Media Frenzy

I can understand the need for the family of the missing 4-year-old Madeleine McCann to fully utilise the media, if only to pressurise whichever sick scumbag took their daughter to give her up or leave her somewhere safe.

What I find a touch distasteful in all this though is the media frenzy going on. Like a pack of feeding sharks, the media has circled the family and the Portuguese Algarve, constantly looking for the new headline, criticising the police and the Portuguese justice system etc. etc.

Now the media has Robert Murat (pictured below) in their sights.

The man may be guilty. He may be innocent. I don't know - I'll leave that to the Portuguese coppers. If only our media would!

Already we've had people judging Murat because he has a false eye. What kind of 'trial by media' is that?

"What? He has a dodgy eye! Take him away! Life in gaol!"

It's clearly nonsense. If he or anyone else has committed a crime, why don't the media leave it to the Portuguese police to work on and solve the crime.

We now have a media that is always hungry for news - and thinks it is more important that any justice system or any investigation (not to mention any family's right to some sort of privacy).

Do I need to see pictures of the McCanns going to Mass on Sunday? Not really... but the cameras are there - even when they go for a walk along the beach.

It's time for the media to back off. Journalists are hardly the most shining examples of humanity (as a quick read of any edition of Private Eye will confirm).

After all if having a "dodgy eye" is a sign of guilt, look at the political world and you'll see someone with a dodgy eye who is guilty as hell of betrayal, sell-out and base treachery... he's guilty because of his past actions, not because he has a gammy eye.

But then I've covered the shortfalls of Gordon Brown elsewhere...