MADDYWATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCannDAILY EXPRESS: “POLICE PROBE MADELEINE LINK TO NEW CHILD SNATCH”
Mari Luz Cortes is missing. “Mari Luz’s heartbroken parents yesterday launched a Madeleine-style publicity campaign to help the search for their daughter. They released a video of Mari Luz dancing and opening her Christmas presents”
What has the disappearance of Mari Luz Cortes to do with Madeleine McCann?
“The McCanns and their investigators, two of whom spent the evening with the Cortes family, believe Huelva is on the route Madeleine’s abductor took to spirit the four-year-old away to North Africa”
Maybe Metodo 3 can get a new client?
Says Gerry McCann: “Hearing of the probable abduction of Mari Luz Cortes has brought many awful emotions flooding back. We hope and pray she is quickly found and returned safely…Huelva is approximately a two-hour drive from Praia da Luz and we went there in early August to publicise Madeleine’s disappearance”
DAILY STAR: “MADDIE COPS PROBE LINK TO SNATCH GIRL”
“Police in Portugal were last night investigating whether the fiend who snatched a five-year-old girl in Spain also took Madeleine McCann.
Guilhermino Encarnacao, a key member of the Maddie squad, was drafted in to join the hunt for little Mari Lui Cortes” – Not to be confused with Mari Luz Cortes
Look out Spain, the Portuguese police are on the case. But help is on its way: “Last night private eyes hired by the McCanns were in the port, believing the hunt for Mari could also lead them to Madeleine”
Says a police source: “Officers are certain they know what happened to Madeleine. And, despite the situation in Huelva, they don’t believe she was abducted. They are in the loop regarding events in Spain, but mainly to offer assistance in case the culprits escaped to Portugal. Officers are certain they know what happened to Madeleine. There are key differences. Mari disappeared as she walked alone along a public street in daylight.
Madeleine vanished from an apartment at night, where she slept with other children. It would have been a far more difficult and daring abduction. There is other evidence, too’’
So who has linked the cases?
There are pictures in the Star of children holding images of Mari
THE SUN: “2,000 MARCH FOR ‘MADDIE 2’ – Awful emotions flood back for Gerry”
“Fears were growing last night that the cases were linked and serial kidnapper is on the loose in the region”. Is there any evidence for this? Can the Sun provide details of other missing children that might be linked? Or is fear all?
Says Gerry McCann: “We hope and pray that Mari is quickly found and retuned safely”
Mari has “echoes” of the case of Madeleine McCann: “NO clues, NO confirmed sightings, and NO witnesses”
Apart from those witnesses who have speaking to the press for the past eight months, DNA samples and people pointing fingers
DAILY MAIL: “McCanns’ pain over Spanish abduction”
Is the disappearance of Mari Luz Cortes really about the McCanns?
DAILY MIRROR: “WAIT FOR ME, WAIT FOR ME – Last words of Spain’s missing ‘Madeleine”
Her name is Mari Luz Cortes. Not Madeleine
A woman has seen Mari talking to two girls, aged about seven and nine. Mr Cortes is a “street trader”
THE HERALD: “Police step up hunt for missing girl”
“Spanish police yesterday stepped up their search for a five-year-old girl who went missing 120 miles from where Madeleine McCann disappeared”
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Thompson calls for more regional accents on BBC”
Mark Thompson is director-general of the BBC is answering readers’ questions:
Mark Thompson is director-general of the BBC is answering readers’ questions:
Q: Mr Thompson, an article in another newspaper reports that a former BBC news correspondent, Martin Bell, speaking at the BBC Television Centre today, accused the BBC of wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money in their coverage of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.
Mr Bell was particularly scathing of the BBC’s decision to send presenter, Huw Edwards, to Portugal to anchor a news bulletin there and to pay for a helicopter to follow Kate and Gerry McCann’s car as they drove home from East Midlands airport in September.
He says – “I am calling it the death of news.” He went on – “It is the stupidification of the news agenda.
It is pretty obvious television news has lost its way not just with the McCann case but that has been extreme.” Were you in attendance at this debate, and, if so, how did you react to Mr Bell’s assertions?
MT: I didn’t agree with all of Martin’s comments.
I thought the Madeleine McCann story was one of legitimate public interest and that, in common with the rest of UK media, we were right to cover it.
I also believe that in general our coverage has been proportionate and good. In retrospect, I am not convinced that we should have anchored our news from Portugal – in that respect I agree with Martin.
“Is the Madeleine McCann case connected to the case of another missing girl named Mari Luz Cortes?
Madeleine went missing on May 3 and has now been missing for 258 days. When she vanished she was just four days short of her fourth birthday. She vanished from the resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve, Portugal.
Now another girl is missing and the McCanns have commented on their website on the case”
