The Media's power to acquit, condemn, forgive & pardon

by + Sat Sep 08, 2007 16:12

Rather than leave copious links to the European press in Portuguese, French, Italian, Catalan & Austrian German (thus covering the perspective of catholic biased [either for or against] national readerships) to illustrate in contrast to the European press in Dutch, Flemish and northern German (thus coveriny the prespective of protestant biased [either for or against] national readerships - I thought to highlight one piece of unwarrented media spin at this point.

The Irish Times as the majority of British based newspapers are reporting the Mc Cann family (in its extended form) who have become accepted as spokespeople of the parents that a "plea bargain" has been offered. Yet under the Portuguese constituion and within precedents of that democratic state's history - no power or mechanism to offer a plea or less than a ten year sentance is possible unless the equivalent of the DPP is going to put something on record. - Are we to pay attention? Are we now really interested?
The media report, that is what journalists do. And those words are now squeezed into the radio waves of Europe's catholic or scottish hinterland in slightly different ways. The ripples are going further now.
Thus legitimate reporting (the spokespeople and family of the victims and suspects) becomes spin & turns to manipulation....but the ripples still continue.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/frontpage/2007/0908/11....html

Rather than leave those links and what could be background for whomever writes these stories as books or make movies about them - I ask you to consider the startling possibility that the global commercial media with its +sensationalist mechanisms & ever critical anti-sensationalists suspected a case with such unprecedented convolutions and have yet to sell you a headline worth over 2 million investment & building you up so. For a criminal investigation with subject matter quite horrific to contemplate is being written up, packaged & sent in livingrooms all over Europe by the same industry & yet is being digested in such local divisive little ways. Europeans at last have a continental commercial media which speaks the one language but its readers and viewers only hear their own.

you reap what you sow & only Jah Jah know.

by + Sun Sep 09, 2007 13:03

I offer contrition for my bad spelling (it's "apparent" not "apparant"). Meanwhile the division of continental and island European media on the question of "parent involvement" grows. The Irish Sunday Independent suggests some of the suspicions voiced around Mrs McCann are beyond belief. Such limitations of credibility never seem to stop that newspaper in other spheres of reader interests' morbid curiousities ot worse in areas of genuine political concern.
The continental press suggest the McCann extended family (spokespeople for victims and suspects) are requesting British government help in averting a miscarriage of justice or more blunty a "frame up". Whilst reminding their readers that the British support the Lausitanians, after all they lent them the forensic expertise and highly specialised sniffer dogs. The last summer has seen Portugal enter into the closest co-operation with the ever emerging European security networks.
The pope has said nothing about this particular case as he enjoys a few days in Austria. As usual he has held the line on a variety of moral question & in the wake of certain institutionalised scandals involving nazi salutes amongst Austrian soldiers & the such like - has sort of asked all of Europe to remember its common christianity and not repeat the Holocaust. Nor has he offered one of his silly gaffes like calling the Austrians "Australians" as Bush did. He has mostly been reliable Pope Benedict & no-one is going to get far suggesting he had the wool pulled over his eyes this weekend or last May. But I doubt he will be called as a witness or character reference quite yet.
Austria gave European newsreaders one of their last sensational and horrific "missing child" cases, all be it one where the young adult who appeared in "then & now" pictures was confirmed as having been one whole childhood before that "missing child". I mention those things, because the Austrian newspaper http://standard.at/ has seen such criss-crossed references in its readers comments, one delightful bar stool cliché expert of Austria suggested it was all a psy-op of the Vatican, Mi6, CIA and Murdoch. Oh well. as long as those people buy newspapers we won't worry too much.

It is hard to know if the innocence of the Mc Canns in abduction or murder & eventual quiet life reunited with their child as increasingly being opposed to their route to a quite life of forgiveness & understanding after a death through misadventure & debatable (as in how it is perceived) "waste" of mass human emotion & publicity - might be further helped by the media circus.

We have passed the instrucive stage now as much as we have passed the assistance to investigation.

If the little girl is alive, she is now in a situation beyond most of the emotions drummed and underscored internationally by the media. Are we more careful of our children now whilst on holidays? Will we be more careful of them in the home? It is remarkable how many times dignity is attached by the living to the dead simply in the knowledge that they are dead. Are do we wait a lifetime for another answer? Will the media help that process step by step?

