Madeleine McCann: With Columnists Lorraine Kelly And Deborah Orr
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann
THE COLUMNISTS
LORRAINE KELLY (The Sun): “Watch your kids for Maddie’s sake”
It’s cellar-busting, tabloid bingo stalwart Lorraine Kelly:
OF all the many cruelties inflicted on Madeleine McCann’s parents, the possibility that their little girl begged an Amsterdam shop assistant for help shortly after she went missing is surely the deepest cut of all.
Begged? But it was Madeleine, right? Or Maddie as she – and the press – now know her by.
All of these cases could have been nothing more than mistaken identity, but we will never know for sure. More and more experts now believe that Madeleine, a stunningly beautiful child, was specifically targeted by a paedophile ring and “kidnapped to order”.
The experts. Or yes, them.
Without wanting to panic every parent with a cute little boy or girl under five, it is clear there are evil gangs of paedophiles who will stop at nothing to get their hands on little kids.
If only the kids weren’t so cute. Why can’t we have ugly kids? Life is soooo unfair! If paedos went for ugly kids then think of much safer and more blonde and beautiful the world would be?
I believe we desperately need some sort of Europe-wide anti-paedophile task force with enough money to be effective and enough expertise to smash these vile rings of perverts and sickos.
Something like the police? Yeah, what about a police force?
Without becoming paranoid we need to keep a watchful eye on our children and grandchildren at all times. Don’t think it could never happen to you.
It could be you. Although not if your kids are ugly, obviously.
That’s what Kate and Gerry McCann believed. They will spend the rest of their lives searching for their daughter and torturing themselves over whether she is alive or dead. And if she is still in the land of the living, just what sort of hell is she being subjected to?
Yeah, just imagine…
DEBORAH ORR (The Independent):
One of the many gross liberties that the media have taken in their reporting of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is the widespread adoption of a diminutive epithet. No matter how often her distressed parents insisted that their daughter had always been known only as Madeleine, the fictitious intimacy of Maddie, or Maddy, endured.
Now an Amsterdam shop assistant, Ana Stam, claims that she talked to a girl who told her that her name was Maddie, and that she had been stolen from her parents. Maybe the Portuguese police were remiss in failing to take seriously this sighting. But in my experience a small child thinks that her name is what her parents say it is, and not what the press has christened her.
My name is Madeleine…
Posted: 9th, August 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (169) | TrackBack | Permalink
