Word: mccanns
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There's been no shortage of surprises in the ongoing saga of Madeleine McCann, the 4-year-old British girl who disappeared from her family's vacation apartment in Portugal more than four months ago - the biggest shock occurring earlier this month when Portuguese police officially named her parents as suspects. Still, it was somewhat stunning when a YouGov poll published in the Sunday Times of London this week found that only 20% of Britons think Gerry and Kate McCann are completely innocent...
...That indicates a huge disconnect between the public and Britain's many and multifaceted newspapers, which are usually adept at playing to their readers' biases. The press here - from populist tabloids to serious-minded dailies - has largely been unswerving in its support of the McCanns. "Madeleine: Her Mother is Innocent," shouted Wednesday's Daily Express. "Torture," declared Sunday's The People over a picture of Kate McCann, Madeleine's mother. And Chris Roycroft-Davis, a media consultant and Express commentator, thinks that's how it should be. "The media have been very, very sympathetic toward the McCanns, quite rightly...
...Other analysts think the pro-McCann tilt is a mistake. "The press have treated the parents almost too nicely," says Adrian Monck, head of London's City University's Department of Journalism, and that could backfire if any portion of the Portuguese police's suspicions that the McCanns might know more than they are saying proves correct. Adds Charlie Beckett, a media and communications expert at the London School of Economics: "The media have almost been campaigning on behalf of the McCanns instead of adopting a more balanced position. Now they're finding it much harder to change tack...
...David Jones wrote that while he hopes the police are wrong, "a terrible nagging doubt has refused to leave me." It may be "unpalatable," he adds, but "we can no longer take their innocence as an absolute, cast-iron certainty." Olga Craig in the Sunday Telegraph recently described Kate McCann, pointedly, as cold and distant. Some publications are hedging their bets with a two-track approach: supporting the McCanns, but also printing stories that tend to bolster the police line of inquiry. London's Evening Standard recently quoted sources as saying critics of the DNA evidence - which early reports said...
...McCanns, of course, initially helped whip up public interest in the disappearance. After Madeleine first went missing, they launched a massive media campaign that was endorsed by celebrities - billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson this week started a McCann defense fund with around $200,000 of seed money - and they even got a meeting with the Pope. The YouGov poll indicated that some of the anti-McCann sentiment in the U.K. is a negative response to their self-generated publicity...