If the media has anything to do with it.
The psychological warfare they are waging against this couple, alternately sympathising with their plight one day and casting aspersions upon their presumed innocence the next, is disgusting. Time was when reporters reported the news not wrote it! Not made a story fit the 'exclusives' they sought, no matter what the truth or human cost. And what happened to innocent until proven guilty? Notwithstanding in the unlikely event charges are brought against the McCanns and made to stick, trial by jury, rather than by the media?
As for the Portugese police, for a force not permitted to comment on a live case, one bizarre theory after another has emanated from their ranks - one suspects, if not in collusion with the media - just to get rid of this nuisance British couple blighting one of their tourist hotspots with the worst economically-disastrous scandal that can befall a tourist hotspot. Arresting them certainly did wonders for the McCann departure from embarrassing Portugese shores.
While I cannot claim to have read every word printed on the story, from the sizeable chunk I have read and McCann interviews I've seen, I cannot think of a single reason why the McCanns would want to kill their much wanted (IVF) eldest daughter. Had they done so accidentally, why on earth would they not have admitted it? However stupid it might be to (allegedly) drug your daughter to make her sleep, it still would've been manslaughter, rather than murder. But the sudden death of a young daughter from whatever cause is hardly a thing a couple can fail to blame each other for or otherwise hide - particularly a couple expected to behave entirely normally at dinner with friends who knew them well that night. As for launching an international campaign to find her (which mushroomed into a phenomenon that neither of them could have predicted), hardly the act of a guilty couple either, albeit unusual, but then they are both unusual people as I detailed in my earlier posting.
So the question remains, what do the media WANT from the McCanns aside from lots of newspaper sales? A marriage split is obvious, as the McCanns cannot be seen to buck the trend of 80% relationship breakdown following the death/disappearance of a child, but do they want mental breakdowns as well? Suicide by one or both? Some kind of 'confession' perhaps?
Kate and Gerry McCann may not fit the demographic of the usual parents of a missing or murdered child, but I'll eat my hat if they turn out to be guilty of anything other than not fitting the usual demographic.
One can only hope they get some sort of closure (good or bad) before the media takes things one step further and pays someone to frame them up for Maddie's disappearance
6 comments:
The media response/game making around the McCanns has been shameful and disgusting. Hardly unbiased, informative news reporting... more lascivious, dirt digging and muck slinging to (as you say) sell more copy. Meanwhile Madelaine remains missing - surely pressure enough on young parents without the fickle cat's paw of the press batting their heads every minute.
It's a more trivial case but I felt part of the Northern Rock panic was also caused by the press stirring up the general public.
Hi Laura - you've been tagged for a blog challenge! See my blog for details!
Whew, that's a relief - I thought you'd been turned into Spam by dark evil forces, Steve!
Ha ha! No Laura, I'm still keeping myself spam-free as much as possible!
Every night and day I hug my girls closer. My heart bleeds for these parents. The media has a lot to answer for.
I think it's a class thing. The media resent these successful articulate medical professionals. Perhaps in their eyes, by leaving their kids in a room while they ate tapas with their equally-successful friends, the McCanns are no better than middle-class chavs. To them, they may as well have tied them to a crib while they went out for Magners and crack.
And after Shipman, we all know how much the media distrust doctors...
Big Al
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