I hope for happy answers.

by Angeline Sun Sep 09, 2007 15:45

I'm ever amazed, disgusted and worried by the power of the mass media, especially tabloids and TV, to switch on and off again the emotions of millions of media consumers.

by + Mon Sep 10, 2007 14:06

The list of British media types who are adding their voices to a blog-roll of a regret on how their industry has handled the Mc Cann case ought illustrate how far from objective any news reporting has become. That they are doing so in "comment is free" type sections of newspapers and TV websites rather than on the printed pages or broadcast minutes usually afforded their Solomonesque wisdom ought also illustrate how information is handled. The mass have already made up their mind, if there is room for new assumptions or interpretations, regret or rueing then the alternative cranks of cyberspace can take it on board. It is nothing short of significant that these apologists for sensationalism which done nothing to bring Madeliene Mc Cann home or solve the mystery are publishing their blog thoughts at the Guardian. Oh well, indymedia will attract their contrition some day...

Compare 2 "big guys" of British media as they wonder what "we" (meaning others in the sector they are applauded to lead) have done -
Martin Bell of BBC status wonders at Media Madness without a political point
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_bell/2007/09....html
Max Hastings of Fleet street story hangmen suggests "we" all hang our heads in shame, after he like most of his kind "wondered at the word on the street".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,216574....html

But the sensation doesn't end. the BBC report that the Mc Cann's have now engaged London-based lawyers Michael Caplan QC and Angus McBride, Caplan acted for former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet when Spain attempted to extradite him from the UK in 1999.

And our own Belfast Telegraph suggests the Portuguese detective in charge was involved in the brutal beating of a suspect & extraction of confession in a similar child disappearance case a few years back. Obviously grounds for "Mr Amaral and four other officers [who] were charged over the allegations" to be jumping on planes & suing for libel. Yet Despite this, [shock revealation from the Belfast Telegraph] "he has not been removed from the McCann case"!!!!
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/artic...1.ece
They've kindly dug out a photo of a beaten Portuguese woman who didn't kill her children as evidence, which we all know will hasten the end of Madeliene Mc Cann's ordeal.

This sort of emotional twisting comes so rapidly on back-slapping descriptions of anti-paedophile operations across Europe in the Sunday Newspapers yesterday which found space in late editions to confirm the Mc Cann's just want a "quiet life". But none of those impressive operations began after the Mc Cann case. Both the UK and Spain had begn investigations into internet availability of child-porn as long ago as two and half years. hmmmmmmmmm. So has anything come of the case which holds our interest?

Well saving the appearance of the infant, let us hope this affair sheds light on the admissability and fallibility of DNA evidence? or is that cynicism?

by + Mon Sep 10, 2007 19:58

After what would appear to have been a slow day in the Portuguese prosecutions office no teatime newsflash demanded further making up of your mind. But in a rare illustration of how the British media do their peer-review thing, the "editor's blog" at the BBC is now offering Mr Hurrock's justification for all the telly time. As far he's concerned he was doing and continues to do a balanced and fair job of the whole thing. If the Portuguese are really secretive and so, at least the BBC didn't report the leaks which of course other people did but they have to sell newspapers. In short he talks about the new position of the Mc Cann story on your daily newswire or telly news be it of the BBC or other English language variety in or out of the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/09/unprecede....html

Very subtley it seems "Maddie" is being forgotten about ,as possibly her tourist season posters will soon find less urgent eyes and thus prompt less frequent sightings..,

How to do a fair and balanced story on a disappeared child wasn't ever really a European wide concern before - inside or outside newspapers. People agreed they'd gone as they do, done some posters, had a few leads and then basically gave up. The never really walked out of cellars and into chatshows before. I'd suggest leaving the pope & pinochet's lawyer out of it next time till the secretive local police actually archive something, treat it as an investigation in a foreign country perhaps.

by Paddy Mon Sep 10, 2007 23:14

All points above are too true. We must continually criticise the reporting excesses of newspapers, the way they manipulate mass emotions and harrass innocent individuals caught up in running stories. What action to take? Firstly, boycott vulgar tabloids.

by + Tue Sep 11, 2007 00:24

Because the DNA is linked, later today that will be reported along with the preparation the Mc Canns are now undergoing for hate-mail & the social services consideration that their twin children be put in protective care. Boycotting or blaming tabloids for sensationalism or "hounding innocent parties" won't suffice when this case and the future of child abduction, disappearance, accidental death, murder or "recovery family funds" are never going to be the same again.

by Paddy Tue Sep 11, 2007 09:24

My criticism of tabloid tendency to switch on and suddenly switch off mass public emotions is not only arising from saturation and sensationalist media coverage of the McCann tragedy. (The "posh" newspapers have gone overboard too.)

