the greatest scandal in our news media in at least a decade

Do read Brian Cathcart in the New Statesman out today.

We hacven't heard a lot of the McCann's since certain newspapers paid up damages to the family but perhaps now is time for reflection.

He describes the case as

the greatest scandal in our news media in at least a decade - an outrage far worse than the Andrew Gilligan "sexed-up dossier" affair of 2003 - and those responsible are now slinking away almost unpunished. They are escaping, moreover, by the most shameful of means. The editors and proprietors of the papers responsible for the great balloon of speculative nonsense that was the McCann story had the power to kill off discussion of what went wrong in the press, and they used it. When their balloon burst, they simply began pretending it had never existed.

and points out that

In nearly 100 articles, 11 newspapers made allegations against the three which they admitted were entirely without foundation - allegations which could hardly have been graver, since they included lying to the police, paedophile activities and involvement in the abduction of Madeleine McCann

What the media commentators are saying

Stephen Glover in the Independent comments on the payout for Robert Murat last week and warns that

Murat's victory should serve as a warning to the entire British press

and saying that

Many will note that all the newspapers involved, which also paid damages to two associates of Mr Murat, were tabloids.

But adds Glover

it would be wrong, I think, to exclude the Portuguese police and our so-called quality newspapers from general censure.

adding

I do not deny the tabloids sometimes went further, with the Daily Express probably being the most egregious in its suggestions of a paedophile ring. No doubt tabloid headlines were also bigger and more dramatic. But it is surely undeniable that, albeit in a more circumspect way, the quality papers also implicated Mr Murat, relying mostly on police evidence, but sometimes adding touches of their own. Incidentally, I am sure that some television news programmes also displayed tabloid excesses

In the Guardian Peter Wilby thinks that the media's behaviour was a risk worth taking

The 2007 marketing budget for the Sun was estimated at £16m, that for the News of the World at £5m - and the figures are likely to be higher this year. The budget for the Daily Mail may be close to £20m. When you look at those figures, £72,727 seems like small change. But that is the figure you reach if you divide the collective damages of £800,000 paid to Robert Murat and two others falsely linked to the Madeleine McCann abduction, between the 11 offending newspapers, including the Sun, News of the World and the Mail. Legal fees will probably boost the cost to each paper well beyond £100,000 - but, if you regard smear stories as a circulation booster, you might reasonably treat the overall costs as a minor charge on the marketing budget.

Big Brother comes under a fair deal of scrutiny.Ben Dowell in media Guardian asks

Has the world finally fallen out of love with the show

Almost certainly not in the UK -where This year's series has been averaging only 3.3 million so far - but this looks likely to increase as the contest hots up. In any case, Channel 4 has signed up to the show until 2010 at least and it remains, according to Tim Hincks, chief executive of Endemol UK, a "banker" for the channel ,"just like Wimbledon or EastEnders is to the BBC".

Whilst Conor Dignam in the Indy tells us why,Why Channel 4's next celebrity eviction must be 'Big Brother' itself

Spend just a few minutes watching this year's Big Brother on Channel 4 and it's easy to understand why the show is losing its appeal. It is a format that built its reputation on the ability to surprise, but there are no more tricks in the box. The novelty of the first few series, of discovering characters, is now lost in the predictable casting and the overriding sense that the ambition of everyone in the house is some form of D-list celebrity.

Jeff Jarvis looks at the newspaper industry and thinks

Newspapers are in the wrong businesses.They should no longer be in manufacturing and distribution, which have become cost-heavy yokes. And they should no longer try to be in the technology business - because they're bad at it.

Sun commemorates the disappearance of Maddy

The Sun marks the first anniversary of the disapperanace of Madeleine McCann with the three part,I hesitate to say, commemorative issue

Todays coverage covers 12 pages including a day by day chronology of the events of the past year.

Yesterday writing in the Sunday Telegraph,Lionel Shriver wrote that

Like any novelist, I'm a sucker for a good story. Yet fiction and non-fiction are shelved in separate sections of a bookshop for good reason. However imaginative its variations, fiction conforms to amazingly strict narrative criteria.

