| Product: |
General Comments |
| Date: |
12/03/08 (147 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: It helps to be cute in life
Disadvantages: The media suck
In this ambiguous category I though I would talk about child abuse-the medias child abuse of reporting these stories based on social class...
The biggest news story since Diana's death for me is the disappearance of Madeline McCann. The tabloid and printed press reveled in it; two attractive and photogenic middle-class doctors having their child abducted in sunny Portugal meant not only an intriguing news story but an expenses paid holiday in the Med. At one point the news anchors were coming live from the Algarve, Fiona Bruce looking even sexier with her deep brown skin and see through top fluttering in the Med breeze. What a woman!
The nation was obsessed with the disappearance and only too keen to push to the back of their minds the idea the Docs had anything to do with it, quickly blaming incompetent foreigner cops with huge mustaches or beachcombing pedophiles. Then as the story stagnated and the media's expenses bills hit record levels the foreign press pack was recalled. The McCann tried their hardest to keep it going by leaving the twins alone with relatives as they visited all manner of important people, including the Pope, of course. But no body, no story. So with no signs of the impossibly cute and sweet Maddie turning up, the silly season ended and it looked like a disappointing close without a conclusion-that was until a German journalist dared to ask the McCann's in their zillionth press conference something a lot of people had been thinking all along-were you involved with the loss of your child? This was, of course, a calculated move by Das Spiegel, a ploy to regenerate the story and put the parents under suspicion, what the European press had been itching to do all along. Statistics say nine out of ten child disappearance and murders involve their relatives and so why are these English doctors being given an easy ride? The McCann's didn't like that question and as soon as the police said they were suspects they were back in the U.K the next day, increasing suspicions on the couple.
Because most families who suffer child murder or abduction are working class then this story is really about the middle-class media sympathizing with professionals from their own class, giving them the benefit of the doubt because they are like them. If white-collar doctors are leaving their kids alone so they can get drunk on holiday, or even worse than that, then what chance for society in general now the responsible people are acting like the Chavs? We just can't report that guys, not until little Shannon Mathews went missing, an American style trailer park trash name to the gutter press if there ever was one.
The point of this review is to compare the way the press treat child disappearances on purely social class and background. The recent story of little Shannon is an example of how we only react to stories in the press if they are one of our own. Shannon's mum had seven kids by five different fathers, those five fathers the first point of call for the cop's extensive search. Again, we know that with most infanticides, child murders, and abductions happen in working class families, the latter down to poorer children being allowed out to run about more at night so more opportunities to be lifted by disgruntled relatives or even predatory pedos.
What was sorry and sad about the Shannon Mathews disappearance, not the cutest kid around, was the general apathy of the media and the press towards the loss of a child on a winter's night. The press immediately assumed one of the dads had teased her away from mum and she was safe somewhere. But girls go missing all the time in those scenarios and they very rarely make the news. This made the news because the police feared she had been abducted and was in danger. But we just didn't want to know. The McCann's and their spin team did react, stories quickly appearing about 'new sightings' of their cuter child to steal the front page of the Daily Star on the day after Shannon's disappearance. Clarence Mitchell (their spin-doctor) is a sharp operator and he's not helping the McCann's case with stunts like this. Every time Maddie goes out of the news Clarence comes up with another false sighting. In fact why isn't he helping the Mathews family with their publicity machine? There T-Shirts with Shannon on the front are tatty and they can only muster one TV van in the sink estate.
Usually, in these cases, the television media are sensitive and programs are pulled from the schedule if they look like they will offend the families suffering the loss-say a film about an air crash if theirs an air disaster etc. But Channel Four weren't sensitive to say the least last week, showing an hour's documentary on the true story of two 10-year-old-girls that were abducted in Sussex by a cliché pedophile in the 90s, and how their lives had been damaged by it, just what the Mathews friends and families don't want to be seeing right now and are going through. The C4 people had made up their minds on Shannon and made no attempt to pull it. It's this tactless attitude in the media that really grates with me.
Another story in the media about child abduction and social class is centered on the female Muslim population, especially around the booming arranged marriage culture in Britain, and especially that of the forced variety, believed to be responsible for the highest number of missing school girls in the United Kingdom. In Bradford alone there are 123 girls missing from the school register in 2008, with many feared to be in Pakistan being prepared to be made to marry for cultural reasons. 140 other girls are 'unaccounted for' and these rates are reflected across the country in 14 different areas, including Birmingham, East London and Manchester, some 2400 cases nationally. That's 2400 Shannon's, but not even worth one Maddie to the media. The same media that revel in reporting missing Maddie but won't touch these cases with a barge poll until its to late, the parents or relatives in court for suspected honor killings or cruelty cases. What are we scared of in the media? Who is speaking out for these poor girls in the media? Some of these girls are forced to marry as young as 13 in rural Pakistan to get U.K passports for men, girls with BRITISH PASSPORTS! Eastern Eye has done bits about it in their Asian press but no one wants to know in the white media. It is disgusting.
The reason I'm adding this to my review is I listened to a horrific radio phone-in the other night with a girl who had been treated terribly as a child in a Pakistani household in England and was tricked over to Pakistan to get married at 13, where she was then raped. I thought this was a fairly unique and extreme case until all these Muslim girls started ringing in with similar tales to tell. The unifying thing between all of the girls was the distinct lack of love from their moms in Asian-Muslim families, honor and custom all important to the family dynamic. How could a mother let that happen to their own child? When the mothers started to ring in it was revealed, they too treated the same as kids in the Pakistan community, here and in Pakistan. I'm sure some dooyoo British Asians will be able to tell their own stories on that one. My point is that if we feel sympathy for Maddie then why not Ashrita, Amrita or Shannon? Pakistan children are some of the cutest around and I can't understand why this isn't a news story until now.
On the McCann thing, regardless of the reporting, I'm still not sure if they are guilty or innocent. Their religious beliefs and blind faith make them look cold, but that could just be a defense mechanism. If I lost a kid I don't know how I would cope. Do you think about how you're supposed to react so not to look guilty when you think how your social class will dictate the media coverage? Either way the McCann's had a lot of influential friends and the early press went their way, maybe the couple even enjoying being in the limelight as the memory of Maddie began to fade and alleged £2m Hollywood movies came into the picture. The abduction was odd enough but they just seem to add to the mystery with their friend's ambiguous statements and the blood trace in the hired car. But going by their body language I still think they are innocent in my heart of hearts.
In Shannon's step-dad the press has already found their story for this one, his polyester replica top and effeminate earring unable to compete with Gerry McCann's Doctors degree and Richard Branson on the speed dial appeal. I know which couple will be featuring in Hello Magazine one day soon. One man has been found guilty by the press whilst the other one knows the people who write the articles, not exactly balanced reporting. And as for Amrita and Ashrita? Well we don't like to talk about those things now do we...?
Summary: The media has no class..
|
|
