Madeleine McCann: Greedy Newspapers Banking On Maddy In Brussels, And Naming Rights
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann…
DAILY EXPRESS (front page): “MADELEINE: I SAW HER ON MONDAY”
“Guard tells police she was in a Brussels bank”
Can Madeleine McCann be the new Patti Hearst? What of the theory that she was kidnapped by freedom fighters, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and is being trained in covert operations and crime?
A bank worker in Brussels reported seeing Madeleine accompanied by a woman of North African appearance on Monday morning.
To Belgium, one of the low countries.
THE SUN (front page): “MADDIE: SEEN FIVE SAYS AGO.”
Maddie is the Sun’s Madeleine, of course, and is not to be confused with the Mirror’s Maddy. Everyone wants their own Madeleine McCann brand, or Maddii, as Jordan would call her.
“Sighting in Brussels bank”
Maddie’s desperate parents Kate and Gerry last night described the sighting as “invaluable”.
DAILY MIRROR (front page) “BUGGED”
“Bungling cops bid to spy on McCanns”
When the McCanns were suspects the Portuguese police wanted to keep close tabs on them. How awful is that? Was it more awful when we read about it then?
Portuguese cops tried to bug Kate and Gerry McCann’s villa and car to shore up the flimsy case against them. But the request was denied by a judge – as was a bid to see Gerry’s bank details. Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “They had no evidence and were on a trawl. It was correct that it was turned down.“
DAILY MAIL: “McCann apartment was rented out to four different families before police forensic testing”
The holiday apartment from which Madeleine McCann vanished was rented out for two months before police sealed it off. Four different groups of tourists were allowed to stay in the flat before forensics officers attempted to take blood and DNA samples from the rooms. The resulting DNA analysis was inconclusive and laboratory scientists said samples were badly degraded and contaminated.
How bad is it?
Potentially crucial evidence from the two-bedroom apartment in the Ocean Club complex may have been lost forever.
Any other facts?
Mr and Mrs McCann, both doctors from Rothley, Leicestershire, rented the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz for the first week in May last year.
THE GUARDIAN: “Guardian was wrong to buy Madeleine McCann keywords on Google”
The Guardian has admitted it mistakenly bought the keywords Madeleine McCann from Google. By wrongly purchasing the keywords a link to the paper’s coverage of Madeleine’s disappearance appeared in a column of sponsored results when a search for her name was made on Google.
The newspaper has now taken down the link and has reviewed the list of keywords it owns, Marc Sands, marketing director for the Guardian, told Journalism.co.uk.
COUNTERVALUE: “How low will the Guardian sink with search engine marketing?”
Even though it repeatedly denounced the Telegraph’s perfectly legitimate search engine optimisation strategy back in May after telegraph.co.uk had risen to No.1, that distaste for what is not decent journalism doesn’t extend … apparently … to its marketing department. Or perhaps search engine marketing at GNM isn’t just the domain of the marketing department – last month GNM’s digital head, Emily Bell, was quoted on her own website explaining how the newsdesk has involvement in SEM:
‘Also in the past two months, we have started to combine search engine optimisation – talking to the news desk on the paper about SEO-friendly headlines and underlining SEO with our subs desk [on the website] – with our marketing and pay-per-click activity’
That pay-per-click activity now extends to buying the phrase “Madeleine McCann”, something that even The Sun has stopped doing after being roundly condemned for poor taste in its dash for unique users.
So says Justin Williams, assistant editor at the, er, Telegraph Media Group…
Madeleine McCann: Making money
Posted: 9th, August 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Money, Tabloids Comments (69) | TrackBack | Permalink
