A thread to discuss DEVELOPMENTS regarding Maddie McCann

[jampot]

We can discuss parenting styles in a few weeks

Gameboy - well, obviously the police know how to use the media and I hope they are doing it effectively in this case.

I'm only trying to extend the debate by pointing out that our need to know what's going on (some people seem to be watching the news pretty continously) has nothing whatever to do with bringing the girl safely home. We're part of the media furore and that phenomenon is relatively new.

I think MN gets written up in The Guardian as much as it does because someone on here is an insider.

no we are not all complicit in the coverage

why do you say that?

NKF - well, I tend to agree with you there then. Personally I don't think we have any 'right to know' anything, however I can understand peoples concern/ empathy and their desire to learn the outcome.

Personally, having worked with the media in my career, I NEVER take anything I read, hear or see in the news at face value

yes I agree with expat

plenty of journalists on here

thats why stuff gets reported in the guardian

not because mumsnet is known worldwide as one of media's movers and shakers

Gameboy - I'm with you there. If some papers said it was raining, I'd still look out of the window to check.

but i don't think it's an evil, you see. although some people on these threads are being very critical of the media, so i'm pointing out, i suppose, that they are part of it.
and mn wouldn't get written up just cos some hackette is an insider. the ed would have to be into it, and it is an easy way to garner opinion from a broad spectrum without having to hit the street for vox pops.

I thought all the Guardian stuff was down to Justine's DH?

gameboy, i said much the same as your first para earlier on.

It's not about being a media mover and shaker. It's about being part of a mass communication system. And we are - with our posts and our reading. It's not a criticism. It's an observation. Many people think the Internet is the most transparent, open and people-centred thing to happen to the media. And it may well be. It's certainly more than just gossiping to our friends.

why is it a part of it?

its kind of different though isnt it?

no party line (well there might be but it is easy enough to ignore [wink})

a wide range of opinions

actually quite intelligent?

all these things differentiate mumsnet from a newspaper

exactly, ww. he's asst ed or something. but caitlin moran reads these pages as well, loose women, the wright stuff are forever culling things from here etc etc etc. we are all part of it now.

I think we might be violently agreeing, Aitch

'Amber Alerts' in the US rely on the media heavily to get photos and details of abducted children out to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

At least 10 lives have been saved because of this.

In one case, the abductor was on the motorway en route to a California desert to kill his rape victims - two teenage girls - whom he had tied up in the boot, when motorists who'd seen his details on a broadcast phoned police from their mobiles and he was caught.

'Crimewatch' and 'America's Most Wanted' have caught literally thousands of wanted fugitives over the years.

fecking hell really

its time to get the hell out of dodge in that case

(that was in response to aitchs post btw)

apart from anything else, enid, when you sign up here you sign your rights away to anything you write. so MN can republish everything.
there is a box to opt out (which i've done, obv) but you have to look for it.

'morningpaper' certainly learned that lesson .

I wish Mumsnet could change the title of this thread to the little girl's full name. There's an awful overfamiliarity in 'Maddie', and it doesn't read at all right to me. It's a bit like when you read 'Holly and Jessica' without surnames, as if we're all somehow supposed to see them as members of our own families. Tbh I find it a bit ghoulish and, as was said by someone else, icky. It would seem more respectful to give her her full name, or even tbh just to say "the little girl abducted in Portugal".

The fact is we don't know her, we only know of her, and it's not the same thing. Like everyone else I'm really shocked by the story - I can't bear to think of a small child like that lost and scared and possibly in terrible danger, the thought is just heartbreaking, and I feel awful for her parents who must be literally out of their minds with worry - but I find the idea of a deliberate thread to talk about 'developments' a bit distasteful tbh - feels a bit like people pulling up chairs and getting out popcorn, even though everyone is sad and sympathetic at the same time. Just doesn't feel quite right.

Absolutely, aitchtwoO - we're writing free copy. Weird. I must wack in an invoice from time to time.

oh I know

I liked seeing my words of wisdom in print in the mumsnet books

less happy to think that some journalist might nick my ideas

They can use my 'and it's just cruel to the one who has to ride bitch' quote any day.

ooooooooooooh yes expat

that quote was worth a whole year of the Sunday Times bolleaux

But nothing can ever approach morningpaper's immortal line.

I read that and just knew those were words which would live in infamy.

[sighs happily]

oh yes

I do love a rebel