Another example of Really Superb investigative reporting by the British press

14 October 2007
Maddie was still alive: Exclusive
Ross Hall
The News of the World
New evidence gives fresh hope to McCanns

TODAY the News of the World reveals key new evidence that PROVES Maddie McCann was abducted ALIVE.
The latest piece of the jigsaw centres on the moment mum Kate returned to their Portuguese holiday apartment and discovered her daughter gone. Police have been told Kate KNEW instantly little Madeleine had been snatched because the bedclothes were in exactly the same position, raised above the mattress as if they were still lying over the child. Supporters of the McCanns are adamant this meant she must have been carefully removed from the bed while asleep and taken, rather than just getting up and wandering off, which would have ruffled the bedclothes.

(Blogger note: Crime Scene photos of the room. Here.)

Those close to Kate and Gerry-still official suspects in the 164-day mystery are convinced the revelation should clear the couple and switch the investigation back to finding their four-year-old. A Portuguese source told us: "People keep asking how did Kate know so quickly that Madeleine had been taken and not just walked out. "But it's obvious. When she put Maddie to bed the child was all tucked up around the shoulders, and when Kate realised she was gone all the sheets were still neatly in place.

(Blogger note: Gerry's police statement: "Then I opened the children's door 60 degrees and looked to the left and saw Maddie sleeping with her head on the pillow on the right hand side of the bed."She was breathing softly and I thought how beautiful she looked."I thought it was quite hot and I didn't need to cover her up."
Daily Mail)

Suspect

"A child of that age wouldn't have been able to get out of bed without moving a thing. Someone had clearly been in and carefully lifted her out. Kate realised that right away. "This evidence must now refocus the police attention. Kate and Gerry should be released from their suspect status."

Another vital clue pointing to kidnap came two months ago when the News of the World revealed how Maddie's treasured Cuddle Cat toy had been found on a high ledge in the room, out of her reach.

(Blogger note: Oh really?  Take another look at the crime scene. Here.  Notice cuddlecat is lying on top of the pink blanket near Maddie's pillow.)

Portuguese police are aware of the new evidence but continue to point the finger at Madeleine's anguished parents.

Close friends of the McCanns have always known about the clue but have been unable to make it public because of strict Portuguese privacy laws.

(Blogger note: By speaking to this reporter, the "close friends of the McCanns" have apparently broken the Portuguese Judicial Secrecy Law.  I hope the Portuguese will investigate this, as apparently the McCanns intend to pursue Amaral over their claims he broke this law.)


Alarmingly, the News of the World has also discovered that other holidaymakers and neighbours in the same Praia da Luz apartment block have never been asked for DNA samples-even though many helped with the search on the night Maddie went missing. Pamela Fenn lives in the apartment directly above the one rented by the McCanns and came into close contact with the couple that night. She told us: "I've not been required to give a sample or provide fingerprints."

(Blogger note:  What, are you saying that those Sardine Munching Bumbling cops were so stupid as to not consider that an 80 year old woman may to lifted Maddie from her bed without waking her (possibly first administering a sedative), tidied the bedclothes while holding the sleeping child, then crawled out the jemmied window with Maddie asleep in her arms?  No wonder Portugal is not a First Rate Country with the Best Newspapers on Earth.  If only the BRITISH had handled this that first night, Mrs. Fenn might be behind bars!)

Another apartment owner said he was surprised not to have been checked out. "I'd have thought it was important for us to give DNA samples, so we could be ruled out if nothing else," he said. "There were lots of us helping out that night and you'd think our DNA would be all over the place."

(Blogger note: Yes, actually, the crime scene was contaminated completely by the Tapas 9 long before the PJ arrived on the scene.  Do not forget the hundreds of searchers who were wandering all over the countryside all night in the darkness while Maddie's parents remained in their apartment, never once stepping out to join in the search.)

The McCanns have always vehemently denied all allegations and are now putting together a defence case they are convinced will clear their names.

They are hoping the appointment of Paulo Rebelo, Portugal's second most senior cop, to head up the case will help shift the focus away from them. Rebelo replaces Goncalo Amaral, sacked after he accused British police of being manipulated by the McCanns.

