Archive for September, 2007

The media and the McCanns

When Madeleine McCann disappeared in Portugal on the evening of May 3, her parents pursued every possible opportunity to raise public awareness. Kate and Gerry McCann proved to be highly savvy media operators as they pulled out all the stops and achieved unprecedented worldwide publicity for their daughter.

But as the days turned to weeks and months with few outward signs of progress in the police investigation, the initially sympathetic hearing that the McCanns received in the media waned. Rumours began and persisted, countered initially by claims from the McCanns supporters, that the Portuguese didnt like this constant reminder that a little girl had disappeared in their midst.

There was even criticism that the McCanns appeared to revel in all the publicity that theyd generated. And, finally there were leaks, apparently from the police but, actually, very little of it from named sources, that evidence pointed to the parents themselves being somehow complicit in Madeleines disappearance.

Now, with both parents named as official suspects in the case, the newspapers and news bulletins are full of details as to the supposed nature of the supposed evidence against them, lots of it from apparently unnamed sources.

The McCanns, meanwhile, are back in the UK but besieged by a media army outside the front door of their Leicestershire home while they await developments.

Whatever hopes the McCanns might have had for some privacy for their two other children now look rather forlorn, dashed at least in part by the ongoing tide of speculation in the press as to whether UK social services might step in, whatever that means.

However this desperate case turns out, the McCann family will now never shake off the media interest in their lives. Even if Madeleine were to turn up fit and well, a prurient interest in her and her family would doubtless persist into her adulthood. And if she is never seen again, her parents will always have the stain of responsibility on their names, irrespective of whether any of the evidence discovered proves relevant or not.

We all accept that the media has a responsibility to report the goings on in this case. But is there a line that has been crossed? While the media displayed its best traits in publicising Madeleine McCanns disappearance, is it now showing a familiar dark side? Or is all this coverage, as some would say, no more than completely reasonable in the circumstances?