Missing girl family plans ad blitz

You don't have to live with it either...

It's also kinda laughable now that it's looking more and more likely that the parents offed the kid themselves.

Oh for fuck's sake. Keep reading the red-tops, Spike. Jesus H. Christ. And how are you 'living with it'? Is your daughter missing?

Yes. Though asshole is too small a word for the gaping hole in your humanity illustrated by your post. So two parents are using every means at their disposal to find their daughter, making it public, shoving it down everyone's throat in a desperate effort to keep Madeline in the public's consciousness and you think it's ....disgusting? Absolutely fucking astonishing.

For months she's been dominating the newspapers and TV reports. There's even fucking adverts in the cinema telling me to look out for 'our maddy'. It's like the British Isles now has public ownership of this child, and all because some affluent, white, parents left their kid unattended in a hotel room.

Blame the media for focusing on this case. Blame the public for their willingness to donate funds to advertising the case and not others. Do not hate the missing child or her parents (though you can freely hate the parents if it ends up that they did kill her). Be rational about where you aim your disgust.

I have to echo this sentiment. If my child were missing I'd sell, pawn, or steal whatever I needed to, to keep people looking for them. But I also understand the OP's feelings on this matter. ANY missing kid should be covered how this child has, not just the "white, blond, upper middle class, etc.."

I think the problem is that it's always a little blond girl. The coverage is so blatantly biased that every time you see another blond girl on the news you can't help but react "for fuck's sake, again?" If this is how they are going to approach missing children, then I'd rather the news not get involved at all.

And I totally understand that sentiment, and I don't fault anyone for having that reaction. The news should cover all missing kids or none at all.

They need to call the fine folks at Carl's Jr. I'm sure they'd come up with a real classy ad.

Tycoon Sir Richard Branson is giving £100,000 to a fund to assist Kate and Gerry McCann with their legal costs.

Guess I'll be stating the obvious, but thinking from an editor's point of view, I dont see how a kid going missing from her parents house on holiday is national news. How does it affect millions of people? The whole thing is disgusting all around, but I find myself more disgusted by 'reputable' newspapers giving the story frontpage headlines. Obviously at some point the news agenda is set and they have no choice but to follow, but they shouldnt let themselves get led around by the tabloids in the first place.

I dont pay much attention to events like this, but this time its been so massive that even I cant ignore it anymore and find myself clicking on the latest news stories regarding DNA evidence and whatnot.

Also, hate to beat a dead horse but I cant remember the last time a non-white British kid went missing in the news. Guess they're just lucky! (although if there's race hate involved, they'll get a mention for a week or two)

Personally, I'm sick of the attitude that the McCanns MUST be innocent, and the Portuguese police are obviously framing them, and anyone who suggests otherwise is a heartless monster. Fact is, the Home Office have seen the evidence, and have refused to step in aid the McCanns with their plight. That, to me, says there's at least a foundation for the authorities' beliefs. And to be honest, a missing/dead girl's disappearance/murder being solved is a lot more important than protecting the feelings of the parents. Right now, everyone should be taking a step back from throwing around sympathy or bile and let this thing play out.

I will say, however, that the rampant classism this case has brought to the surface in Britain is very, very ugly. Every news report makes sure to note that these two are affluent doctors, and most are sure to remind us that they are in no way to blame for leaving their three very young children in an unlocked hotel room for hours at a time. If the McCanns had been unemployed and/or getting benefits, we'd never hear the end of their poor parenting decisions. Not that I pin such media jockeying on the McCanns - it's the slimy bastards propogating this nonsense that deserve the ire.

I absolutely agree that if I were a parent, I'd want my kid's face all over every media outlet and to have the police search for her non-stop. But I also agree that this is classism at it's ugliest. The search for this kid has taken on telethon-like proportions because she's a cute little blonde white girl. I've yet to ever ever see a campaign like this for a black or latino child, and it's not fair. Any missing child deserves to have the attention the McCann's have had for their daughter. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve it - I'm saying that all missing kids SHOULD get equal coverage and police attention.

And the thing that pisses me off the most is that they're just now looking at the parents as suspects. Why? Again - they're white upper middle class, educated, etc. Which, I suppose means, that there's no way they could snap or anything like that and harm their own kid? They're above it somehow? Bullshit. If there was ever a chance that she was alive somehow (which I doubt, but bear with me), it's probably been fucked away because they never looked at the two people closest to her till now. And I guarantee you that if the parents were black, latino - or living in poverty regardless of their race - those parents would be the first ones questioned and looked at by the cops. But now? Months have gone by before the police finally said, "Ohhhh, yeah. What about the parents?" I mean, some parents are heartless monsters who DO kill their kids. Diane Downs and Susan Smith aren't exactly cooling their heels in prison for no reason.

I'm a huge fan of the Court TV shows like Forensic Files and stuff of that nature. And the detectives on those shows have stressed that not only do you always look at the people closest to the victim first, but many times, they're considered the primary suspects unless they have other hard leads. So it should have been natural to suspect the McCanns before anyone else - they're the parents, they would have seen her last, etc. But it was never even considered till too late.