(Blogger note:  I am sorry to say this to you Mr. Please Get Your Facts Right Before Claiming to be a Journalist, but it appears more and more certain every day that Dr. Goncalo Amaral was correct.)

Continue Reading... Labels: Goncalo Amaral, Madeleine McCann

Madeleine Mccann - Eddie & Keela dogs

Continue Reading... Labels: Madeleine McCann

You keep asking yourself: 'Why did they think it was all right to leave the children?'

29 April 2008
Liverpool Echo
Paddy Shennan

EXCLUSIVE In the concluding part of his series marking the first anniversary of Madeleine McCann's disappearance, chief feature writer Paddy Shennan hears how her grandmother is still struggling to come to terms with the decision taken by nine people on that fateful night.

"I COULD shake all of them, every single one of them," says Susan Healy, the mother of Liverpool-born Kate McCann.

It all comes back to that night.

That fateful, nightmarish night of Thursday May 3, 2007 - and that fateful decision.

The night that Kate and Gerry McCann have relived and regretted time and time and time again. The night their daughter, Madeleine, was abducted while they dined in the tapas bar of their holiday complex in the Algarve with seven friends.

No one needs to tell them they made a mistake. And no one could possibly punish them more than they have punished themselves.

The anguish and sheer frustration surrounding their fateful decision continues to be painfully felt - by both Kate and Gerry and others, including Kate's parents.

Mum Susan says: "I can read articles that say Kate and Gerry should never have left their children and I can accept that. You find yourself over and over again in your head thinking: 'Why did they think it would be all right?' "Why did they think - ALL of them - it was OK to do this?

"I think they were misled into thinking it was OK - but there was no CCTV, no security.

"There is this acceptance among couples with young children, like Kate and Gerry and their friends, that these are good resorts and safe environments.

"I could shake all of them, every single one of them."

She adds: "I understand Kate and Gerry and the others ate in a restaurant without their children. It's something we had to address and Kate and Gerry have had to address it every single day.

"But at the end of the day they thought they had taken adequate provision . . . no one looks after their children better than Kate and Gerry. That's why it's so amazing they can be in this situation."

And yet, fuelled by some bizarre behaviour by the Portuguese police and some wildly unsubstantiated reporting by some Portuguese newspapers, the hate brigade has had a field day.

Lurking on websites and often hiding behind pseudonyms, these pathetic and cowardly cretins have acted like judge and jury, after first putting the boot in on Kate and Gerry McCann - Kate, especially.

Their casual, callous cruelty and almost-gleeful responses to various developments in this heartbreaking and horrifying human tragedy have been outrageous, breathtaking - and utterly depressing. A little girl is missing, but all some want to do is bitch and gloat and goad.

Kate and Gerry McCann don't read the newspapers any more, but their families do and, sometimes, they see what has been posted on the internet by poisoned minds, simple minds and sick minds.

"It gets me upset from time to time, when I'm stupid enough to read it," says Kate's mum, Susan.

Kate's dad, Brian, adds: "We've had a couple of nasty letters here. I can't believe they would actually bother their backsides to buy a stamp and post the letter. They must be warped."

Why do they bother? Susan, sadly, probably hits the nail on the head when she says: "I think they just get a certain pleasure out of it. But it worries me that we have these people in our society - no wonder the world is the way it is."

And how does it feel when you see sneering journalists and internet hate merchants trivialising the case of a missing four-year-old girl by using the term "Tapas 7" to describe Kate and Gerry's friends, or "Tapas 9" to describe thewhole group.

Susan says: "It's awful. This is a group of friends who have all suffered a terrible trauma. They all did the same thing and what happened could have happened to any one of them. It's changed all their lives."

Then there's the derogatory phrase "Team McCann". Susan says: "That's horrible. It makes it sound like an organisation without feelings.

"And Clarence Mitchell (who acts as Kate and Gerry's spokesman), who is vilified very often in the internet forums, is a genuinely nice guy and a family man. Without him, I don't know how they would have got through this year."

From being portrayed as victims to villains and victims again, the McCanns have been given a rollercoaster ride by some newspapers.