The invention of the "human interest story" in the early 20th century has opened the floodgates of emotional journalism. Even the newspaper coverage of the Lindberg kidnapping case in the 1930s led to repetitive excesses and hardly helped the police in their investigations. [See a classic study in Penguin paperback called The Image by a prof called Boorstin.]

The tabloidisation of print journalism has dumbed down public discourse about so many issues that sometimes editors fail to distinguish serious news from trivial. Sensitivity towards private individuals has been a major casualty. I see tabloids as a major problem in contemporary western culture.

by intrigued Tue Sep 11, 2007 09:42

Pincohets' lawyer.
visiting Fatima.
Visiting the Pope.
Huge media interest.
and what of the trafficking victims?
This story is reaching mythic proportions, should we look at colour now?

by + Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:52

Dominic Lawson seems to have got the tidal wave thing with which my article above began "This tidal wave of emotional tyranny : Kate McCann, through dignity and self-preserving detachment, has denied the mob its vicarious pleasure" -
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/dominic...7.ece
His comment compares the Mc Cann parents to the Rhys Jones. A disappearance yet again turned to a murder. Whilst that newspaper reports the perfect match of DNA found in a car hired after the disappearance. The Guardian has zeroed in one line of the BBC editors blog which followed their own blogs yesterday (linked to in my comments above) and decided to have a go at the ITV news for "reporting rumours" & highlightinging that the BBC (one presumes just as the Guardian) have been reporting it all in a fashion unbiased (for / against) the parents.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,,2166700,00.html

Meanwhile we all know the couple have instructed their legal team to prepare a defence. As I wrote a few days ago, this is a series of ripples which yet have the power to turn to a tidal wave. And despite all the honed and practised bleating by journalists it would appear they are missing one thing.

Who has paid for the legal defence - does Pinochet's lawyer do voluntary work?

by + Tue Sep 11, 2007 20:35

One of the hardest things to do for many people who are experts or whose task it is to inform you, is admit they got a distant event or horrible story wrong & ask you to start all over again in consideration of something which actually didn't at all touch your real-life. In some ways this might be linked to the need for constant repetition and forceful imagery and pyschological finesse with which such a distant event or horrible story not at all in your real life experience needs before you internalise it enough to pursue a personalised interest or emotional response. If you don't engage with the tsunami of emotions story, it doesn't work. If you're not by now in the mob baying "miscarraige of justice!" no matter who you bay such at (we have two sides now) - then there's no point in reading on............ Find another story.

In this last week one psychology research hopeful in New York state university published his findings on different personality types acceptance of conflicting viewpoints or information. His small project based on less than fifty volunteers saw global media pick-up in the "human interest silly science" section. In less time than it took to cut and paste the name "David Amodio" his paltry quality of research & the specialised journal essay he had penned had been summed up as proof that leftwing & rightwing voters have differently wired brains. Their voter choice merely being predetermined in that hideous smugness of modernity based on differing abilities to "weigh conflicting information or data" as Dr Amodio's ECG scans proved. No doubt he's chasing chatshow time coming up to the US elections. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/sep/10/1

That's bad science. or rather it's bad science reporting.., But if fills pages.

In the last hours the now thoroughly unbiased BBC has reported that the many thousands of pages prepared by the Portuguese police have been passed from the "DPP" to an "instructional judge".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6989960.stm
They've now prepared a short little guide to "legal options" (for the Mc Cann's) should this go to the stage their peers in Fleet Street and Ireland's press follow on with the "frame up" / "miscarriage of justice" angle. Whilst a senior British police officer has interviewed the couple and portuguese police search the grounds of a church where the couple were reported praying for their daughter.

If only their readers were informed enough, or rational enough, or had their brains wired properly to compute the travesty of human nature which was the 3rd of May packaged and sold as good reporting they could reassure themselves they are not now part of the baying mob & be smug in their own personal ending to the story & question - "which way lies the miscarriage of justice?".

