Words Dept.: entry

I was thinking the other day about precisely the issue Roy Greenslade discusses on his blog today. Namely, why is it that three weeks after the disappearance of Shannon Matthews, the case doesn’t have nearly the same profile as Madeleine McCann’s did?

Greenslade speculates that the “unsympathetic domestic profile” of Shannon’s mum, Karen, in contrast with the educated, middle class background of Kate and Gerry McCann, may have something to do with it.

It’s probably true to a point but I can’t help thinking geography and the north-south divide has something to do with it, as well. I wrote last year about my suspicion that the 24-hour news channels failed to properly cover the floods in Hull during the summer because it was simply too remote for them to notice (in comparison with Worcestershire and, to an extent, even Doncaster).

Obviously Portugal is further from London than Hull. But perhaps the media circus sprang up so quickly in Praia da Luz because there was no shortage of reporters willing to fly out to the Algarve in the early summer to cover it. The fact that absolutely bugger all happens in terms of proper news during the summer, as well as a xenophobic/ “funny foreigners” element, probably also had a part to play in the level of coverage.

Contrast that with a freezing February in down-at-heel Dewsbury and it’s not difficult to see why it drops off the national media radar more quickly. Nonetheless, a quick look at the website of the Dewsbury Reporter shows they are constantly monitoring developments in the case, as you would expect - in spite of the apparent apathy on show elsewhere.

The relative lack of coverage around Shannon probably reflects the fact that, other than reporting that a child has disappeared, there isn’t much else to say. The same could be said of the Madeleine case. So perhaps the real question isn’t why Shannon is receiving so little coverage, but why Madeleine received so much.