At one point, they appeared to be sinking in a sea of defamatory, factfree fantasy reports - but the tide turned when Express Newspapers issued an apology and paid £550,000 into the Find Madeleine Fund.

Regarding damaging headlines, Susan says: "Every time it happens it's like a slap in the face. You have to stop to think 'Do these people not know what they are doing?' - not just to us, but to other people."

Susan stresses that while she doesn't feel she has changed in the past year, she has seen other sides to some other people: "I have seen lots and lots of good in people, but I think I always knew people are basically very kind and supportive.

"But I have seen a side of a certain amount of people - hopefully a small minority - I wouldn't have believed prior to this."

Regarding the overwhelmingly positive side, Susan says: "People have shown us so many little kindnesses.

As one small example, Brian took my shoes to be heeled and the cobbler wouldn't take any money - so we put it in the fund."

Brian adds: "We get an awful lot of support when we walk down Allerton Road, while people I've not seen for years have got in touch."

And Susan has a special request to make of those thousands upon thousands of ECHO readers who have been behind the family from day one: "Please keep praying for us and keep supporting us.

"I'd also ask your readers to remember what this is all about - a little four-year-old child who was loved and cherished and cared for.

"She was the greatest gift anyone in our family ever had. She is somewhere and she may be frightened and unhappy."

"There is this acceptance among couples with young children - like Kate and Gerry and their friends - that these are good resorts and safe environments."

Continue Reading... Labels: Madeleine McCann, propaganda

Nobody loves to torture a 'bad mother' like the British

14 April 2008
The Times
Melanie Reid

* The persecution of Kate McCann is the cruellest thing I have seen

How many centuries of accumulated spite and misogyny, I wonder, went into the latest twist in the Madeleine McCann saga. Did the British television presenters feel the remotest twinge of conscience as they sensationally reported - second-hand via a Spanish television station - the leaks from the Portuguese police portraying Kate McCann in the worst possible light, as a mother who had left her children to cry?

And did Britain's tabloid editors, themselves presumably sons of mothers and husbands to the mothers of their own children, flinch even a jot as they ordered the devastating headlines "Mummy, why didn't you come when we cried?" to be unfurled on their front pages alongside the face of the missing little girl?

I have seen, lived with and been party to many different kinds of sadism in a long media career, but I honestly think that this latest outbreak of malice towards Kate McCann is just about the cruellest thing I have witnessed.

Many serious writers have deliberately avoided discussing the case of Madeleine. Not because it is not serious, but because there was no enlightenment we could bring; nothing remotely we could add to the frenzy of distress, loss and bewilderment.

I have avoided reading or watching most of the coverage. It was too harrowing; the couple's grief too visceral to bear; and I could not stand the treatment they received from the macho, out-of-their-depth Portuguese police. For many of us, it was enough, briefly, to contemplate the horror of losing our own child. Anything more was prurience and soap opera.

But somehow we have passed a watershed. With this latest betrayal, picking deep at Kate McCann's emotional scars, we have regressed to the level of the medieval peasants reaching for the ducking stool. Although women suspected of being witches, I sometimes grimly think, received a fairer fate in their slow drowning than do modern women accused of being bad mothers, who are tortured to the point of mental disintegration.

And so it is time to speak out in defence of Kate McCann, a woman whom I have never met, but someone who is being sacrificed to society's tyrannical views about a mother's role.

Even in the enormity of her suffering it seems Kate McCann must be punished for failing to live up to idealised, romanticised - and wholly unrealistic - maternal standards. Her child cried the night before she disappeared. It is of no relevance to Madeleine's apparent abduction, but what a glorious stick with which to beat her already guilt-ridden mother.

Why do we do perpetuate this immense cruelty upon women? There is no justice in it. Kate McCann is just the latest in a long line of high-profile victims of the prevailing fatwa - that all mothers must be perfect, self-sacrificing angels. From Kate McCann to Louise Campbell (the mother of Molly/ Misbah, the Scots girl who fled to be with her father in Pakistan), to Britney Spears to Anne Robinson to Frances Shand Kydd, nobody loves to torture a perceived bad mother or a bolter like the British do.