And for the writer the journalist profession has treated this tragedy rather like a work of fiction adding

In the case of Madeleine McCann, the British media has frequently elevated the requirements of fiction over the truth. As a consequence, a grieving couple's loss of their daughter has been made even more agonising than it had to be. Indeed, this last year's over-the-top Maddy-mongering has to go down as one of British journalism's most shameful instances of cheap, cavalier opportunism - of its greater commitment to a "good story" over the accurate one.

What the media columnists are saying

The Guardian looks this morning at the media coverage of the Tibet crisis.

Steven Sarkur reports on a familiar aspect of China

The jammers, the plug-pullers and the internet blockers are hard at work in Beijing. The strategy is crude but effective and this is how it works. As I watched my colleagues on BBC World report on the riots in Tibet two weeks ago, the television in my Beijing hotel suddenly went dark. No test card, no patriotic music, just a blank screen and silence. When the Tibet report was done, back came the picture.

Pointing out that in the next few months

hundreds of journalists will head to China in the run-up to the Beijing Games. As the last couple of weeks have illustrated, the Olympics represents not just an opportunity for China to showcase its achievements and global status, but also for opponents of the dictatorship to garner unprecedented attention. Covering the former will be straightforward; reporting the latter, and putting it in context, will be anything but.

And in the same paper,Jonathan Watts tells of the hardships of repoting

The pitfalls are enormous. Political sensitivities over Tibet can hardly be greater than in Olympics year. The two sides - the Chinese leadership in Beijing and the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India - are projecting vastly different interpretations of what is happening. Casualty figures, arrests, riot-damage and paramilitary violence are all disputed. The only way to be sure of anything is to see it with your own eyes. But even that has been impossible for most journalists most of the time.

Steven Glover at the Indy looks at the controversial remarks of Bill Deedes over the Barclay's brothers and the Telegraph's handling of it

Coming from anyone this would be inflammatory. Coming from Bill, a natural courtier who had cheerfully adapted to previous changes of regime in journalism and politics without demur, it was absolutely amazing. The Daily Telegraph had a choice. It could denounce the book, and in particular his remarks about the Barclays, as the ravings of a senile old fool. Or it could buy it for serialisation, ensuring that no other newspaper would run the embarrassing bits. Wisely, it did the latter, paying a handsome sum for first, second and third rights, so that no one else could have a further bite.

The newspaper'shandling of another incident is frowned on by Peter Wilby in the Guardian

Most newspapers virtually ignored the extraordinary apology by Express Newspapers' four national titles to the parents of Madeleine McCann. I am not surprised. The sin to which the Express titles confessed - presenting gossip and hearsay as hard news - has become the staple of downmarket journalism and is infecting upmarket papers too. It is accompanied by casual cruelty and a highly judgmental tone.

and the PCC comes in for critisism

The PCC also lacks teeth: it has no power to fine papers, call for resignations, or act without a specific complaint from a directly aggrieved party.

Andrew Keen writes that

Today, we are all teetering on the precipice of life after television – our media habits being radically transformed by devices like the notebook PC, the video mobile phone and the high-resolution iPod touch. New platforms like the internet and mobile are breaking television's monopoly on the distribution of home entertainment. Even today's television – with its set-top box, its pay-per-view programming and web-browsing functionality – no longer resembles the old telly that we grew up with.

but says

It is hard to think what comes next.

Finally it is 40 years since the birth of satirical comedy and Andrew Fettis in the Independent says

Many people are claimed to have changed the face of British comedy. Forty years ago, aged only 27, David Frost actually did.

And Frost is interviewed in the Guardian

Are there any interviewees who have eluded him? "I had been trying to get Fidel Castro forever, really. I don't know how ill he is now, but I would love to interview Castro before he goes," he says. "And at the moment, the new Russian leader is somewhat interesting."
He also wonders what he would do if he secured an interview with Osama bin Laden. "Your citizen's duty and your journalist's duty clash. You should try and carry out a citizen's arrest really, but you might not last very long. If you did the interview and conspired not to reveal where it was, that would be a disservice to freedom."

