How The Aisling Symes’ Tragedy Became The Media’s Nightmare
How the media starting ticking boxes when Aisling Symes, went missing – the New Zealand child prayed for by the McCanns and watched by the world’s media.
POLICE looking for Aisling Symes have found the body of a child in a storm water drain.
“The immediate scene has been condoned off and treated as a crime scene,” says Insp Gary Davey.
Says Sky News: “There was speculation she had been abducted.”
This speculation is what made the missing child a global story.
A few kind words from Madeleine McCanns’ parents were seized upon by a voracious media, and the story became a yet more desperate hunt for a stolen child. It became the media’s “every parent’s worst nightmare”.
The excavation followed an offer of a $50,000 (£23,000) reward from British aristocrat Lord Ashcroft for information leading to Aisling’s safe return.
Lord Ashcroft cares. And the Sydney Morning Herald reports:
The last confirmed sighting of her had been at 5.15pm last Monday in Longburn Rd, Henderson, in the company of an unknown Asian woman who was walking a dog.
Dark foreigners. Missing child. Blue eyes. Blonde hair. A narrative builds. No evidence. No evidence required. Join the dots.
The Irish Examiner gave us this:
Girl snatched from tranquil home recalls tragic McCann case
That Madeleine McCann was snatched is not a proven fact. But journalist Dan Buckey knows all:
While child abduction is rare in New Zealand, paedophile rings work internationally and go for easy targets. In the United States alone, a child goes missing every 40 seconds, more than 2,000 a day.
All takes by paedophiles, right? Well, no.
3News (NZ) delivers: “Child abusers targeted as fears for Aisling grow – Video”
In the comments, armchair detectives are at work:
Asians do love little kids, and when my daughter was living overseas in an Asian country I did notice that they seemed to have a great fascination with small European children. Especially with their fair hair .
Herald (NZ): “Neighbours were last night asking how a child missing for a week and feared taken by kidnappers could be found only metres from where she disappeared.”
Maybe the police have been spending too logn with the media – they who come to look for tragedy and scream “paedo!”?
A child goes missing – and the international media uses it as a chance to add another chapter to its obsession.
Posted: 12th, October 2009 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comments (24) | TrackBack | Permalink
