To be shocked at Sky News' coverage of the excavations in Praia Da Luiz?

[ziggiestardust]

I didn't see a lot of the initial coverage, as I was working abroad in 2007. But the Police are potentially excavating a little girl's body, regardless of the circumstances, and they've got live cameras at the scene, waiting. It's macabre, and it seems like regardless of the fact MM was a tiny little defenceless girl, she's fair game for the media.

I just think it's shitty. Do a quick piece on it, but is there any need for the close ups of the excavation site and a blow by blow account of what's happening?

Her poor family

There are some truly repellent people on this thread. I actually feel soiled having read their bile.

I mean, the horse has bolted on measured, respectful coverage and discussion on this one, hasn't it?

Full and open disclosure is the only way forward.

OutsSelf we are in a society of news being delivered 24/7 now. Madeleine McCann is a newsworthy story, whether people find it distasteful or not, surely? It has been in the news for a number of years with no conclusion. If there is a conclusion now, journalists will want to be there to report it.

I can't watch this particular story because it breaks my heart, but there must be an awful lot of people who want to follow it, I would imagine.

limited Journos in practice often expect privileged access. I have been in high-profile cases in court where the reporters were angry that there was one area for public and press and if non-press people were at the head of the queue they could have all the seats.

Your sneer about Portugal having been a dictatorship is unworthy. That was forty years ago.

It doesn't surprise me, saddens me slightly though.

I suppose that this is the pay off for the McCann's (understandably) using the media as a tool to help keep the search for her going.

Yet the unfortunate flipside is that every twist and turn in the case will be subject to blanket coverage. It is all part of the media circus that keeps her case in the public eye.

I guess it's because rightly or wrongly there still remains a huge public interest in this story with so any different opinions as to what happened.

Sometimes there is necessarily a blurred line between the need to report and the need for 'respect'.

'Respect' can be used to hide wrongdoing. Openness and live coverage can seem ghoulish.

Its interesting how very few people I imagine complained about news coverage of the tsunami's of recent years where bodies where plainly seen in virtually all news coverage. Few talked of the dignity of the dead in those circumstances.

Maybe when the bodies are of victims of mans brutality and can be named it elicits a different emotional response, but is it not in essence the same kind of coverage?

I am honestly perplexed that they are still investigating this. Are there really no other unsolved missing children cases?

Normally don't the police investigate, pursue their leads and then close the case unless more info comes to light.

It's very strange.

I think it's fair to say that the media are expecting something from this excavation which is presumably why they're there. It's worth remembering that the media are often informed about potential developments long before the general public in order that reporting can be managed iyswim.

I don't imagine for one second that journalists are hoping to capture the moment live if something is found, but this case has been in the public eye for such a long time that it's naïve to think the press wouldn't be present during what could be a potentially significant breakthrough.

It's not uncommon for the media to be present at the sight of where something is expected to be found 0 I remember for instance when Cromwell street was being dug up to find Fred and Rosemary West's victims.... and that was about twenty years ago...

The fact she didn't answer those questions really doesn't mean anything. If the police were throwing loaded questions at my client, with little evidence, trying to trip them up and were basically on a fishing expedition, I would also advise giving a no-comment interview. It's pretty standard legal advice.

Lots of things are newsworthy that aren't covered. Full and open disclosure.in this case is about satisfying the interests of people fundamentally disinterested in the actual outcome. However we feel about this and whatever the outcome, the general public will not be affected by this. Conspiracy theorists, so what? Their mawkish and pathological paranoia should.dictate policy?

Whatever happens, the general public are not granted any kind of agency or insight by this. Our lives will continue. We'll all be a bit more revolted, disgusted and mutilated. Why is this to the public good?

As far as I can tell, Sky benefits from this.

I think it's gone beyond 'ooohh, what REALLY happened?' It's irrelevant now, because she's gone. Dead or alive, she's separated from her mummy and daddy. Whoever is responsible, at this stage I expect closure of some kind is more relevant to her family right now, and they deserve the dignity of not having those vultures hanging around.

What is to be gained? If MM is buried there (God help her), then what is the actual goal? Honestly? How far would they push it? And more importantly, how much would the public have to see before there was any kind of 'fuck off now' reaction from the public? Hypothetically, if she was found; do they want the McCann's screaming, live, as their DD is discovered? How about a close up of the body at different angles, with an 'expert guest pathologist' in the studio with the anchor? Honestly, if she is found; how far are they going to push it, and how much further are they going to speculate?

This is feeding on the grief of a family, who's lives have been picked apart for all to see for 7 years.

*titilated not mutilated. My kindle is obvs having some sort of Freudian moment

Yy OP

A crime has been committed. they police obviously feel they have enough information to request this action. This should of course happen.

As someone said upthread, we have all seen coverage of backgardens being dug up. Why is this different? Why should this not be covered by the media?

lotso quite right. If that was my child, I could barely string a sentence together

It's irrelevant right now anyway, and absolutely NOT the point of this thread though, but if you want to write libellous things, then can you start another thread to yourselves? This isn't what I wanted to discuss. Thanks.

It's an interesting debate OutsSelf and one which has always been had going back hundreds of years.

Some reporters behave really badly. I'm not disputing that. But most people's behaviour is manageable with negotiation or criminal law.

Would you really prefer a situation that says: 'Move along. Nothing to see here'?

I'm not just talking about crime scenes but political and business scandals too.

Because that angers and scares me and the idea that ordinary people go along with that absolutely terrifies me.

madame, maybe that should stop as well. A shot of the area is fine, but some things aren't ok. I mean, yes they have white tents up and all, but the fact is, they have to create a media/public cordon around these areas, which suggests to me that if they COULD get a shot of a dead victim; they would.

Well, as distasteful as it is to be present at an excavation sight, where do people think a line should be drawn? If, for instance, the police were following up a possible sighting of MM and were at a location awaiting an outcome and the possibility of finding her alive, would people still be saying the media shouldn't be there? when April Jones/the little boy in Scotland went missing the press were there during the searches, and yet the outcomes were inevitably the same - both were murdered, and in one instance the body was found albeit by the police at the house of a relative... Or is it ok for the media to be present if people think there is the faintest possibility that the child will be found alive, even though invariably when child goes missing like that it is highly unlikely to be the case....

'I am honestly perplexed that they are still investigating this. Are there really no other unsolved missing children cases?'

No I don't think there are that many cases where a young child has just vanished. Most missing children cases concern children who have runaway or been snatched by a parent etc.

well, precisely, limited. It's less the public's right to be inches away from an exhumation, it's the public's right to know that there is transparency and due process, and we are free to question all aspects of governance and probity in public life.

Horrible things happen to people. Crimes are committed. These do need to be reported. And outcomes, and the manner of reaching conclusions need to be reported.

Why not? What does it do to our million watching psyches? I object to all of this kind of reporting. What does it do to you, to repeatedly experience the production of spectacle.and entertainment out of tragedy? Every time you witness something like this you are being invited not to share in but alienate yourself from tragedy, from the plight of little girls.like this, and that of her parents. How could you survive, psychologically, otherwise? It's brutalising. It makes brutes of us. Why participate?