanders say she was a bad mother etc & how she is suspicious of everyone on the island.
Just hope the parents of Maddie dont go through that suffering

[High Catch]

Was that boy ever found? or what is he general opinion on what happened to him?

[full back]

Never been found
One train of thought is that he will taken by gypsies & brought up as one of their own
His mother had a computer generated image of how he might look & was trying to get it in the local papers.
She was saying that she still believes she will see him again one day

[Fluffy Che]

That kid was never found...the Greeks trid to say that his uncle had an accident on his scooter with him on the back and the child died..so he buried him!!!  Alien abduction holds more water.
Cos he was blond and blue-eyed he was regarded as a prize by his kidnappers...dont let your guard down just cos your on holiday

[High Catch]

Shocking stuff indeed. Lets hope the parents get some kind of closure this time.

[The Real Laoislad]

Was on the phone to the Ma last night and she told me this story that happened a few weeks ago
A husband and wife from Laois went up to Liffey Valley with their two kids to buy stuff for a communion
While in one of the shops the mother lost sight of the five year old,After a search the little one was no where to be found,so they contacted security.
After a hour there was still no sign of the kid,when someone radioed the security to say a woman had contacted them to report something suspicious
This woman was after seeing a Romanian woman in the toilets with a very distressed child,she was cutting the childs hair and was putting boys clothes on her,the child was screaming your not my mammy at the woman which caught the attention of the other woman.
Turns out it was the missing child,Would that child have ever been found if the Romanian woman had got her out of the shopping centre
Certainly makes you think about what could happen and how carefull you have too be

[rosnarun]

well spotted that she was a romainan woman . probably a gypsy too.
was this reported to the gaurds media ect . under the current atmos it would have made a big stink!
urban legend if i ever heard one

[the Deel Rover]

yes the same story was going around Ballina this time last year

[The Real Laoislad]

well spotted that she was a romainan woman . probably a gypsy too.
was this reported to the gaurds media ect . under the current atmos it would have made a big stink!
urban legend if i ever heard one

It is a true story lads i ain't making it up my Ma works with this woman,It was found out after that she was Romanian.Its too sensitive a subject for me to be telling urban legends

[The Real Laoislad]

     
Media coverage of missing Madeleine prompts doubts

By Phil Hazlewood AFP - Tuesday, May 22 09:19 amLONDON (AFP) - Nearly three weeks after Madeleine McCann's disappearance from a Portuguese holiday apartment, the media is starting to question its blanket coverage of the hunt for the four-year-old.

Some analysts have even compared the tidal wave of media attention given to the story -- and the accompanying outpourings of public emotion -- to that after the death of Princess Diana in 1997.

Television channels dispatched their star presenters to Praia da Luz in the Algarve, while newspapers splashed the story on their front pages day after day, despite a relative lack of new information.

The Guardian's Simon Jenkins was among the first to break ranks last Friday, calling the coverage "absurdly over the top ... prurient and tedious beyond belief," and questioning the ethics of airing a family's grief at peak time.

The publicly-run BBC has had to defend itself from claims it has succumbed to tabloid values as speculation replaced concrete facts, in part due to Portuguese legal restrictions on police speaking about ongoing inquiries.

But Mary Riddell, from The Guardian's sister paper The Observer, wrote that far from being prurient intrusion, Madeleine's parents, Gerry and Kate, were driving the publicity in the hope it leads to their daughter's safe return.

"Good luck to them," she wrote.

Yet as the story finally slips down news bulletin running orders and off the front pages back home, there is still concern about the impact the coverage has had -- and the precedent it has set.

The National Missing Person's Helpline said this week that more than 800 children and young people have gone missing since Madeleine disappeared from Praia da Luz on the Algarve.

There are also some 210,000 incidents of people reported missing each year, two-thirds of them young people under 18, according to British interior ministry estimates. But few, if any, receive as much publicity.

Paul Horrocks, editor of the Manchester Evening News (MEN) and president of British press guild the Society of Editors, disagreed the publicity was disproportionate.

"Just because one case didn't get it, why should we criticise what this case is getting?" he added.

"This case is getting the coverage that it needs. If it is being fuelled by the parents, by the public, by the editors and broadcasters feeling that they've got a duty to keep this going, then so be it."

Most people could relate to the horror of having their child abducted on a family holiday but the press interest is down to that and the unusual fact of a well-organised and orchestrated media campaign, he told AFP.

Decisions about what merits media attention and what does not in such cases are hard to objectify, with editors guided by what they think the public interest to be -- and that interest was massive, he added.

"I don't see why we should start having to become very introspective and critical, sort of analysing why when at the end of the day what everybody is hoping for here is that this little girl will be found safe and well," he said.

Others point to the fact that, after starting as a mainly British media story, reporters and camera crews from all over the world have also descended on the tiny Portuguese village at the centre of the hunt.

Frank Furedi, a sociologist from the University of Kent, told AFP there is a growing realisation here that much of the reaction to Madeleine's disappearance, including the coverage, had been in "bad taste."

Politicians and England's cricketers have worn yellow ribbons -- the symbol of the missing -- in support of the family while appeals have been made by high-profile footballers and at the FA Cup and UEFA Cup finals.

Government ministers, including Britain's prime minister designate Gordon Brown, have met members of the McCann family. Rewards have been offered in excess of 2.5 million pounds.

Millions of "hits" have been registered on the official www.findmadeleine.com website, moments of silence have been held for the little girl and money pours in to a search fund.

Some blame the new era of 24-hour rolling news, with its unrelenting demand for watchable stories.

Kevin Bakhurst, controller of BBC News 24, defended the corporation's extensive coverage.

"We have been particularly careful to avoid entering into a round of speculation and rumour, though this has surfaced in some other media," he wrote in a blog responding to criticism.

"And we have tried to satisfy the genuine interest among a huge portion of our audience and strike the right tone."

Furedi, who has written about the increasing paranoia of parents because of critical experts and media scare stories about predatory paedophiles, said the public reaction was like that after the death of Princess Diana in 1997.

"That was bad enough but in this case it's one child acquiring this visibility. It's spread like wildlife. It's a much more mawkish, much more pornographic, like reality television turned inside out," he said.

"I think it says we are very much ill at ease with ourselves and we need these symbols to give meaning to our life, to say we are good people and the reason why we're good people is because we wear these ribbons..."