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Madeleine is the new Diana
Posted by Mark 11 September 2007
Tragically, and all too often, children go missing. Often there is a happy outcome as family and child are reunited, but equally as often there is not. The heartbreaking images of the missing Madeleine remind us every time we see them how bad the outcome would be if this story ended the wrong way. Every twist and turn confounds us. Everything the luckless parents do is headline news, in some papers at least. And that's the other aspect of this story. For some newspapers, here and abroad, the "Maddy" story fills acres of paper. Every theory and counter-theory is hyped-up and reported to an eager readership. There has been nothing like it since Diana died.
Should the latest development result in charges and a trial, those papers will collectively cry out, "Oh, Joy!" It is to their great good fortune that Madeleine is a very pretty little girl. This saga would not have lasted so long if she had been an ugly brute, or if she had been a few years older or younger. It is her sheer angelic innocence that plays into the newspapers' hands. Just as Diana could gaze into a camera with angelic innocence, Madeleine is now being used in the same way and for the same reasons, to sell papers. Add the spice of mystery and countless conspiracy theories, helpfully supplied by the papers themselves, and you have a self-perpetuating story.
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