Any sign of weakness, any suggestion of being "unfit", any hint that a mother is compromising her child by seeking small freedoms or equality, and the judgment of society is absolute.

Behind the famous names lurk an estimated 100,000 ordinary women who are separated from their children for various reasons - everything from abduction to the mundanity of being the main earner in divorce. They must simply hide their pain, die a kind of psychological death for their loss and exist in the shadows. Some, like Paula Clennell, one of the five women murdered in Ipswich, simply give up all hope when they lose custody of their children. Their problems are too huge; the hole in their hearts too big to heal.

The taboo surrounding bad motherhood has always struck me as tantamount to pulling wings off butterflies. Vulnerable women, already heartbroken by their loss, must then face devastating social stigma. If women are honest, they admit the maternal paragon does not exist outside Catholic mythology. We all fail, and frequently. But women, terrified of being stigmatised, are often not honest.

You will find out why the media torture Kate McCann if you read the online blogs: it is because there is an audience desperate, as far as I can see, to join in any kind of attack on a bad mother. Everywhere I looked I found a harshness and a pitilessness - from both sexes - towards Kate McCann.

Women sanctimoniously pressed their own claims to maternal sainthood: "My sons are teenagers and I still don't leave them alone." They were also horribly vindictive: "Sorry Kate, but you have only yourself to blame." They even, outrageously, cited God: "You can never replace the time lost with your children which God has blessed you with."

On the Daily Mail site, women criticised Kate McCann for being photographed smiling. "If I lost my child I don't think I would ever smile again," they declared pompously.

The Daily Mirror website spoke for itself: "Sadly, due to persistent and serious abuses, we will no longer be hosting discussions regarding Madeleine McCann. We do not take this action lightly... but the level of debate on the Maddy forums has gone way beyond what we consider acceptable, with several recent incidents of extremely abusive postings, both against fellow users and the McCanns."

A society, then, riddled with prejudice, which knows precisely how to attack women where they are most vulnerable, and thereby control them. I would like to reassure Kate McCann that she is not alone, but rather a member of a growing army of mothers who share her pain and her pariah status.

In a dark, lonely corner of purgatory, behind the sign "Maternal Failures Only", there are a surprising number of her fellows who offer her only understanding, love and support. And this is a purgatory, she will come to learn, that traps only mild sinners, the undeserving and the desperately unlucky.

Continue Reading... Labels: Madeleine McCann, propaganda

McCann Family PR Offensive...

21 September 2007
CNN
Fionnuala Sweeney, Emily Chang
Excerpts:

FIONNUALA SWEENEY, CNN ANCHOR:
Hello, I'm Fionnuala Sweeney in London.
Welcome to CNN's INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, where we turn the spotlight on the media.

This week, the parents of missing Madeleine McCann go on a PR offensive. We look at their efforts to control the direction of the story.

... First, the media and the case of missing Madeleine McCann, a story that has dominated countless column mentions and television news bulletin in Portugal and Britain for more than four months. With few details released by authorities, much of the reporting has been based on leaks or speculation. Now the parents of the child have recruited a new family spokesman to help present their side of the story. Emily Chang reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EMILY CHANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over):
Kate and Gerry McCann follow closely behind their new front man, as he makes his first statement outside their home.

CLARENCE MITCHELL, MCCANN FAMILY SPOKESMAN:
And I feel so strongly that they are the innocent victims of a heinous crime.

CHANG:
This on yet another day when speculation about what happened to Madeleine continues to swirl and media coverage of the case goes round the clock.

(on camera): What do you have to say about speculation that Kate and Gerry are somehow involved in Madeleine's disappearance?

MITCHELL:
It's just not true to suggest that they harmed their daughter. They love their daughter as they love their other twins. And to somehow suggest, even indirectly, that they were responsible for her disappearance or even her death, if you know them, you realize that is just ludicrous.

CHANG:
In his former role as media advisor to the British government, Mitchell spent time with the McCanns in Portugal, just after Madeleine went missing. Sometimes he said up to 14 hours a day.

MITCHELL:
They didn't expect some of the coverage to turn the way it did. And they are relieved to be home now. They - and as a result, they're getting stronger. They - today, they're quite positive in fact. Of course, there's the constant reminder that Madeleine isn't there, but you know, they are dealing with that in their own way.

