Madeleine McCann: Child Porn, Clarence Mitchell Inc. And Beach Rescue

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

THIS IS GUERNSEY: “‘Pictures of Maddy’ trap child-porn man”

A MAN told police he had found pictures of Madeleine McCann while surfing the internet.

But when they checked out the laptop Bruce Robert Smith brought into the station they found not missing Maddy, but child porn pictures and videos…

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Anorak

Posted: 21st, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (378)

Madeleine McCann: Marie Claire’s Web Traffic And Eoin Ryan Knows

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

Marie Claire: “McCanns finally see Madeleine files”

Or not. Kate and Gerry McCann have not seen the police files on them. But no matter – the headline should get some good web traffic for the women’s glossy…

HERALD (Ireland): “McCanns are innocent says Ryan”

Anorak

Posted: 19th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (593)

Madeleine McCann: Speculation As Fact, Newspapers Speak With One Voice And OAP Dead

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

The newspapers continue to rely on press releases and Gerry McCann’s blog for their investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

THE SUN: “Maddie police files to open”

KATE and Gerry McCann will soon have access to police files covering the search for missing daughter Maddie

This is presented as a fact.

Says the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell: “We’ve heard nothing officially, but if it’s true judicial secrecy has been lifted we welcome it.”

So how does the Sun know about the police files?

THE STAR: “MADDIE COPS TO SHOW MCCANNS EVIDENCE”

Gerry and Kate McCann will be given full access to confidential case files, Portugal’s top law officer revealed yesterday.

Portugal’s top legal eagle told them? But how does the Star know?

DAILY MAIL: “MCCANNS TO FINALLY FIND OUT ‘EVIDENCE’ MADELEINE POLICE HAVE AGAINST THEM”

Attorney general Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro told daily newspaper 24 Horas: “From July, the (Madeleine) case will cease to be covered by judicial secrecy, and will be available to consultation by all parties involved. I do not know which date, but in July the case ceases to be covered by judicial secrecy.”

That’s right – this latest McCann story is rooted in an opinion voiced in a Portuguese newspaper.

Says the Mail: “24 Horas speculated the judicial secrecy will end on July 14 – more than 10 months after the couple were named suspects.”

Speculated? But what of the facts? Well, here they are:

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Anorak

Posted: 18th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (478)

Madeleine McCann: Relocated To The Royal Court

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

THE TIMES: Relocated at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London SW1

Yesterday, the Telegraph’s Charles Spencer reviewed the play Relocated and thought of Madeleine McCann, the Soham murders and Josef Fritzl. He left out Shannon Matthews. Can the Times’ Sam Marlow do better at Tabloid Bingo!?

Anthony Neilson’s new play, written during the rehearsal period and finished just days before its opening, is claustrophobic and clotted with menace. It’s performed, in the author’s horribly compelling production, behind a black gauze, which turns from opaque to transparent with lighting changes.

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Anorak

Posted: 17th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (219)

Madeleine McCann: EastEnders Reacts, Evil GP And Relocated

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

The newspapers’ hunt for Madeleine McCann has passed. The missing child now serves as a point of reference for anyone looking to add realism to a work of fiction:

PEOPLE: “I’m having a BLAST in EastEnders – EXCLUSIVE As evil GP Mad May is back to terrorise Walford actress Amanda Drew lifts lid on her return”

Eastenders’ “Mad May” is one of the most sinister psychos to grace Walford. The evil GP vanished last year after trying to steal her love rival’s baby.

A female doctor, like Kate McCann?

In an exclusive chat with The People, Amanda, 38, talks about being single, her friendship with Catherine Tate and why she was relieved when scriptwriters changed her storylines at the time Madeleine McCann went missing.

Firth things first:

Q When you left last year your storylines were rewritten because it was too similar to the Madeleine McCann disappearance.

How did you feel about it?

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Anorak

Posted: 16th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (273)

Madeleine McCann And Lenore Skenazy’s Son

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

NY Sun columnist Lenore Skenazy allows her nine-year-old to walk about New York on his own. In that paper, she tells us:

I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn’t do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, “Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I’ll abduct this adorable child instead.” Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.

SUNDAY MAIL: “So Would You Let Your Nine-Year-Old Travel Home Solo In City Rush Hour?”

To Glasgow, where the paper is investigating is this is wrong or not so wrong?

SCOTS psychologist Ros Taylor insists Lenore did nothing wrong – and “we should all be preparing our kids to become independent adults”. You can trust the word of a sports psychologist.

“We all think about Madeleine McCann and hear of kids being locked in a basement for years. But they’re actually at greater risk of being in a car accident – yet we insist on driving them everywhere.”

McCann and Fritzl. It’s Tabloid Bingo.