To be honest, I haven't really been paying much attention to this case but on the way home I was listening to the radio, the talkback host was talking to a journo in London regarding this case. What caught my attention was the fact that due to the press coverage of this case, alot of rich people decided to poor their money into funding the search for this little girl which was commendable but have since pulled out, Richard Branson is the only one still putting up the money. Why volunteer your services if you're only going to say, sorry but this is taking up too much of my time, you're on your own.

If the parents did it, it wasn't deliberate - latest word is that Madeleine accidentally ODed on sleeping pills and booze or something generally neglectful like that. And if that is the case, then the Dumbest Possible Thing They Could Do was call this much attention to it.

The only thing that pisses me off is the fact that they're getting all these donations. Who thought this family was the most deserving source for your charity? If you have a flash Portuguese villa, then you don't need donations, trust me. And even that's more the fault of the idiots who donated the money. Did they do it because it was the only "we need your money" story currently on TV? I'm sure there's an SPCA down the road; give your money to them. Jesus.

It's like when billionaires get expensive state funerals. And yes, that happens quite often. Fuck that shit, how about giving the country's nurses a pay hike.

Yeah, I was wondering about what people think they're donating money to. Donating money to find the child is one thing, donating money for the parent's legal defence is another.

well there we are then DNA evidence so they must be guilty....
only problem is that all the evidence is shit,there is no evidence that
she was given an overdose its just a theory that the police came up
with then tried to say the DNA proved it without realising that you
cant get that information from the DNA source they had,which btw
now appears not to be hers anyway but the twins,fucking incompetant
bastards ...

So you've seen all the evidence that the Portuguese police have, then? Well, I guess that's the case cleared up.

This right here, this is the classist, xenophobic bullshit I'm talking about. The redtops have whipped up a frenzy over the incompetence of the Portuguese police, completely ignoring the fact that the two key points of their case - the blood, hair and bodily fluids in the rental car trunk, and the corpse scent picked up by the sniffer dogs - come from the British police force's work on the case. And it's fascinating to see how the public have rounded upon DNA evidence as "completely unreliable" over the past coupla weeks. Not just THIS DNA evidence, but ALL DNA evidence.

Let's clear this up: the only people who've said that the DNA MAY be the twins is the McCann camp themselves. There's been no comment from official sources whatsoever, and to be frank, the idea of getting blood, hair and bodily fluids from old baby nappies seems somewhat farfetched. And yes, you can get information about drug levels in the bloodstream from hair.

The funny thing is, if a similar case was produced against the other suspect, Robert Murat, the papers would be ALL OVER him as the obvious kidnapper/killer.

EDIT: I failed. NM.

I found it weird seeing the 'have you seen this girl' posters strewn all over the UK. Like, how are we supposed to help in any substantial way? Talk about blitz, I'm still astounded by how much effort went into the search for her. I mean its a good thing obviously, doing anything to find a girl, but to beat the dead horse, so many go missing, I can only imagine what other parents of missing children are feeling about this particular event, and its impossible to ignore it because there's a 'have you seen this girl' poster EVERYWHERE.

I also hate the British tabloids, I mean even more so than usual. I'm using the tube more these days, so its inevitable to end up reading them second-hand, everyone's got a paper in their hands and my eyes wander over them, and its nothing but "SHE'S INNOCENT" on the front page. I mean, that's the headline, not an editorial, but an actual headline of a 'newspaper'. If I was in the government, I'd see about getting nearly every paper in this country stripped of its 'newspaper' status, because they're obviously not reporting news, more regurgitating unwanted facistic opinions.

I saw an article lambasting a celebrity with a bag that had a 'nazi' sign knitted into it, little did the idiotic journalist know that the swastika has been around long before the nazis showed up. I just want to headbutt every reader of these papers.

What's more depressing about the situation is that my training to be a journalist essentially allowed me to understand that despite the sheer awfulness of the Tabloid Press they are what 12 million people in this country want to read and every story and headline they print is designed to appeal to that huge audience.

McCann is just another case of easily controllable mass hysteria, with the papers rounding people up into a frenzy by their usual sleight of hand. Even papers which are usually fairly reliable (The Independent for example) are starting to get all nationalistic and creepy about it.

And for anyone doubting what the media saturation is like in this country, Charlie Brooker's latest article sums it up perfectly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/c...168344,00.html

Thr rebirth of this story over the past week has been beyond depressing. I realise the parents are trying to raise more money and have lost a child, but talking about how their sex life suffered on the front pages of the tabloids and begging the Prime Minister to devote funds to finding this one probably-dead little girl is just so insane.

 

Not as insane as the press/public once again getting swept up in the tide of faux grief/handwringing about the family, but still.

Holy shit, this is still going on?

It's resurfaced with the mother's release of a tell-all book designed to raise funds for the search. There's so much wrong with the whole situation, but the press' adoption of the McCanns as saintly do-gooders whose quest is the most important thing in the history of mankind is probably the most dispiriting aspect.

 

I am always looking to pimp out the incredible Charlie Brooker. Below is his most recent attack on the idiot side of the British Media and their utterly blatant lies.
 

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/14/daily-star-crude-propaganda