CHANG:
And Mitchell says they will continue to do everything they can to find Madeleine.

Emily Chang, CNN, in Rovely, England.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SWEENEY:
Debate 12 over how the media has covered the Madeleine McCann story. To assess that, I'm joined in the studio by Rita Jordao, the London correspondent with Portugal's Journal de Noticias and FIC TV and Charlie Beckett, the director of POLIS, the journalism think tank of the London School of Economics.

First of all, Rita, as a Portuguese journalist trying to cover this side of the story in Britain, what has been your experience?

RITA JORDAO, CORRESPONDENT, JORNAL DE NOTICIAS & SIC TV:
I think it's been very hard for British journalists in Portugal. It's been very hard for Portuguese journalists over here because you're Portuguese and because this story has become so big.

It became quite difficult for Portuguese journalists to cover the story and to get information, especially from official sources, even though, I mean, what is an official source in this case, we don't any more. But we do. Now with Clarence Mitchell, things seem to be becoming a little bit easier for journalists. Now we finally have information regularly. And hopefully, we will. And that's - up until now, it's been very difficult, very hard to get any information.

SWEENEY:
Clarence Mitchell, of course, being the person who was appointed initially by the government as the conduit to help the McCanns with their publicity that now actually has resigned his job. And there has been, has there not, Charlie Beckett, a complete distinct change in the coverage of the McCanns in terms of what they're putting forward for their defense through the media since he came on board full time again just a few days ago?

CHARLIE BECKETT, DIRECTOR, POLIS:
Well, I think Clarence is a great appointment all around. He's a very respected and a straight experienced reporter.

So he's going to have the sympathy of the news media in Britain, but also the international media. But I think he's also going to have the respect of the wider public. This is somebody who's trusted so from the McCanns point of view. He's a very good appointment. And it may bring some clarity.

But it's - in a sense, just another part of what has been a whole sort of public relations exercise. I don't mean that in a disparaging way. What I mean is that this has been extraordinary media event from the Day One. And in a sense, quite rightly, the McCanns have attempted to, if you like, use the media and control it so that they don't end up as victims of the media.

SWEENEY:
And how effective has doing that been for them?

BECKETT:
Well, I think it's the old adage. You know, those that live by the media can, if you like, die by the media. It's a very dangerous game to play. But I think from their point of view, they would say, look, they've been as honest as they can be. They've been as accessible as they can be. And they've tried to tell their side of the story. And I think that's all that you can expect from people embroiled in such an appalling situation.

SWEENEY:
Rita Jordao, as a Portuguese journalist, do you feel that the media in your country correctly judged how the story was going and reported how the story was going?

JORDAO:
I think it's been very difficult for the Portuguese media. I mean, even though we're used to dealing with the way the Portuguese police operate in the country, in this case, it's - the story has become international from day one. It's a Sky story from day one. And therefore, the Portuguese police kind of got a bit - the Portuguese press, sorry, kind of got a bit lost amongst this whole story.

I mean, there's no official information. Everybody needs to get something new today, because that's press. And the newspapers want to get, even if it's the small bit of information that the others don't have.

SWEENEY:
But most of the information was coming from leaks in the Portuguese authorities to the Portuguese media. And then, hence, you know, reported in the British media.

JORDAO:
Yes, but when we call sources within the Portuguese police, I don't know exactly what we're talking about. This could be a clean (INAUDIBLE). This could be an accountant that works for the Policia (INAUDIBLE). We don't really know who these sources are. And especially for some of the more tabloids of newspapers.

Do we trust them? I don't know.

SWEENEY:
At the end of the day, it did lead to Madeleine McCann's parents being named formal suspects. And that was always something that was more or less consistently reported in the run-up to that in the Portuguese media.

How do you think the British media have covered this in the very twists and turns, one has noticed changes in temperament and tone?

BECKETT:
Well, I think in defense of the tabloid British press, you could argue that the early criticism of them that they were going over the top on this story was actually wrong. This was an incredible story. There's another criticism of them, which was that they were too pro the McCanns. And also, that they were too hostile to the Portuguese police.

