Madeleine McCann: The Benchmark For Missing Children
MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
THE SUN: “How could she just vanish?”
The Sun is speaking of Shannon Matthews.
The absence of any clues is not for the want of looking. In contrast to the bungling by Portuguese police in the early days of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, the hunt for Shannon by West Yorkshire police has been textbook.
Even if the child has not been found, neither in Yorkshire, nor in Portugal.
CNN: “’Underworld’ tip leads to new Maddie hunt”
The search at the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Praia da Luz, is the initiative of Portuguese lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia, who told CNN he has never spoken to the McCanns but has sent them two letters and without receiving a reply.
Correia said they have found four strings, each with different lengths, and a sock. He said the items have been turned over to the McCanns’ detectives.
A missing sock has been found. Such is the news.
THE SCOTSMAN: “So what is a mum to do?”
EVERY so often, circumstances conspire to hold up before us that most reviled of creatures: the bad mother. We love a bad mother…
Last year it was Kate McCann, doctor, wife, mother-of-three, whose crime was to have supper at a tapas bar while someone stole her three-year-old daughter from her bed in the most child-friendly of Portuguese resorts.
Now it’s Fiona MacKeown’s turn. On the McCann scale of public opprobrium she ought to come off worse – and it may yet prove that she does, because this story is still young.
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “’Why I, as a parent, refuse to condemn Scarlett Keeling’s mother’”
We’ve had two shocking examples of this recently: 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling, who was raped and murdered on a beach in Goa, and Shannon Matthews, the nine-year-old who has been missing for more than three weeks in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.
In both cases, initial sympathy for their grieving mothers turned to blame, just as it did after Madeleine McCann disappeared. Their mothers stand accused of being too pleasure-seeking (in Scarlett’s case) or feckless (in Shannon’s) to keep their children safe. I won’t join in.
INDEPENDENT: “Missing children and the media: The wrong kind of family?”
Shannon’s disappearance has brought inevitable comparisons with that of Madeleine McCann. So far, national newspapers have published 168 stories about Shannon’s disappearance, including seven in The Independent. In the first 21 days after Madeleine’s disappearance from a resort in Portugal, some 539 articles were produced, of which 22 were published by this newspaper.
In the same period, the reward fund for Madeleine’s safe return stood at £2.6m. Contributors included Sir Richard Branson, J K Rowling and Wayne Rooney…
Mrs Bushby perhaps spoke for many when she insisted that whether it is Shannon Matthews or Madeleine McCann who has gone missing, no difference should be drawn. She said: “We’re not giving up. No way. Two children have gone missing, that’s the point. Everyone feels the same when that happens: rich, pauper, whatever. It’s the kid we’re looking for isn’t it? Not the mothers.”
Posted: 13th, March 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (376) | TrackBack | Permalink
