Crocodile Tears

‘THERE is a horrible air of inevitability about the hunt for missing ten-year-olds, Holly Evans and Jessica Chapman. As every hour passes, the chances of their being found alive diminish and the feeling of dread grows.

Accountants at the Express hedge their bets

In these circumstances, we should perhaps welcome any step that might help secure their return, but there is something grotesque about the way the tabloids are trying to outdo each other in their support for the girls.

Yesterday, the Express trumpeted its caring credentials by offering a million pound reward for information leading to the girls’ return. And this morning it is giving itself a massive pat on the back with a truly obscene bit of self-promotion.

Under pictures of the grieving parents, it tells how they ”broke down yesterday as they thanked the Daily Express for the ‘extraordinary’ offer”. We would humbly suggest that maybe they broke down because their beloved daughters are missing.

But the paper is far too busy trumpeting ”the massive bounty – the biggest in British newspaper history” to worry about such details. For all the world, they could be talking about a new lottery game, not the probable abduction of two ten-year-old friends. And does one have to be so cynical to think that the paper has done its calculations and can parade its generosity in the fairly certain knowledge that it won’t have to pay up?

The Sun is never one to pass up a chance of blowing its own trumpet, but it at least has the decency to do so on Page 5 and then only in a sidebar. Or could that just be the embarrassment at seeing their £150,000 bounty trounced by a rival paper..?

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Posted: 9th, August 2002 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink