Madeleine McCann And Shannon Matthews: And Jamie Bulger
MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann and Shannon Matthews
THE INDEPENDENT: “Missing: The contrasting searches for Shannon and Madeleine. Has class influenced the rewards offered and publicity given to two campaigns to find missing children? Cole Moreton goes to Dewsbury to investigate”
Shannon’s parents are not doctors. The child is not blonde, neither is the mother.
Shannon’s uncle, Neil Hyett, lives next door to her, and has had his house and garden searched. The media frenzy of last week bewildered him, but like many others in Dewsbury Moor he says he now wishes he could find a way to make it continue. “It’s all gone quiet, hasn’t it?” he said at the sparse community centre from which the leaflet and poster campaign continues to be run. “Last week, you couldn’t park for television vans. Now they’ve all been sent away on other stories.” Even The Sun’s support yesterday caused disappointment. “I’m devastated, to be honest,” said a coach driver, as others around him agreed. “That poster should have been on the front page.” It was on page 17.
Madeleine McCann
Age: Four. Parents: Kate, 40, a GP. Gerry, 39, a cardiologist. Siblings: Twins, now aged two.
Home: Detached house, Leicestershire.
UK press stories after nine days: 465.
Rewards offered: £2.6m: the ‘News of the World’, Stephen Winyard, Philip Green, Simon Cowell, Coleen McLoughlin, ‘The Sun’, Sir Richard Branson, J K Rowling.
Public donations: £1.1m:
J K Rowling, Bryan Adams, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, John Terry, Phil Neville, David Moyes, the England cricket team.
Wikipedia profile: 2,182 words after nine days.
Shannon Matthews
Age: Nine. Parents: Karen, 32, and Leon Rose, 29. Stepfather, Craig, 22. Siblings: Six boys and girls, from her mother’s partnerships with five different men.
Home: Three-bed council house, Dewsbury Moor.
UK press stories after nine days: 242.
Rewards offered: £25,500. Made up of £20,000 by ‘The Sun’, £5,000 from Huddersfield firm Joseph International, £500 from Wakefield pensioner Winston Bedford.
Public donations: Thousands at most, including Leona Lewis.
Wikipedia profile: 151 words after nine days.
SUNDAY PEOPLE: “Lost little Shannon ‘snatched’”
Devastated friends and family of missing schoolgirl Shannon Matthews last night insisted the nine-year-old was snatched.
Says cousin Vicky Saunders: “Shannon’s quite a timid girl and wouldn’t like to go off on her own.
Family friend Petra Jamieson adds: “She’s the ideal daughter who behaves well. We want everyone to remember Shannon, like they do Madeleine McCann.”
THE SCOTSMAN: “Madeleine sighting in France is ruled out”
We are all looking for Madeleine McCann, and at her…
A reported sighting of Madeleine McCann in southern France has been officially ruled out. Gerry McCann revealed that French police have established that the young girl seen by a Dutch tourist in Montpellier last month was not his missing daughter.He said it was “disappointing” that it took so long for this to happen after “widespread” media reporting of the sighting.
In his latest blog, Mr McCann writes: “We did hear that the French have officially ruled out the reported sighting of Madeleine in Montpellier.”
We watch the McCanns. And we scrutinise their every word. They now even report on the case.
THE OBSERVER: “’James would be 18 now – the pain of losing him will never go away’
Fifteen years ago, the murder of toddler James Bulger by two young boys horrified Britain and inflicted deep wounds on their home city of Liverpool. In this moving interview, James’s mother Denise Fergus tells Elizabeth Day that the passing years have not diminished the pain over the loss of her son and her anger towards his killers, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.
In the aftermath of the trial in November 1993, the Daily Star carried pictures of Venables and Thompson underneath the headline ‘How do you feel now you little bastards?’
Denise Fergus still cannot bring herself to walk near the Walton railway line… It has been 15 years since the murder of her son James Bulger on this stretch of track; 15 years since he was beaten to death by two killers who were themselves children.
The pain of losing him will never go away. But there’s so much more in my life that I determined long ago not to be a victim any more. I don’t let things hurt me so easily as I once did. Like it was hurtful when the papers called him “Jamie”. That was never his name. It was like a strange label they invented to sum him up in one word. It’s the same now with Madeleine McCann. The papers call her “Maddy”.
Maddie, Shan And More: the media’s look at missing children
Posted: 2nd, March 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (443) | TrackBack | Permalink
