Earwicker wrote:Don't suppose anyone saw Charlie Brooker last night?

Focused on the News and had a good section criticising the voyeuristic nature of the Mcann coverage. Also had a sort of guest section created by Adam Curtis which was good.

It's on again on Saturday if you missed. Don't think BBC has yet got with the programme and made their shows downloadable.

i did and i thought it was excellent how it tore a chunk out of the conduct of the British media in general.

gjhardwick wrote:

Earwicker wrote:Don't suppose anyone saw Charlie Brooker last night?

Focused on the News and had a good section criticising the voyeuristic nature of the Mcann coverage. Also had a sort of guest section created by Adam Curtis which was good.

It's on again on Saturday if you missed. Don't think BBC has yet got with the programme and made their shows downloadable.

i did and i thought it was excellent how it tore a chunk out of the conduct of the British media in general.

Where's Chris Morris at his most satirical when you need him, eh?

On a side note, we've named our new (10 days old) baby daughter Madeleine. We like the name. When I tell people, I usually follow it with "Well, it's topical, isn't it?".

floog wrote:Where's Chris Morris at his most satirical when you need him, eh?

I think Brooker worked with Morris on Brass Eye. I agree Morris is better but it's satire from the same stable at least.

Congrats on the babby btw

Channel 4 are running a Dispatches Special on the 18th October.

The Charlie Brooker thing was good, particularly the mawkish door-watching and the watching of the watchers; all of which is a by-product of the appetite for 24 Hour News coverage. The Screenburn version of this, published a few weeks ago, included a good bit about Sky News security 'expert' Martin Brunt (rhymes with...), who they turned to at every available opportunity. This guy must have made a small fortune over the Madeleine case. Problems arose for him when the McCann's became suspects and his source of income looked like it was about to dry up. He went through a series of contortions in an attempt to continue to promote the abduction theory, whilst looking more and more irrelevant.

I think therein lies the problem for a number of people involved. Whilst the McCanns were victims, they were onto a good thing. With the turn of events they looked like they would be left high and dry. Hence the need to cling to the abduction.

Edit: There is a correlation here with the 'War on Terror'.

From Times OnlineOctober 9, 2007

McCann children 'were not alone in apartment'

Kate and Gerry McCann say there are innocent explanations for all the evidence

Mr Mitchell said the couple were unable to grieve for Madeleine because they did not know yet what had happened to their daughter. “They need that knowledge whether Madeleine is alive or dead - let’s face it, she might be,” he said. “They need to know, before they can move on, before they can deal with that.

“In the absence of that hard information, they are doing what they can to, one, clear their names of these dreadful smears and, two, to actually get on with the job of finding her. That is the message we want to go to police in Portugal - ‘find Madeleine’.”

Odd and striking order of priorities there from the McCann's.

Did anyone catch Ben Needham's mum being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 last night (Eddie Mair's PM slot)? Here's the web link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sout ... 036519.stm

What they've omitted from the above, which was in the orginal PM show interview, was that his mum did say that she felt there was a "class thing" about the whole Madeleine McCann search, that if the Ben's parents had had the same resources, contacts and (let's face it) money, they would have worked just as hard to keep his profile in the news. It was refreshing to hear it being expressed so explicitly. I think this mirrors some of the discussion from earlier in the thread.

Actually, they have posted an audio/video interview with Ben's mum - maybe that contains the bit I'm referring to, but I can't get the thing to work at the moment.

Just listened to it - yes, she does pretty much say that she got no support from the UK police, that they had no media spokesman, etc. I didn't notice her actually claiming it to be a class-based issue though...

simmo wrote:Just listened to it - yes, she does pretty much say that she got no support from the UK police, that they had no media spokesman, etc. I didn't notice her actually claiming it to be a class-based issue though...

I heard a news report yesterday in which she definitely said that not being middle class had hindered their search for Ben, and that the McCanns have connections and options that were never available to the Needhams.

Daily Telegraph wrote:]She feels Kate and Gerry McCann have received a much higher because of their status as doctors compared to her as a single parent with her parents at the time.

Mrs Grist, an office worker from Sheffield, said: "Unfortunately we are just an ordinary working class family and I don't think people thought Ben was important enough, that's how it comes across to us.

"Everybody has bent over backwards with Madeleine McCann which I am glad of, they deserve all that help but so do we, even now 16 years later we need that support.

"I hope and pray Madeleine is found quickly and safely. I know the pain her parents are going go through. I am still going through it."

Link.