| Product: |
Sports Miscellaneous |
| Date: |
29/05/07 (170 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Maintains focus
Disadvantages: None
I was discussing with friends a couple of days ago the fact that the news story concerning the missing girl Madeline in Portugal seems to still have legs in the national press which is pretty impressive given the number of days since her disappearence.
Admittedly it does not make the front pages so much but I cannot think of a day when the news has not contained some story or other especially on shows like GMTV which seems to provide an update every day usually as either its top or at least top three news story.
It is a pretty horrendous story and plays on the heart strings of everyone and I imagine more so for those who have chilren of their own, one of my friends who has two small toddlers admits it would be her worst nightmare scenario.
It does make you wonder though why this particular story has received quite so much press coveridge after all it is not the only child abduction to take place in the UK and certainly in the USA I read that there are 58,000 child abductions a year yet I do not remember seeing pres coveridge or the search go quite so far worldwide for any of these children.
One reason could be that at present it is a fairly quite time for news, there is no Labour leadership contest to get excited about, the constant killings in Iraq and Afghanistan have become so regular that at times it feels as though people are immune to them from a shock perspective and tere is no real scandal that has erupted to push this story out of the public awareness, who knows maybe the next Big Brother will do it, certainly in the tabloids at least, then again knowing C4 they will cash in on it in some sick way.
Another reason has to be the way the family has effectively managed the media, they have been able to ensure that tere is always something to report by using the support of family and friends, being white and middle class may have helpoed and they appear to be reasonably well off, not that this should matter but the cynic in me sees it as being more appealing to the press as something to sell, certainly they seem to have avoided the possible backlash in this country that would have followed if it was a poor working class single mother whose child had been abducted while she was out at a restaurant (presumably having a drink or two) whilst on holiday.
The third reason could be that as it did not happen in the UK we have a target to blame for her not being found, namely the Portugese police who just because they do not do things exactly the way our own police do things are therefore held up to be a bumbling ineffiecient bunch of amateurs, maybe they are but some of the stuff in the press has been rediculous including the claim that they should have closed the borders, given the land area between Spain and Portugal and the fact that there are now no actual borders such print highlights the stupidity of the journalist and not the Portugese police.
I'm not saying I'm against the coveridge, anything that helps bring the litte girl back is to be applauded it is just that I'm pleasantly surprised that it is still such a focus. Having said that my thoughts and prayers are with the family and especially the little girl.
Summary: The news focus on Maddie
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