And cars are dangerous. Cars are paedos on wheels with leatherette interiors. And let’s not get started on paedos in cars…

Anorak

Posted: 15th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (172)

Madeleine McCann: Paulo Reis And Duarte Levy Write

NEWS on the McCann case from Portugal and France:

McCann couple goes to Strasbourg for a last ditch stand

Gerry and Kate McCann will be in Strasbourg next Tuesday in order to try to secure enough support from Members of the European Parliament for a “written declaration” concerning the creation of a European Amber Alert system covering all 27 EU states. But, in fact, this idea was originally proposed by the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, Mr Franco Frattini, in 2006: a detail never mentioned by the McCanns, their media advisers nor by Clarence Mitchell. Mr Frattini proposed that each country should establish an EU alert system, but it was not an initiative for the European Parliament’s legislature.
However, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Bryan, a UK top ranking police officer, who is the Association of Chief Police Officers head of missing people, told the media in May 2007 that “there was no need to emulate the US system of immediate information broadcasts once children have been reported missing.”

According to the Times on-line edition, “Mr Bryan congratulated the McCanns on doing a ‘sterling job’ in raising the issue of how police deal with child abductions, but he said that police would rather use other investigative techniques to trace children before going public and potentially alerting abductors.”

The UK already has a national alert system for missing children, as Richard Bryan told the Times, “that has been in place since 2003 in Sussex and it was rolled out nationally by 2006. We have only had to use it on three occasions.”

Since 2006, Mr Frattini’s initial idea has taken shape. In February 2007, the European Commission decided to ask all member states to reserve a dedicated set of national phone numbers starting with “116”. The idea was that they should be used as a hotline in the event of a missing child. So far, 10 EU countries have adopted the idea, but the UK is not one of them.

On April 21, following a meeting with the McCanns, five Members of the European Parliament (Edward McMillan-Scott, Roberta Angelilli, Glenys Kinnock, Evelyne Gebhardt and Diana Wallis) submitted a written declaration to the European Parliament concerning “Emergency Cooperation in Recovering Missing Children.” The declaration “calls on Member States to introduce a missing child alert system” and asks for the creation of a “common organisation to provide assistance and training” to police forces in the 27 EU countries.

In order to have the “written declaration” sent to the EU President and published, the McCanns still need the signatures of 182 more Members of the European Parliament to reach the required number of 393. The “written declaration” is just a way to “launch or relaunch a debate on a subject that comes within the EU’s remit”, but it has no legal implications for the EU state members.

Duarte Levy & Paulo Reis

– Submitted by Paulo Reis and Duarte Levy

Anorak

Posted: 14th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (43)

Madeleine McCann: An Exclusive Warning

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

AFTER months of the McCanns story is the media growing cynical?

This the headline in today’s Mirror:

McCanns’ new Euro MPs plea – EXCLUSIVE WARNING

Look out – here they come…

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Anorak

Posted: 14th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (266)

Madeleine McCann: Shannon Matthews, Entertainment And Mr Cheese

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

Madeleine McCann is missing front the front pages. She now only appears in the media in the context of Ben Affleck’s film Gone Baby Gone, a work of fiction based on a work of fiction.

SPIKED ONLINE: Gone, Baby, Gone: who’s fit to be a parent?

With echoes of recent high-profile child abductions, Ben Affleck’s crime drama poses a very modern moral dilemma.

And a cracking night out at the cinema?

I remember when I heard Shannon Matthews had been found alive.

Shannon Matthews?

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Anorak

Posted: 13th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (463)

Madeleine McCann: Why Gordon Brown Did It

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

The Madeleine McCann case is not making much news. But you can still find the missing child being used as a point of reference for lazy hacks looking for context:

DAILY MIRROR: “If I hadn’t been found I would have had a different life –
EXCLUSIVE 20 YEARS ON ..KIDNAP BABY NATALIE”

When she was cruelly snatched aged five months by a woman posing as a store detective, Natalie became Britain’s most famous baby.

That’s Natalie Horrell, in case you’ve forgotten.

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Anorak

Posted: 12th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (207)

Madeleine McCann: Email Hoaxes and TV Thrillers

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

THE GUARDIAN: “Beware of the hoax”

Emails that warn of preying rapists and ruthless carjackers are currently doing the rounds, but how seriously should we take them? Viv Groskop reports…

Emails?

Other warnings are born out of the fear generated by a real crime. Shortly after the Madeleine McCann case hit the headlines last year I received a “watch out” email from a friend of a friend about a local mother who claimed the police had told her a “paedophile ring” was operating in the area, after her child was almost snatched from her car. I talked to the police about this and they confirmed that there was a grain of truth in it: a local mother had reported that she had seen two men standing near her car. The police hadn’t been able to ascertain any criminal intent though, and they definitely didn’t mention anything about paedophiles. The story had simply spiralled.

