Oprah Winfrey Wears Madeleine McCann T-Shirt
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann…
Madeleine McCann is to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show, that tribute to being average. The Irish Independent reports:
A small banner has appeared on the homepage of the official Madeleine McCann website. It reads: Coming soon, new ‘Never Give Up‘ t-shirts. Two years on from the disappearance of the three-year-old girl from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal, it has become her parents’ mantra.
Wasn’t the mantra No Stone Unturned? A mantra – not yet a catechism…
The news cameras have moved on and the police investigation has closed down. Madeleine’s family appears to operate under some semblance of normality. Gerry McCann has returned to his work as a consultant cardiologist and he and Kate recently celebrated the fourth birthday of twins Sean and Amelie. Kate McCann never returned to her position as a GP, a decision probably informed by a number of factors, not least a desire to be at home with her two remaining children.
Yeah, probably… Such are the facts.
Yet as the two-year anniversary of the disappearance on May 3, 2007, draws close, it is clear that the Madeleine campaign simmers on and is continuing to provoke a strong reaction. The McCanns are booked for The Oprah Winfrey Show show on May 9, three days before what should be Madeleine’s sixth birthday. This appearance on the world’s most consistently popular chat show will bring the spotlight on the McCanns back into sharp focus.
Indeed. And once more we will be watching the parents.
The gentle probing of Oprah Winfrey is bound to be favourable to the McCanns’ campaign.
Can you be probed gently?
While all of these incidents serve to mark the two-year milestone of Madeleine’s disappearance, none of them shed any further light on what happened to the little girl that night. There is a remarkable disproportion of publicity and theories to actual cold, hard facts.
And there it is. We know nothing. All we know is that a child is missing, and that the McCann are back on the telly. For how many years will the Our Maddy anniversary continue?
So what do we really know about May 3, 2007?
Fact: Madeleine McCann went missing. End of fact.
Of course, what follows is a repeat of events of that fateful day and night. The hacks press f9 on the keyboard and the paragraphs appear.
Aside from the several thousand supposed sightings of… manager of a beachside restaurant saw Gerry McCann dance with his daughter… get them ready for bed…went for dinner with seven friends at a tapas bar… leaving the children unsupervised with the door to the apartment unlocked…. “They’ve taken her! They’ve taken her!”… The nightmare had begun.
And the single thread story began to spin… Madeleine McCann: Increasing The Fear.
Pretty much every development in the Madeleine case from that point on has been subject to speculation and conjecture.
Pretty much? No, we’d say all of it. Only one fact remains. Oh, and we are watching the parents. Tune in. Enjoy the mourn porn. Get off on their grief. Play armchair detective.
There was also as much commentary about the McCanns themselves, as there was about the fate of their missing daughter. Some rounded on them for neglecting their children by leaving them alone in the apartment, while others argued a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God defence. They were lambasted for going jogging in the days following Madeleine’s disappearance, for holding hands on their way to church vigils, for looking too composed, groomed, serene — petty accusations that soon fed into more sinister allegations.
And are now repeated.
And create something special:
But for Kate McCann, the logic is simple: publicity helps keep awareness alive. And if one person spots a little girl with a teardrop-shaped defect in the pupil of her right eye, and thinks of Madeleine, then she might be one of the lucky few missing children who gets to come home.
Madeleine McCann – still missing. For all the media attention, she is still missing.
Posted: 18th, April 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews Comments (6) | TrackBack | Permalink