The guilty parties but the editors won't resign

Thanks to Martin Moore for this link.

He points out that even though the Express has taken down its Madeleine links,by tying in the name of the guilty parties on this site you can see who wrote what about Maddy

Try these links

Martin Evans

David Pilditch

Padraig Flanagan

Nick Fagge

Martin Stote

Matt Drake

Meanwhile on the same topic Roy Greenslade asks why the editors involved in publishing the stories shouldn't face the sack

The four papers have published a series of libellous stories, numbering more than 100 in total. That is surely unprecedented. The papers' abject and swift capitulation after receiving a solicitor's letter is unprecedented (newspapers usually fight down to the wire). The publication by four papers of prominent front page apologies is unprecedented.

and adds that

The scale of the papers' culpability, continuing to carry grossly defamatory stories despite a legal warning, is also unprecedented. This sordid episode must be seen as a new low for British journalism, a landmark moment

Here here

Express and Star apologise to the McCanns

It is probably unprecedented that two National newspapers make a public apology on their front pages to the same people on the same day.

Roy Greenslade says

I know that The Sun famously carried two front page apologies in the 1980s - to the Queen for running her Christmas address ahead of time and to Elton John for libelling him - but four papers being compelled to carry the same apology has never happened before.

This morning the Express and the Star apologise to the McCann's for what it believed to be over 100 articles that accussed the couple of being involved in the disapperance of their daughter.

The Express says

The Daily Express today takes the unprecedented step of making a front-page apology to Kate and Gerry McCann.
We do so because we accept that a number of articles in the newspaper have suggested that the couple caused the death of their missing daughter Madeleine and then covered it up.
We acknowledge that there is no evidence whatsoever to support this theory and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance.
We trust that the suspicion that has clouded their lives for many months will soon be lifted.
As an expression of its regret, the Daily Express has now paid a very substantial sum into the Madeleine Fund and we promise to do all in our power to help efforts to find her.
Kate and Gerry, we are truly sorry to have added to your distress.
We assure you that we hope Madeleine will one day be found alive and well and will be restored to her loving family.

The Star says

The Daily Star today makes a wholehearted apology to Kate and Gerry McCann for stories suggesting the couple were responsible for, or may be responsible for, the death of their daughter Madeleine and for covering it up.
We now recognise that such a suggestion is absolutely untrue and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance.

Of course,these papers were not the only ones to point the finger of blame at the family,therefore these warning shots may be only the first step in the battle

At last !!!!!!!!!!!

The McCann's have turned on the Express and not before time.

Guardian media is reporting that

Following the threat of legal action from Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry over what their spokesman Clarence Mitchell described as a series of "wildly and grossly defamatory" articles, the paper, together with its Express Newspapers stablemates the Sunday Express, the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday, has removed all references to the missing girl from its website search engine.

So if you type McCann into the search engine of the Express or Star you will get nothing.What a shame though that we can't look back at all those ridiculous headlines.

The return of Maddie Mania

Both the News of the World and the Express lead this Sunday morning with Maddy stories.

By far the more significant,the NOW has an artists impression of a suspect based on

new sensational clues

that the paper has unearthed.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/2001_maddie.shtml

These amount to

Granny Gail Cooper, 50, was staying just 600 YARDS from the McCann family's Portuguese holiday flat when she had THREE separate chilling encounters with the moustachioed mystery man.

Quite why it has taken so long for this to come to light is rather baffling,though the paper maintains

Mrs Cooper rang police on May 7 and gave a statement at her home on May 21 she heard no more. But it is now clear how important her account—and the facial likeness built from it—may be.

Perhaps far more worrying is the front Page of the Sunday Express which reports that the pressure over the last few months on the McCann's

THE lives of Kate and Gerry McCann are moving in “opposite directions” because they have developed strikingly different ways of coping with the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine.

Not surprising really but is it really necessary to inform us of this? The story seems to have come from an amalgaman of comments from family sources.,close friends and neighbours.