Spreading the fear…

STUFF (NZ): “TV review: Thriller ripples with creepy menace”

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Anorak

Posted: 11th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann | Comments (333)

Madeleine McCann: Angelina Jolie Feels The Pain

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

THIS IS HULL – and Total Film Magazine:Angelina: “It’s so upsetting”

Angelina Jolie has reportedly revealed she has been deeply moved by the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Oh?

The Oscar-winning actress – who has four children with Brad Pitt and is due to give birth to twins – empathises with the McCann family as a parent herself.

Angelina told Total Film magazine: “It’s the worst thing in the world. I love Brad and if anything happened to him it would wreck me, but if anything happened to my kids… it’s something I can’t even think about it’s so upsetting.”

La Jolie would shoot them – she’d shoot them, all in the face.

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Anorak

Posted: 10th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Madeleine McCann | Comments (140)

Madeleine McCann: But It Is Art

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

SHOWBIZ IRELAND: “Madeleine McCann Graffiti Child Star…”

It’s one year on since missing child Madeleine McCann was snatched from a holiday apartment in Portugal. Since then, there has hardly been a day that she hasn’t been in a newspaper or on the TV. Such has been the worldwide circulation of her photograph that her image has reached iconic status, tragically for all the wrong reasons…

Oh?

As we headed from one gig to another in South Dublin at the weekend, we happened by some plywood hoarding covered in graffiti, and one striking image immediately stood out… It was the spray-painted face of missing child Madeleine McCann with the words: “CHILD STAR” stencilled [sic] above it in black…

What to do?

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Anorak

Posted: 10th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (96)

The Madeleine McCann Effect

MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCannINFO4SECURITY: “Regulation: boost for retailers”

The Reliance Security Group’s 2008 Shopping Centre Survey – the bi-annual study of UK shopping centre managers that seeks to identify security trends and issues in the retail market – comes against a backdrop of heightened fears in relation to terrorist attack, the seemingly inexorable rise in anti-social behaviour and continued worries over child safety following several high profile disappearances highlighted by the media.

It’s “The ‘Madeleine McCann effect’”. Was she stolen from a shopping centre?

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Anorak

Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (176)

Madeleine McCann: Fact Checking The Truth About Maddie McCann And Ben Affleck’s Fiction As Fact

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

Ben Affleck has a new panic film – Gone Baby Gone – in which the lead child is blonde enough to remind all reviewers of Madeleine McCann. The film – a work of fiction – cannot be mentioned without also making mention of missing Madeleine.

It is the 12th Rule of Journalism.

THE OBSERVER: “The cruellest crime of all -Delayed by the McCann case, Ben Affleck’s intense and gripping thriller is well worth the wait”

Crimes involving children touch on our deepest emotions and though we’ve seen numerous films about infant abduction over the past 50 years, ranging in tone from Seance on a Wet Afternoon to Murder on the Orient Express, the subject is peculiarly affecting at the moment in the light of the publicity given to the cases of Shannon Matthews in Dewsbury and Madeleine McCann in Portugal… To add to the anxiety, there is an uncanny physical resemblance between Madeleine McCann and the film’s four-year-old Amanda McCready.

It’s tabloid bingo, in the broadsheet Observer! Can anyone mention Fritzl and get the prize?

IRISH INDEPENDENT: “It’s a film that examines the media hysteria and prurience that happens when children are abducted — especially pertinent themes in our post-Madeleine post-Austrian crazies times.”

Anorak

Posted: 8th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (164)

Madeleine McCann: Selling Portugal And Imagining Pain

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

AMANDA PLATELL (Daily Mail): “It’s impossible to imagine the pain of Kate and Gerry McCann planning their first holiday with their three-year-old twins since Madeleine disappeared more than a year ago.”

Impossible? You can try…

Every moment of happiness which the rest of us take for granted – birthdays, holidays, Christmas – must serve only as a painful reminder of their loss.

But I, for one, applaud them for trying to give Sean and Amelie as ordinary a life as possible. The easy thing would be to give in to sorrow. The hardest thing is to go on living and loving for your remaining children.

Or so one would imagine…

TRAVEL VIDEO.TV: “Rejuvenating Portugal’s historic spas”

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Anorak

Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (163)

Those Madeleine McCann Jokes

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

IRISH INDEPENDENT: “Much has been made of Tommy Tiernan mentioning Madeleine McCann on Friday night.”

Much has been made of it in the Irish Independent, here and here.

Both Sean Hughes [“You’ve got kids? What’d you do, tell them you were off to a tapas bar?”] and Patrick Kielty [“If the McCanns wanted to dispose of the body of their daughter, they should have checked her in as luggage on a Ryanair flight”] have already gone down this road, making the subsequent tabloid frenzy rather ridiculous. Tiernan made no mention of the offensive gag at the show I caught on the Saturday.