It is very possible in light of the most recent scientific discoveries most readers have now reached the end of the story, & in true civilised fashion their conclusion is utterly subjective. They've answered the questions themselves. It's how their reader-brains are wired as much as it is which newspaper they read or which country they live in. In short the 21st century mob decides. & if you dear reader have read thus far - you are the mob and this 21st century mob is really the "ochlarch" of old.

by Cain Wed Sep 12, 2007 11:24

The public or 'mob' mentality cannot live with unanswered questions or uncertainty.
We seem to want answers no matter how those answers may fly in the face of reason or logic.
We cannot accept that a paedophile monster may be loose in Portugal, that our children may still be in danger. We want to dispel such a notion. We cannot find the monster therefore we must settle for second best - the parents.
Case closed - back to our safe, secure little lives.....

Read the FULL story of Lindy Chamberlain
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/octobe...5.stm

From the day in 1996 when JonBenet was found dead in the basement of her home in Boulder, Colorado, the Boulder police and a large proportion of the world's media believed that her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were responsible for her death.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/ra....html

by + Wed Sep 12, 2007 12:16

The prime minister of Portugal has issued a statement supporting his police force and insisting that investigation is a police matter. Such a statement is naturally made when the SKY media stable continue with thier affiliates and pals to push the "frame-up" story & report leaks or speculation as facts which undo any potential case against the parents. For within ten days the decision to prosecute will be made & then the SKY stable will plausibly turn this story into a political one, if it has not already be done. The expert comments in broadsheet newspapers seem to be falling off now, but one piece by Martin Friedman in "The guardian" ponders as I asked you all to last night in the previous comment of this name the difficult of weighing conflicting information. Or rather at so late a day in an emotionally charged story to rely simply on fact. "Madeleine: a grimly compelling story that will end badly for us all" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,216711....html
For their part the Belfast Telegraph counts amongst the Irish newspapers who have covered the case to the greatest extent and most sympathetically for the parents. Alas, they are also the ones who have been most prejudiced against the Portuguese, unique amongst the Irish newspapers republishing the Dominic Lawson opinion piece I linked to above on "the vicarious mob" and also dishing up the slur on one of the portuguese police investigators in the case. & so I find myself coming full circle as to why I chose to issue this article and its comments using the author name "+".
The story of a couple who left their child unattended in a tourist village in southern Europe and neglected to report its disappearance within several hours of it being snatched by a paedophile and subsequently saw an English neighbour cautioned as a suspect is slightly different to the story of a grandchild of Donegal catholics whose hard work and effort and fine education brought them to the heights of a Scottish upper middle class complete with second home friends in Portugal many of whom had medical & forensic expertise & then after the accidental death of their child & its concealment - Pinochet's lawyer. For the moment the Belfast Telegraph assures us all of Donegal is with the family.

We must now see some of the mob as they best represent themselves in letter writing to draw links to the files of criminal cases. As if we were already at the conviction stage or dealing with facts rather than speculation. In those citations the mob will again betray it's need for foregone conclusions.

Meanwhile in facts land - the Portuguese have extended the investigation yet again and are to interview everyone who used the hired car which has been reported as providing evidence of a DNA type & the Portuguese press (in response to SKY) remind their readers it is possible with current forensic technology to determine whether hairs come from dead or living bodies, should that evidence be indeed "hairs". For the next ten days - we split hairs.

But I mark my words yet again - none of this mass emotional conflict built as it is on differing notions of inter-communal or international relations & trust - would have happened if we did not have a mass media controlled by the likes of Maxwell or SKY or even twenty different front pages on the same story each day............... We have still not felt the tidal wave. It is my opinion that the worst of the tidal wave will hit the next time you are asked to look into the eyes of a disappeared child's poster.

by + Wed Sep 12, 2007 16:16

At this link you will read the blog of Steve Bennedik, Editor of Sky News Networked Media.
http://skynews7.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/09/post.html he's a busy chap who daily has to juggle between osama & fox to keep many millions of viewers on the straight & narrow. Thus we're not surprised that the man who after Maxwell figureheads a global media conglomeration which has on many occassions pushed complete fabrications & more often than not libels leftwing groups, doesn't do much blog writing. But as this article set out to illustrate - when the commercial media get it so wrong, first on their blogs they will recriminate and shirk blame. & so the blog entry by Steve Bennedik complete with his photo reassures "No conspiracy we aim to be fair"..."so are we being pro-McCann or anti-McCann?"