The mental and emotional agony they’re going through is unbearable,” said another friend. “We worry that’s it’s putting a strain on their relationship.”

Yes and........

Give the public want they want

It's that time of year and Peter Wilby takes a look at the past 12 months of the national press in the Guardian this morning.

Under the headline,Don't blame us - it's the readers' fault,Peter asks whether the press are simply providing what the public want

As other stories failed to meet expectations, the year was dominated by a four-year-old child.

says Peter.adding

Almost everything written since then has been based on speculation and, dare I say it, invention. When their inventiveness dried up, the papers fell back on asking themselves why they were so interested in the case - "commentary on the commentary", as Matthew Parris called it in the Times last week.

Until taken over by the missing canoeist that is.

Thomas Aquinas sets the news values

Try telling this to the Daily Express


Interesting perceptive of the Maddy case from across the Atlantic as Steve Borris tells us that

here is the historical checklist for a popular tragedy:
1) a woman or child as a victim or suspect;
2) a physically attractive victim or suspect;
3) a highborn or well-known victim or suspect;
4) some doubt about the guilt of the suspect; and
5) intimations of promiscuous or irresponsible behavior by the victim or suspect.

But perhaps we have to go back to the 13th Century to understand where those values come from

Understanding the public’s all-too-human interest in these tragedies might be less of a job for a scientist than a 13th century theologian like Thomas Aquinas. Among the 7 deadly sins he categorized, these popular tragedies appeal to most of them — envy, pride, greed, and lust. Beyond providing us with lust-provoking things to watch and think about, our greed makes us envy those of wealth or prominence, whose troubled lives restore our pride that our own, less glamorous lives are acceptable. When mainstream news tries to avoid stories that are sensational and titillating, they are fighting against their own customers’ human naturerom

Listener Power prevails over Maddie

I didnt catch the Five live phone in yesterday that atempted to galvanise a debate on Maddie McCann.

It appears that listener power and the doubts of Peter Horrocks forced the programme to change tack.

According to Press Gazette

The show asked listeners for their opinions on whether they back Kate and Gerry McCann, now back in Britain.
Listeners of the Victoria Derbyshire phone-in were asked: "Do you back the family and feel they have to fight their corner against the speculation or do you think that all those involved, including the media, should shut up and let the experts do their jobs?"

Listeners quickly decided that this wasnt a good thing to debate,one texting in that thery had lost a listener.

When Horrocks was interviewed by presenter Victoria Derbyshire he said

"This morning we have decided that it is not the most important story today, unlike this network which has been leading on this story," ......

"I am not sure that some of the debate you have been having which is encouraging people to speculate and give their views one way or another is something we would do in TV news coverage."

So listener power won in the end and the station was forced to abandon the phone in.

Footnote-Bob Piper draws our attention to contrasting press values when it comes to reporting

Consider how the British press handled two very different disappearances, the nights of 3 and 4 May 2007.
In early May two British doctors, Kate and Gerry McCann, were on holiday in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz. On the night of 3 May 2007 they went out to dinner at a tapas bar near their hotel, leaving their three-year old daughter Madeleine behind with their two other young children. At some point that evening, Madeleine left or was abducted from their unlocked apartment, and she hasn’t been seen since.
The night after the world’s most visible missing person vanished, early on 4 May 2007, at least 80 other people disappeared when a boat sank in the Caribbean. This time British authorities were directly involved in the disaster, and there is good reason to suspect that the deaths may have been the result of criminal negligence, if not of deliberate police violence. Some of the dead may have been eaten by sharks; many were women and children. A UK government enquiry is currently underway and the publication of its final report is due in August

Read in full

Echoes of the Guillotine Knitters

Amid the latest McCann media scrum which watching some of the coverage on the 24 hour news yesterday was frankly appalling,read Max Hastings in today's Guardian,

Media coverage gives credence to a belief that European society is plagued by monsters stalking the young. When a child dies, every police officer knows that his or her force's reputation is at stake in identifying a plausible murderer.
These crimes sell a great many papers, which neither Iraq nor Darfur will do. Some colleagues would accuse me of an absurd squeamishness, because I hang my head in shame at what our trade, as well as the Portuguese police, has made of the McCann story.

