MSN:UK: You have to wonder how much longer this can go on. Not the search for the missing toddler Madeleine McCann; rather the media's hysterical coverage of the case, the like of which has plumbed new depths in the name of scurrilous rumour-mongering, gratuitous prejudice and sensationalist overkill.
What I've seen and read these past two weeks has profoundly shaken my faith in the standards of British journalism. Hearsay reported as news, gossip reported as news, nothing reported as news...anything, in fact, except facts and substance.
The McCann family has spoken repeatedly of wanting to keep their story "at the top of the news agenda" (and that's a phrase you wouldn't have found ordinary members of the public freely using even five years ago). But this bedlam of bombast and witch-hunting is having little or no positive effect whatsoever. Sure, it makes sense to keep the case in the public eye, but on whose terms - your own, or the media's? Because so far it's clearly been the latter.
I couldn't have put it in better words myself (mind you - the guy who wrote this IS a professional journalist; he's earning a living doing this sort of thing so they should be better words than mine) ...
This 'headline news' story HAS gone on too long. It is very suspicious now in its longelivity ...