It all depends on what you mean by "Mc Cann" now doesn't it? The victim was "maddy" after all. It was for her sake that the pontiff of Rome became the first Pope to be photographed with parents who had been assisted in launching an international search. It is for the sake of finding her corpse that Portuguese police are now digging up the grounds of a church the Mc Cann parents were given a key of in order to pray for the safe return of their child.

+

I advise you to hold onto something secure when that tidal wave hits.

by + Wed Sep 12, 2007 19:00

At closing of day's business today on the continent, it seems the Mc Cann's enemies in the Portuguese tabloid press (who are accused of leaking information from the secretive Portuguese police) are now alligned with "The Sun" newspaper in their coverage & sources. The most interesting media soul-searching is of course in the last comment - the reaction of the Sky News editor in blog format to the harshest of criticism ever seen in the media allbeit in blog format from fellow editors including the BBC editor. So far if it appears above with a green line underneath it - it is a link to a editor or senior columnist blog or opinion forming speculative news report on the story. This text has not really been polluted with distracting links.

The police in Portugal have made a few statements, it seems the intervention or rather "non-intervention" of the Portuguese premier Jose Socrates has meant certain leaks have to be commented on. There are political dimensions to this, and there always has been, but for the moment I'm not going to outline them. In one of the comments above I touched on psychological research in New York which fueled a "silly science story" this week. The problems we have balancing conflicting information. There was another "silly science" story which didn't make it so big this last week. One which gave evidence on the negative mass psychology of clarifications and denial. Each time an individual or state denies or clarifies an event or story, the average mass media consumer simply reinforces their first version. It's quite simple. Each story burns a pathway in your neurones. The name, the date, the characters and the version. If you are never reminded of the story again - the neurones may not be used "per-se" to store other data but might in time fuse to other clusters in your brain and be used for other more useful stuff - like the number you use to get the emergency services on holidays, or the current exchange rate, or this evening's schedule on "murder chat show" RTE. But each time the original neurone pathway is corrected with a clarification or correction, your silly little brain simply rewrites the first version with a small bit of extra data. That small extra bit being the "corrected version or denial". Then when asked to remember your brain picks up the data which is best remembered and burnt - bingo - the original version is in fact reinforced. Liberals use this top science to prove that's why the majority of Fox news viewers believe WMD were found in Iraq and the 911 aircraft hijackers were Iraqi. It's how their brain is wired.

Anyway.

A member of the Mc Cann team David Hughes, who is not actually a Mc Cann ( we may & ought expect the main spokespeople for both suspects and victims to be silent or _left alone_ considering they might have to take custody of the non-disappeared children ) has confirmed that the Mc Cann's are not going to use the "find Maddy" fund to defend themselves should they be charged, or to commission independent forensic studies of the DNA evidence compiled by the Portuguese police. The church is also being excavated - that titbit has moved from speculation to confirmed fact by the police. But all portuguese media disagree as to a "msytery object" being sought, and to the demand made by the Portuguese (reported on Sky today) for Kate Mc Cann's diary. The "find Maddie" fund is estimated by the Spanish media at 1.4 million euros. It's 6 trustee directors will meet later this week to cover "unforeseen" eventualities.

the British "powerful" editors' blogs for your comparison - for such "peer review" might not occur again.
BBC on monday - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/09/unprecede....html
Sky - this afternoon - http://skynews7.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/09/post.html

by + Wed Sep 12, 2007 20:18

& to think my last comment was written at the end of the day's business. The portuguese press which I'm aware most Irish people simply read about rather than refer to using their Google news "national digest of US interest" option have chosen to fill the last hour with yet more details. The news on the decision taken by the principle "victims and suspects" late today to not use the "find Maddy" fund for their defence or activities related to the case from now on - is being poured over by the Lausitanian press. Oddly I had raised that obvious spectre quite some time ago. Now I'll follow it up - the News of the World and SKY proudly claimed a balance of over 2 million sterling pounds in the account, but the prestigious newspapers of Spain report 1.4 million euro. Even for those who are retarted when it comes to foreign exchange rates, there appears to be an accountability problem.
& in the new climate of media concern [ for its own hide ] tabloids & tv are being very careful to pool their speculation & thus get around sourcing it to whichever Portuguese police employee likes keeping fleet street happy and offers the Belfast telegraph the details of past disciplinary proceedings. Thus I pointed out the new similarities in gist if not local readership prejudicial flavour between the worst of the portuguese tabloids and the English Sun in the last comment. Thus you'll bear with me as I inform you that anyone who bothers looking at Iberian wide tv now, knows the Portuguese "Sol" (sun) newspaper is quoting the BBC (who didn't chose to broadcast it yet) that the hire car whence came the DNA evidence which figured in the thousands of pages of evidence presented to the Portuguese "DPP" who within hours handed into a preparatory judge, who has since (this morning) instructed police forensics to examine it again just before the Mc Cann's said they would examine it independently is now in a "safe place". The implications being there is a "safe place" the ex-pat or holiday British community in the Algarve can keep a car hidden from the authorities of that state but within reach of an independent forensic team who will examine it as announced this afternoon. & needless to add, they will forfeit their rental deposit if it is not returned.

