The Daily Mail & Madeleine McCann story

The and Madeleine McCann Story

Momina Amjad, Noor AlBulushi and Bashaer AlHajri

Objectives

•Learn about Daily Mail’s coverage of the Madeleine McCann story.

•Identify and analyze the techniques employed by The Daily Mail.

•Observe how Daily Mail linked Madeleine McCann’s disappearance to other stories.

•Discuss the impact of this story.•Discuss Daily Mail’s bias and compare it

to other newspapers.

2007

Initial reporting of Madeleine McCann story by the Daily Mail was sympathetic towards the parents while criticizing the Portuguese police indirectly.

• What do you notice about the headline?

-Alliteration (figure of speech)

• The article uses a lot of humanizing and personal images of the McCanns, showing sympathy towards them. Makes stories human interest.

10 May 2007

• He said: "We can't describe the anguish and despair we are feeling as parents of our beautiful daughter Madeleine.

• "Please, if you have Madeleine, let her come home to her mummy, daddy, brother and sister."

• Lots and lots of quotes from the McCanns but less facts & evidence to back them. It’s very personalized for the reader to feel sympathetic towards the McCanns.

• Indirect criticism of the Portuguese police, talking about how “British experts” think the golden hour opportunity to find Madeleine has been missed. A discussion of how Madeleine’s parents were the first ones to issue the photographs and a public appeal for their daughter.

• This image was used while describing police efforts to find a suspect. How do you think it’s going to impact the readers?

[later said by people shown it to be featureless and look "like an egg with hair".]

“

• Article says; “Facing the cameras on Friday night, Madeleine's father and consultant cardiologist Gerry McCann, his voice cracking with emotion…”

Watch the clip and decide the amount of truth those words have.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxHuwT__URc

• Celebrity involvement is mentioned, significantly that of portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, who then played for Manchester United.

Meanwhile, an estimated global TV audience of 450million saw a two-minute film clip of Maddy, entitled Find Madeleine, which was also played at Wembley before Chelsea beat Manchester United 1-0 in the FA Cup Final.

Madeleine McCann: Now hunt reaches UK20 May 2007Portuguese police hunting for toddler Madeleine McCann are to ask British counterparts to help with searches in England, it has been claimed.A request will be presented to UK authorities this week - a necessary step because foreign police forces cannot operate here without permission.It was also revealed that at least one of the numerous searches in Portugal has involved a police diver - although there were no details on where or what he was searching.

The 90,000 crowd fell silent as haunting images of the kidnapped toddler, against a soundtrack of the Simple Minds hit Don't You Forget About Me, filled the two huge screens at either end of the pitch.

The same film was shown at the Uefa Cup final in Glasgow between Espanyol FC and Sevilla earlier this week, and is part of the McCann family's determination to keep her in the public eye in the hope that someone comes forward with information.

More than 75 million people around the world have expressed their support for the missing youngster by visiting the website www.findmadeleine.com.

The McCanns have produced a diary of one day in their struggle to find their daughter. They also released touching new photographs of them with their twins.

The diary is another aspect of their quest to retain a semblance of normality for Madeleine's younger sister Amelie and brother Sean, who are twins. The family have vowed to stay in the Algarve resort until Maddy is found.

The hunt took a new twist when a Norwegian woman who lives in Spain said she was "99 per cent" certain she saw Maddy while on holiday in Morocco.

28th of may 2007

What do you think of the picture and the caption?

This may be the last photograph of Madeleine ever taken - just hours later the nightmare of her abduction began

Family friend who 'witnessed' Madeleine's abduction 'wracked with guilt'•Why is there a use of embedded

quotations ? Grabs readers attention and add mystery

•They are criticizing the Portuguese police and they there very sympathetic towards the parents.

'Maddy was abducted and we have a suspect in mind'

• In there headline there is something unusual what is it ?

• The headline doesn’t leave room for thought. States she was abducted and that the suspect is known without the actual evidence.

• Do you think using many pictures in an article is a good idea?

• The use of pictures in article draws the readers’ attention more than text would because the reader will automatically analyze people’s expressions in those pictures, however, this is also a media manipulation tool.

Vanished: Madeleine McCann, three, was asleep next to her twin brother and sister

Ray of light: Madeleine is described as active and chatty

A family torn apart: Parents Kate and Gerry McCann with Madeleine and the twins

2012

5 years later, The Daily Mail remains supportive of the McCanns but the bias and criticism against the Portuguese police increased.

• Embedded quote within the headline

• What does the use of work “finally” suggest?

• Short and concise bullet points below the headline make it easier for the reader to follow

• Article refers to the age progression pictures as ‘poignant’.

• Mention of some facts; 40 000 pieces of information and detectives have gone through only a quarter, taking them 3 more years to sift through it all.

‘Our objective is to work with a view to getting this case reopened. We believe it’s the only way to establish what happened to Madeleine McCann and ultimately to bring closure.’ DCI Andy Redwood

• “Detectives reviewing the case said they were pursuing 195 leads amid the firm belief she was abducted.”

... Yet later in the article it is said, “police also have to consider that she may be dead, adding: ‘Our drive on both scenarios is of equal measure.’”What do you think of these conflicting statements?

• The language used to describe the police chief of the original investigation is particularly strong. “Disgraced Portuguese police chief”. He caused “indescribable devastation and suffering” to their family.

• The entire story is summarized in the short Q & A at the end of article. Very effective. They seem to be factual at first sight but a bias against the Portuguese police can be sensed easily.

Articles for further discussion• £2.5m in rewards offered for Madeleine as her tortured parents

mark her birthday

• 'It's not our Maddie': McCanns' hopes dashed after sighting in India

History of the

• First published on May 4, 1896 by Lord Rothermere and

Lord Northcliffe.

• Britain's first middle-market newspaper

• The Mail was popular because of its short, simplified news

stories, and pictures

• Originally it was a broadsheet, but on May 3rd 1971, the

75th anniversary of its founding, it switched to the tabloid

format in which it is published today

• Accused of warmongering before World War I.

• Currently it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun, with an average daily circulation of about 2 million.

• The Mail considers itself to be the voice of Middle England, speaking up for the conservative values of the majority of population living there.

• Because the editorial stance is right wing and conservative, The Mail is typically anti-immigration, anti-European and anti- abortion and is correspondingly pro-family, pro-tax cuts and pro-monarchy.

• It has been criticized for promoting pseudoscience and for being racist and homophobic.

• Being a tabloid, the language used is aimed at less educated people of a lower middle class background.

• The current editor is Paul Darce. He has been the editor since 1992.

Who reads the Daily Mail?

Female53%

Male47%

Daily Mail's read-ership

Conser-vative

Labour Liberal Democrat

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Layout and stories

Comparison

“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

Malcolm X

Thank you for listening & taking part in our lesson!