Madeleine McCann: 100 More Questions, McCanns And Shannon

MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

DAILY MIRROR: “100 QUESTIONS FOR TAPAS SEVEN”

The same 100 questions Portuguese police compiled last November, or new ones?

Kate and Gerry McCann’s holiday friends will be quizzed again to check alleged discrepancies in their stories. The Tapas Seven, who had dinner with the McCanns on the night their daughter Madeleine, four, vanished, will have more than 100 questions put to them by Portuguese police.

Tapas Seven. Tapas Nine. What will the tabloids settle on?

The Mirror quotes a source who tells a source, Portuguese paper 24 Horas: “We are at a crucial phase. There are clear contradictions in the statements that the McCanns and their friends gave. Many things have to be clarified. The need to question Madeleine’s parents again will be determined by the results of the interrogations of their holiday friends.”

In which instance the Tapas Nine will be questioned.

SPENBOROUGH GUARDIAN: “The Shannon Matthews documentary was about more than a missing girl”

THE fly-on-the-wall documentary about Shannon Matthews’s family last week was not just about the missing girl. It was also a drama of press intrusion and a meeting of two very different sections of society.

The Channel 4 documentary last Thursday showed what it was like to have a missing child – the futile attempts to carry on as normal, the eeriness of the absent girl’s bedroom, the dog sulking under the table – and also the constant pressure to reveal more to an insatiable pack of newshounds.

What about getting a spokesman?

Did it make a difference to how the story was covered? Some people seemed to think so. A family friend speculated that Shannon‘s case was unlikely to enjoy the same degree of coverage as that of Madeline McCann, whose Richard Branson-funded campaign was the longest running front page story since World War Two.

But the McCanns have been unfairly treated. Send down the subs department for some brackets.

(Then again, being sleekly middle-class did nothing to protect the McCanns from allegations – since withdrawn – that they were involved in their daughter’s disappearance. The press might penalise you with its snobbery if you’re working class, but it won’t exempt you from malicious speculation just because you’re not.)

That’s better.

Madeleine McCann: Still making news

Anorak

Posted: 29th, March 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (783) | TrackBack | Permalink