+ We have now less than a week after the commercial media could have chosen an alternative course of action - reached the political stage of the case.

& so my dear readers, whom I hope have accepted their place in the mob, hopefully by dint of mistrust and hatred of ochlarchy & in small way spurned on by the sanctimonious bleating & self-justification of "high-powered" editors & daily broadsheet syndicated columnists who in truth do little more than get paid to entertain - I shall now in the next comments add .:. after my established fashion to the + in the comment author field. Since it is now political, I feel beholden to point out that no Irish media mogul or "powerful" editor has chosen to write a leader piece, clarification of coverage or offer any orientation other than use syndicated English resident opinion hacks.

the BBC Editor on monday - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/09/unprecede....html
the Skynews editor today with his "conspiracies"
http://skynews7.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/09/post.html

by Paddy Thu Sep 13, 2007 01:25

All the preceding posts point to a sickness among commercially driven print newspapers, particularly though not exclusively, the tabloids. The running human interest story and the celebrity-in-murder/divorce/incest/drunken driving or- whatever story have become grist to the mill of sensation mongering, intrusive, infotainment journalism. Social priorities are confused. Human sensitivity is swept aside. Chauvinism and racial undercurrents poison international understanding.

People who are aware of this should now personally boycott the tabloids, write letters of complaint, and discuss possible action with likeminded friends.

by + / .:. Thu Sep 13, 2007 14:12

As I hoped to point out in the additions yesterday we have now passed the stage where this harrowing mystery can be considered in non-political terms alone. Paddy is right in his comment above & undoubtedly action must be taken by civilised individuals. I would argue the sustained existence of indymedia collectives worldwide and increased involvement by grass roots groups and individuals in reshaping what we consider as "newsworthy" and what international or transnational campaigns we favour would continue to play an important role in such action.
But the mistakes made in the telling and internationalisation of this story were not only made by the tabloid press or tabloid tv. The Spanish newspaper of reference "El Pais" has turned its attention to the appointment by the UK Foreign Office of Clarence Mitchell an employee of the BBC and the UK government's "Media Monitoring Unit" to advise the Mc Canns on the best course of action. Mr Mitchell and not a tabloid editor, nor the editors of either the BBC or SKY who have offered us justifications and blogs, is the man responsible for the trajectory taken.
Mr Mitchell decided to highlight the RC faith and facilitate contact between the Mc Cann's and a long list of international dignatories, one of which the Pope is in the illustration above. Thus it is unsurprising that now media speculation on the continent as we await any further facts relating to the case or see the church excavations finished has turned to the question - "are the Mc Cann's protected by the British Crown?" or rather - what is really going on & what has really gone on in this case? Naturally the Mc Canns would have been offered every available help by their government, but the scale of operation becoming apparent as they turn from priniciple victims to if not principle suspects then in the eye of some local yet international storm. El Pais as a simple illustration of the thesis I presume it and others will take (investigating miscarriage of justice) as differing from playing a role in the two other directions I have outlined (creating or averting a miscarriage of justice) points out that SKY news was informed of the disappearance thirty minutes before the Portuguese police.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/cuidada/puesta/...2/Tes
That article has been followed by a statement from Clarence Mitchell that HMG is "neutral".
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Gobierno/britan...1/Tes

+ politics aren't going to bring the child back but they might ensure such a potential tragedy happen again .:.

This is what the two main editors said this week, Men who have supplied updates of varying hue on the story which has occupied the "most read" section of English newsdesks for quite some time BBC - now. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/09/unprecede....html SKY - http://skynews7.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/09/post.html