No mention of Madeleine McCann on the early evening news. Do you think think its right to scale down coverage?

[lyrabelacqua]

Today is the first day I can remember recently with no news at all on the Madeleine McCann investigation. I've also heard that news organisations are looking at scaling back the level of coverage but no-one wants to be first because they might be perceived as heartless. what do you think?

expat that's horrible. and the suspect could be anywhere by now - who knows maybe he's done it before - maybe he'll do it again but obviously 1 4 year old is not as important as another..

I agree with you expat, can't believe that this awful incident has only made the local news. I have friends who live in the area she was killed in.

Apparently the vehicle had been involved in two other accidents earlier that day so God only knows what the driver was on.

they were found the same evening wannabe - and the older one had left a note saying she was taking the younger one out (I seem to remember)

Yes, the driver was involved in a minor accident mere minutes before in Colinton village.

Two women suffered minor injuries and the driver, in a Jeep, sped off - only to crash into the Donachies moments later.

If you know anything, PLEASE help!

maybe we could start a national campaign for this family? After all I imagine these parents don't have lawyers or a pr manager.

expat start a thread about it - it may get more coverage...have you done that already?

well you've made sure it stays in the news here

There's no news coverage because there's no news. Er, end of.

May be the family don't want to have the press on their doorstep and want to grieve the loss of their child.

they just had a spanish journalist on 5 live talking about the Mccann's visit to spain and she said that the spannish are not altogether positive about the coverage this case has received, as the spannish have their own missing child story to tell - a little boy who went missing in March, and they veel that his story has been overshadowed by Madeleine's and that it should be the other way round.

wannabe

missing jeremi is being highlighted by the mccanns in spain

Agree with MI - there isn't any news, so, um, there...isn't.....any....news.

It's not a soap opera.

Appreciate there is no real news and this is not a "soap opera" but people like to come onto these threads as they are concerned about madeleine and really want to hear good news and by coming on here they can chat or whatever to express themselves. I appreciate that most people are fed up with the news coverage especially as there are many missing children out there not just one but at least the good thing to come out of this is people have become more aware of other missing children...I know I have

Absolutely, Greeny

I didn't know about Jeremi or others actually until Madeleine McCann went missing and i feel all the coverage for her is good. It also highlights other kids imo as people get interested/scraed/curious whatever and start digging deeper.
I, as others on here have said, have found it fascinating that popel actually seem to resent the fact she's getting so much attention because she's a pretty little blonde thing. I think it's as lyrabelacqua said, it's the circumstances and her age.
Looking at missing kids sites alot appear to be taken by parents or alot older, the thing that got and gets me is her age. She's a baby!
I hope she doesn't get forgotten by the media ,(although obviously they are not gonna keep it daily headline), as i think it sends out the wrong message that people actually can get away with this.

really must learn to type!

Er...repeats: the question is why is the news coverage dying down? Well, the crucial giveaway word here is 'news'. There isn't any. So there is no news to report. That's why the news programmes are called news, you see, they report New Things.

Sorry was i just tpo answer the question and not add my views? how incredibly stupid of me!

angeliz but where do you draw the line? if there's no news then there's nothing more to say is there? and what happens when another child goes missing, and another, and another, do we have reports on all the missing children in the news? get sky to start up a "sky missing children" channel?

I absolutely believe that the reaction to this case has been driven by the media. If Madeleine Mccann had been from a lower social class, if she had been abducted from her bed at home while her parents popped to the off licence or the local pub, there would be calls for the twins to be taken into care/for the parents to be charged with neglect etc. If the media had turned on the mccanns then the public would have followed.

And the reason why people are so fed up of the coverage is firstly because there is no news, so essentially there is coverage of nothing "the mccanns met the pope/the mccanns ate breakfast/the mccanns took the twins to the beach/the portuguese aren't doing anything/the portuguese police still haven't done anything/brian the bullshitter from psychic land claims he had a dream and can solve the case". And we need to know this information why? reality is that we don't. at this point in the story we don't need to know what the mccanns are doing, they're not known to us, we can't change what has happened, the only thing the media needs rt report is when she is found, if she is ever found. And secondly, thousands upon thousands of children go missing worldwide every year, and hardly any ever receive this kind of coverage. And why does it need to make a difference that they've been taken by a family member or that they've run away? In fact if they've run away shouldn't that be all the more reason to highlight their disappearance? Shouldn't that be more reason to highlight to people that children are living such horrible lives that they feel the need to run away?

What makes one child's plight more important than the thousands of others?

The coverage has become like a desperately sad real life reality telly 'show'....and we're all holding our breath for the happy ending Hollywood has taught us to expect.

When we were in the US last summer and the summer before there was lots of publicity about the missing teenager, Natalee Holloway who disappeared on a school trip to Aruba.

One thing that came up from time to time was Missing white woman syndrome which is about disproportionate reporting of white female victims.

AFAIK there is still a reward out for her return, but it's been over two years since she went missing.

but it's not hollywood and there's unlikely to be a happy ending.

Oh. I see Madeleine has already made it onto that wikipedia page as an example