Well, I suspect that they may have been right to have been critical of the Portuguese police, not just because of the investigation, but in terms of the way that this relatively small regional police force was completely unprepared for the way they should or could have handled the British media.

SWEENEY:
Well, there is something about the British media, the pack abroad that's rather frightening for the inexperienced...

BECKETT:
It's not unknowing. We know that by now. Most international authorities should know that by now. And in a sense, the Portuguese press has not been greatly more distinguished than the British tabloids. So it's not just a British disease.

And I think what's interesting is the way - whether the story is part a legal problem the Portuguese police have, but the way that the story has been allowed to spiral out of control, that would never have happened in this country. Big cases like the (INAUDIBLE) cases. So the police have a strategy...

SWEENEY:
Yes.

BECKETT:
...for trying to manage media speculation.

JORDAO:
I think international factor is very important here. And I think there's been a rivalry between the Portuguese press and the British press. And that's what spans a lot of things, because whilst the British press was pointing a finger at the Portuguese police, the Portuguese press was pointing the finger at the McCanns. And therefore, and because that added to the fact that there was no official information, people need to - or the press needs to pick out little beyond little details.

I'll give you the simple example. In Portugal, for instance, the name McCann became almost an obsession. And some Portuguese journalists thought because everybody believed that the McCanns have got a lot of influence in Downing Street somehow.

It kind of became an obsession. We need to find out who these...

SWEENEY:
People.

JORDAO:
...who these people are. We need to find out whether the link is. And there's been so many lies...

SWEENEY:
Yes.

JORDAO:
...printed in the last couple of weeks.

SWEENEY:
I suspect they'll be a lot of doctorates done on this in the future. And indeed, more as time spent by us looking after it in the next few weeks and months as it evolves.

Rita Jordao, Charlie Beckett, thank you both very much indeed.

Continue Reading... Labels: Clarence Mitchell, Madeleine McCann, propaganda

Get that cat to forensics, armchair sleuths demand

14 September 2007
The Times
Dominic Kennedy, Will Pavia

"It's 2.30 in the morning. I can't sleep and didn't get to sleep until midnight, obsessed and stressed over all the craziesness (sic) that's hit the net about the abduction of Madeleine McCann," Brenda Stardom, an American living in Portugal, blogs. "I belong to the FindMadeleine MySpace and I check it at least every 15 minutes when I'm awake because the comments fly faster than I can keep up with them."

Like no mystery before, the disappearance of Madeleine McCann on May 3 has set the blogosphere alight. Armchair detectives, conspiracy theorists, psychics and gossips swap clues about what might have happened.

The website crimeblog.us, based near Atlanta, has known nothing like it. "As the blog owner I am able to see the Internet Protocol address info on comments left on this weblog. Visitors come from Germany, Denmark, from Russia, and of course, from Spain, Portugal, and all over the UK. I've always had readers from all over, but never this many, every day," the creator writes. "Posts are left day and night.

Americans wake up and check, unable to find too many other American sources of news about the investigation (though that may be changing) -then by the time we are headed to bed, Britons, Portuguese, and others living in the EU are up looking at websites run by their own media outlets and this blog, as well."

Some bloggers' theories are mad. But the sharper commentators appear to have spotted routes the investigation should take long before detectives acted.

Portuguese newspapers have reported that police now want to seize Madeleine's "cuddle cat", the pink toy which Kate McCann is forever seen clutching.

Yet as long ago as May 30, a poster on the functionpix.com website wrote: "Get That Bloody Cat To Forensics. Somebody take that cat into forensics before it's cleaned."

The Portuguese papers also claimed that Madeleine may have been sedated by her parents. A poster to the Missing Madeleine Blog came up with that idea on May 17.

"It's very difficult to air such views in such tragic circumstances, but why not investigate the possibility of the parents being involved? Gerry McCann talks about 'no stone unturned', 'tidal wave of devastation' and 'concrete evidence'.

"Is it just me who finds a definite link here with his choice of words?" the blogger wrote. "It is a distinct possiblity that the children were given sedatives, what better way to keep them asleep while having dinner and not having to worry about them?"