Want to know what the joke was? Want to use one to get publicity for your act? The Irish Independent will not dignify it with a mention. But on the paper’s message boards, we learn:

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Anorak

Posted: 6th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (175)

Madeleine McCann: Holidays, Médecins Sans Frontières And Media Wars

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

DAILY MAIL (front page): “McCanns first holiday since Maddie vanished”

This is the first time the story has featured on a tabloid front page since May 11.

The parents of Madeleine McCann are to take their first holiday since her disappearance 13 months ago. Gerry and Kate McCann, both 40, refused to say where they were going. But they confirmed it would not be Portugal.

Any more facts in this story, now 14-months old?

The McCanns are “both doctors”. Indeed.

Says McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell: ‘It will be incredibly painful to contemplate going away without Madeleine, but this is the reality they are faced with. Nothing has been booked yet. But one thing’s certain – they won’t be going to Portugal.”

Although it might be ruse, and tabloid editors looking to detail staff to cover the McCanns’ trip should not discount any resort just yet.

DAILY TELEGRAPH (Aus): “Parents of missing Madeleine McCann to go on first holiday.”

Anorak

Posted: 5th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (547)

Madeleine McCann: Lad’s Mag Fodder

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

Update on today’s other Maddy News….

LOADED magazine: Kate McCann features in a feature called “IS IT JUST US?”

Having decided that cellar hunter Lorraine Kelly and GMYT weather girl Clair Nasir offer a “heaving cleavage” and “cheap thrill”, respectively, the magazine for lads who can’t access porn:

Kate McCann – Sensitive one this, but there’s nothing more erotic to some than a pained woman in need of good lovin’

A spot on GMTV – and a stain on Loaded’s sheets – is Kate McCann’s…

Anorak

Posted: 4th, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (348)

Madeleine McCann: Blame It On Portugal And Announcing A Holiday

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

DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Madeleine McCann’s family to go on holiday a year after disappearance”

Somewhere nice?

Says the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “It will be incredibly painful to contemplate going away without Madeleine but this is the reality they are faced with.

“Nothing has been booked yet, but one thing’s certain – they won’t be going to Portugal.”

Obviously. Well, who would?

Anorak

Posted: 4th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (199)

Madeleine McCann: Time Out

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

TIME OUT: A review of Gone Baby Gone, an average made-for-TV-style film which hinges on its star turn – no, not Ben Affleck, Madeleine McCann:

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Anorak

Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (381)

Madeleine McCann: Tommy Tiernan’s Material And Leeds Business Week

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

DAILY MIRROR: “McCANN POLICE ARE GUILTY OF CRUELTY”

The Portuguese police are guilty of cruelty? Hunter becomes hunted:

Kate and Gerry McCann could still face charges of neglect, according to the first published court ruling on the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.

Official documents in Portugal show that the police there have not yet ruled out bringing such charges. This hardly feels like a positive step in either finding Madeleine, or discovering what happened to her.

IRISH INDEPENDENT: “Catty and Batty it sure is a funny old game for Tommy”

FOOTBALL can be a funny old game, especially when it’s played by a bunch of madcap comedians from around the world.

Comedy is funny old game – geddit?

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Anorak

Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (632)

Madeleine McCann: Every Directors Worst Nightmare

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

THE GUARDIAN: Ben Affleck has a movie out and thanks to the case of Madeleine McCann it’s getting lots and lots of press.

Breaking news broke my movie – What scuppered the chances of Ben Affleck’s latest film? This time he can’t blame the critics, says Andrea Hubert. Events in Portugal on the other hand…

It’s the twist of fate that every director fears most: you spend endless meetings fine-tuning the script, months sweating on a Hollywood lot, run it by the test screenings – and then, just as you’re ready to serve up your latest cinematic masterpiece, real life pulls the rug out from beneath your feet.

It’s every director’s worst nightmare. But Affleck’s film is a work of fiction and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is raw reality…

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Anorak

Posted: 31st, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities, Madeleine McCann | Comments (668)

Madeleine McCann: Tabloid Justice For Kate And Gerry McCann

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

You want justice?

SOUTH SHIELDS GAZETTE: “Should the McCann’s face child neglect charges? – Today’s Web Vote”

In Today’s web vote we’re asking:

Are Portuguese police right to consider charging the McCann’s [sic] with child neglect?

Read the full story here before deciding which way to vote in out poll.

Yes? No?

Only two options – but investigative journalism needs to begin somewhere…

Anorak

Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (417)

Madeleine McCann: Jasper Gerard – What I Did On My Holidays

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

PRIVATE Eye reports that Telegraph columnist Jasper Gerard – a sometime sports writer who surely needs billing as ‘Jaspie G’ – marked the first anniversary of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance by travelling to Portugal with his wife and two children.

He also, allegedly, took along a security guard for baby minding duties.

Anorak

Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann | Comments (349)