The police, in their turn, have plenty to say about the cynicism of media and public. There is a readily recognised scale of popular sentiment about murder, at the bottom of which come gangland killings, especially black on black. If one drug dealer kills another, to most people it is a matter of indifference. Prostitutes receive only slightly more sympathy, because they are widely supposed to have brought their fates upon themselves. If enough of them die, however, as in Ipswich, serial murder generates a frisson of its own.

Enough said?

A step too far for the McCann's?

The news that the McCann's are taking a Portuguese newspaper to task over comments that it made about their role in the abduction is surley the last thing that the parents need to do.

As this story rumbles on and on,whilst I of course sympathise with the parents,their relationship with the media and their self publicity has not helped matters.

This move however badly the paper has treated them will only keep them in the spotlight.

Read Mark Lawson in today's Guardian who says

Even in a culture in which privacy is a vanishing virtue, a significant shift seems to have occurred. A previous era gave children the injunction that they should be seen but not heard. The rule in the 21st century media appears to be that parents should be seen and heard vociferously. Yet there are already signs that this trend towards parental broadcasting comes at the risk of psychological cost to the families and voyeurism for the audience.

Cathcart on Maddy

With the coverage of the Maddy case after a lull for a few weeks returning to the top of the agenda for a few of the papers,the article by Brian Cathcart in this weeks New Statesman is well worth a read.

As he says

A month ago the only story about Madeleine McCann was that her home village of Rothley in Leicestershire had decided to remove the rain-drenched yellow ribbons that adorned the local war memorial

But now

the intervening weeks have given us a second McCann frenzy rivalling the first, but which, for a great deal of the time, seemed to be founded on very little. "Important" and "credible" new witnesses have surfaced; there have been "dramatic new developments

Although he says that the family have contributed to the recent publicity

You have to wonder about the judgement of editors, such as those at the Express and the Mirror, who have been persistently putting these stories on the front page only to see them turn into squibs. Or do they calculate that if they keep on banging away in this fashion, then one day a story will come good and they will be able to claim they got it right?

Unofficial Sources.

Blood on the walls,intercepted emails,phone taps,searches,suicides.sightings and denials.

All have appeared in the press over the last few days in relation to the Maddy case.Interest understandably dropped earlier in the summer but as the 100 day anniversary approaches,a number of incidents have provoked new interest.

A lot of this appears to have come from so called "unofficial sources" from within the Portuguese police.The question of whether the media should have used these sources is debatable.

However it appears that the Portuguese authorities wish to put out the message that the investigation is moving on.The direction it is taking seems to be that this is not an abduction but a murder that may have happened within the apartment.

The press,I don't believe,can be blamed for this reporting.The damage that it must be doing to the McCanns,however,is regrettable.

Deborah Orr has a good piece in this morning's Indy,which also dedicated its front page to the affair headlining "Truth, lies and the smearing of the McCanns"

Deborah says that

the journalistic emphasis has been on sensation and emotionally-driven speculation, rather than sober reporting and investigation. It has taken a long time for the sketchy details of this particular shocker to have been uncovered, and there is a lot more to do before the story really begins to stand up. This says a great deal about the state of journalism in Britain today, and all over Europe. None of it is terribly edifying.

Keystone Kops

So the Madeleine story returns to our pages after a few weeks hiatus excepting of course the Express which has decides d now that it s more important than either Diana or the long term weather prospects.

Let's hope that the Portuguese police aren't reading the Mail this morning

The Keystone Kops could have done a better job of investigating Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
How can the Portuguese police have waited until now - more than three months on - to organise a proper forensic examination of the Algarve apartment from which she went missing?
Indeed, they might never have arranged it at all without the insistence of the British police, whose offer of specialist help and sniffer dogs they inexcusably refused for 90 days.