Bloggers scrutinise body language and visual clues. Mrs McCann was criticised for her jewellery. A poster at crimeblog.us wrote: "I may be Clouseau or I may be Columbo, who knows? But I find it very difficult to conceive of anybody thinking that their child was undergoing the kind of things that none of us wants to think about and selecting earrings...KMc is wearing (different) earrings. This is not the normal reaction..."

A poster on forums.mirror.co.uk analysed the last known picture of Madeleine, taken at a swimming pool with her father and sister by Mrs McCann at 2.29pm on the day she disappeared. Consulting an almanac to check Sun positions, and Google Maps for a satellite view of the resort, the contributor suggests shadows prove the timing is wrong. "Nowhere on the Earth at 14.29 hrs, 3 may 2007 did the Sun have an altitude of 80 degrees," the poster writes.

If the blogging amateur detectives are the Miss Marples of this virtual village, there are plenty more malicious tongues wagging. Some of these gossips have received the 21st-century equivalent of a scold's bridle, silenced by getting their postings blocked.

Others are horrified by the "poisonous" guessing games. One poster said: "I am both appalled and saddened by some of the heartless comments people keep making about this case.People want someone to blame when something awful like this happens.But let's tone down the rhetoric and be logical. They are obviously loving, caring parents whose world revolves around their children.

"The person to blame is the monster who took Madeleine."

The Miss Marple inside us all Ben Macintyre, page 21

Bloggers' shorthand

The Tapas Nine Kate and Gerry McCann, three other couples and one of their mothers, who were eating in a restaurant close to the apartment complex when Madeleine disappeared

* Walletgate Mr McCann said his wallet, containing precious pictures of Madeleine, was stolen during a 24-hour visit to London. The pictures were later returned anonymously

* Auntie Phil Mr McCann's sister Philomena, who briefs the media, lobbied Parliament and leafleted Celtic Park

* Team McCann Those seen as advisers and supporters, including press officers, relatives, Madeleine's fund and the Pope

* Beach snapper An unidentified man, said to have been photographing children, who became an early suspect

Continue Reading... Labels: Forensic Science Services, FSS, Madeleine McCann, propaganda

UK government agency to monitor blogs

15 August 2007
Financial Times
Carlos Grande

The COI, the UK government's communications agency, is working on a way to monitor what people say about policy on blogs and internet forums for the media briefings it sends to ministers. A project by the COI's Media Monitoring Unit is considering how to add blogs to its regular summaries of government coverage in mainstream press or television.

The summaries are used across Whitehall from ministers to departmental communications teams, often as an early warning service on issues rising up the public's agenda. The blog project was in part prompted by departments' concerns at being caught unawares by debates spread on the web.

It reflects the growing media profile of the format and the fact some individual bloggers are moving from niche self-publishers to establishment opinion-formers.

Clarence Mitchell, director of the MMU, said though there was debate about the objectivity of some bloggers, several were taken increasingly seriously within government.

Mr Mitchell said: "There's a whole level of debate taking place online which simply didn't exist before and departments feel they need to be fully engaged in that."

He insisted any future service by the unit would not intervene in monitored blogs.

However individual departments which took any service might choose to reply directly to bloggers' criticisms - as they would any commentator - or address points through general media statements.

Pilot studies have looked at pensioners' online reactions to a recent budget and internet opinions on counter-terrorism measures. They have tracked web traffic generated as well as the tone of discussions.

The blog monitoring would need a sufficient number of individual government departments to agree to cover the extra costs involved. If this happened, MMU estimates a service could operate by the end of the year.

A growing number of companies already monitor blogs in sectors such as technology where online product reviewers can be highly influential. Universal McCann, the media buyer, recently estimated that more than 50 per cent of UK respondents to an online survey said they had read a blog within the last six months and about 20 per cent had posted comments on their own.

The media buyer said this lagged far behind China and south Korea where blogging - mostly devoid of politics in China - was more widespread, and less likely to be seen as self-interested as it is in the west. The vast majority of blogs in the UK and the US are abandoned after a relatively short period of time or read by only a handful of friends or contacts.

Continue Reading... Labels: Clarence Mitchell, propaganda