are the press milking the Madeleine Mccann story to sell more papers?

Question

last week most of the tabloids carried a picture of a little girl spotted in Morocco who was clearly not the missing 4 year old - the next day the true identity of the girl in the picture was revealed. I feel that the press knew full well that the picture was not of madeleine, what do you think?

Answer 1

Of course they are. Some people are just too gullible to see it and swallow everything they read on this subject.

Answer 2

I'm afraid the national press were the inventors of 'spin' that they try so hard to push onto politicians. No only the McCann story many others come to mind. How much for example is going to appear in the press over the next few months about the Diana inquest? Not to mention Kate Moss or Britney Spears lives. It's called 'the public interest' or 'how to keep ourselves in a job'! And it's not only newspapers - radio and tv are equally responsible for the nonsense that's trotted out in the name of 'reporting'.

Answer 3

I don't know whether the press suspected the picture wasn't Madeleine, but I do believe they are using the story to sell papers. That's what newspapers are for.

We'd like to think they are there to tell us what's going on in the world, but they are a business like any other and depend on sales and advertising revenue and for that this story is heaven sent.

Answer 4

You could say that the media is "milking" the story. You could also say that the media is catering to the market's demand for stories like the Madeleine McCann case.

It the story didn't sell news papers, why print it? As I have said in other posts, we (consumers of media product) are the tail that wags the media dog.

We should never question the motives of the media, they just want to make money and will print whatever maximizes that goal. The real question is: "why do we continue to vote for these kind of stories through our pocket book?"

Answer 5

The Daily Express is the worst exploiter of the McCann story. Day after day it appeared on the front page. What more can one expect from the Express proprietor Dirty Des?

Answer 6

Of course they are taking advantage of this story to sell more.
Most of the press will write anything - now defending the McCanns and if needed they'll write against them.

Answer 7

Oh completely. The Daily Mirror is one of the worst culprits, they have put that cute photo of her on the front of it's rag about 80 times since it all began. The headline always contains the word 'Maddie'. It's all designed to play on the heartstrings of the public and make them buy the paper.

Answer 8

I think the McCann team are hard at work, notice how there's something in the papers every day again. About the police officer in Portugal being sacked for what he said - isn't it what a lot of people are thinking that the McCanns are 'working' the police here.

Answer 9

I think it is all a publicity stunt with the papers to boost their sales. I would like to see a few facts about what happened to Madeleine coming out at this stage. This seems to be dragging on and on. §

Answer 10

I think that All press sell on sad stories, I thought straight away it was not Maddie,but I am glad in a way they do print everything,as I hope to one day read what happened for sure to Maddie.

I do have what i believe may have happend instincts.

Answer 11

This has been such a publicised case, and the papers know full well that tragedy sells. They often repeat things over and over too, which doesn't help anyone. If they know of any significant developments, then print them by all means, but we don't need to read recycled stories day after day.