And it continues

But there's a darker side to it, too, which goes far beyond incompetence.
This week, the Portuguese papers have been full of utterly unsubstantiated insinuations, whispered by 'police sources' - unnamed, of course - that the McCanns themselves or their holiday companions may know more about Madeleine's disappearance than they've revealed

And on the topic of leaders let's hope that David Cameron doesn't read the Mirror which says

Is there any point to the Tory party anymore?
Dopey David Cameron has lost another supporter - and this time a valuable one

.

A comment too far

An interesting story from the Mail this morning.

It reports that the Leicester Mercury,the local paper of the parents of Madeleine McCann has banned reader comment on its website after

"The paper's Internet site has received hundreds of postings, many of which call for the couple to be prosecuted over the abduction of Madeleine."

The editor of the paper says

"A tiny minority of people seem to want to say nasty, spiteful and defamatory things about the McCann family.
"They are bombarding our site, and we had no choice but to block comment entirely on reports about the family.'

Sunday Mirror goes over the top

I am not really sure what to make of the Mirror's lead story this morning.

MY LIFE WITH THE SUSPECT features an interview with the ex wife of Robert Murat who was questioned over the missing toddler Madeleine McCann,and whom a section of the papers had already decided was the guilty party.

The paper reveals

"

THE startling likeness between Madeleine McCann and
Robert Murat's daughter hits you at once.
As little Sofia Murat stares into
the camera wearing a yellow "Madeleine ribbon", she bears a haunting resemblance
to the missing four-year-old"

And

SHE was twice visited by police, who took away pictures
of Sofia and asked Dawn if she had ever caught Murat looking at porn.
HE was
agitated and tearful when he rang begging to speak to Sofia just hours after
Madeleine was snatched
HE has yet to account for key inconsistencies in his
evidence - despite repeated phone calls from Portugal back to frantic Dawn's
home in Norfolk.

Surely this is,whatever the legal aspects, bordering on unfiar intrusion and privacy.

There is no doubt that the McCann family are fighting a desperate battle to keep the coverage alive in the press including getting the next Prime Minster involved.Quite what part the Mirror is playing in this is unknown but consistently it has kept the story on its front page

Murat coverage (2)

For another take on Robert Murat's treatment by the press,Camilla Cavendish writes in this morning's Times

"the press pack in Praia da Luz has turned the story
all too rapidly into “it must be him”. Robert Murat’s face has featured in
almost every news bulletin and paper for the past 48 hours. But it is not
remotely clear that he had anything to do with it. "

Sentiments of which I have wriiten elsewhere within this blog.She continues

"

We learnt yesterday that Mr Murat “was always on the
bouncy castle” at work events. Must be a monster, then. Picture editors picked
the oddest shots they could find, and proceeded to pronounce solemnly on how
weird he looked – although he didn’t look weird to me, just harassed. "

And perhaps this is the truth of the matter as concerns the press

"

It is not only because the story is abroad that the press feels uninhibited. Our
treatment of Mr Murat echoes that of Tom Stephens, the first man to be named as
a suspect by police investigating the murders of five women in Ipswich last
year. He too had originally approached the press, which splashed the
weirdest-looking pictures of him they could find. A week later a completely
different man was charged with all five crimes. "

Coverage of Robert Murat.

The media coverage this morning of Robert Murat is disgraceful to say the least and bordering on the bounds of legality.

The press,subjected to nearly two weeks of little to report other than the angusih of the parents have now sunk their teeth into a marginal lead.The man has simply been interviewed,and as I understand it,volunteered himself to the authorities.

The price for doing that seems to be having your picture plastered over the front of the dailies,and the rolling news channels.
Being subjected to much innuendo and speculation including this from the Sun

"One-eyed Robert Murat" the relevence of which is................

And from the Express making a number of irrelevant statements:

"The suspect, Robert Murat, who is in his thirties, lives in the house with his mother.It is just 100 yards from the apartment where Madeleine was snatched 12 days ago.Murat, who was not believed to have been arrested, has a young daughter by his estranged wife who is understood to bear a striking resemblance to Madeleine."