Press and Media Intrusion

This forum carries it's own space for commentary on the fate of a little 3 year old child - Madeleine McCann.  Not only because of the severity of an unsolved case left to dangle without an end in sight but more because all other privately administered debate (?) platforms don't allow free speech - you only fit in if you follow the leader, no matter how misguided and/or self serving the leader/s might be.  There is no scope for development just churning over the same distorted theory without due consideration to fact and evidence or even alternative thinking. 

So here we are, hardly surprising the tale is never ending when you think how that poor little voiceless child's story has been sold across the world's press and media for nigh on two decades - not unlike a few other high profile cases but unique in it's own right.  Here we refer to the distortion and misinformation surrounding the case propagated by mainstream press and media and social media.

Social media to be shoved aside for the moment as there is no censorship nor control over the rampant loud voices that haunt the airwaves.  Mainstream media on the other hand carry a responsibility for reporting truth, accuracy, fact and NEWS!  The code of ethics.

Perhaps in days of yore that code of ethics, a legal (?) requirement, was recognised and practiced but now (maybe faced with the competition of social media) it has been replaced by a free for all - anything goes, who cares whether it's right wrong or indifferent?  Does the ardent reader even care?

Still mainstream press and media are allowed to continue spreading mis/disinformation without restraint, there must come a time when someone in authority says enough is enough and effects some action to curtail the current situation?

It really is a sorry state to find important world events are eschewed into unbridled propaganda.  Okay it can be argued the reader has the choice to do their own research, to decide for themselves but what is the basis of free thought?  Lies and propaganda?

Slipping back into social media for a moment (it can't be avoided for long), have you ever looked in the more popular social media platforms like X (twitter), some of the stuff repeated there is totally outrageous - not even convincing, yet still the faithful spread the word with little or no consideration for truth.

It's truly frightful and there can be no end in sight, not all the time social media is allowed to continue uncensored and mainstream press and media are trying to maintain a foothold against that competition.  It should never be a competition but that's how it's turned out.  Fact remains there is no such thing as good reporting, it's all to be viewed with scepticism and that's a position the press and media and social media have brought upon themselves over the years - aided and abetted by bickering like unruly schoolchildren.

Meanwhile ruination, trial by media, stays rampant in our society, just because those with a louder voice and a bigger platform are able to control and influence thought, worse still to manipulate truth to create fiction.

Food for thought..

McCanns and the Media: the debate

Charlie Beckett
January 30th, 2008

The first ever debate about the media and the McCanns at Polis brought out some heated and painful issues. McCann family spokesperson Clarence Mitchell and former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie represented competing perspectives on a story that has gripped and disturbed the world for nine months.

Here are some of the points made that I felt represent how seminal this story has been (in no particular order):

The British public now don’t trust you if you have a public relations advisor
The British public don’t trust the media so they go to Internet forums to express their views on the case
24 hour news has eradicated all the traditional caution over sourcing stories
Turning subjects in to celebrities now allows the public to suspend the usual sympathy for an invididual

Now here are some of the factors discussed that make this case so exceptional:

The fact that they were middle-class encouraged hostility
The fact the Portugese police did no press work mean a vacuum was created
This is a narrative without an end so it allows endless speculation
There is now a vicious cycle with Portugese and British media recycling stories without references, sources or facts

Now some quotes from our speakers.

Kelvin MacKenzie:

“This is beyond Lord Lucan, beyond Diana, beyond Shergar…if this was a single black mother then it would not have been the same story…the public is obsessed so newspapers make a commercial judgement, they know that putting Madeleine on the front page increases circulation by about 3%, it did so from day one and it still does. People who criticise the papers ought to think about that and ask themselves if they get their money out when they see a billboard with the McCanns name on it…It’s a class war issue. Ordinary people don’t associate public relations with the truth, though I think hiring Clarence was a great idea and I believe what he says. What is so unusual and incredible about this story is that they are the main suspects and so when we write about it we are saying ‘they may be the killers’.”

Clarence Mitchell made a stout defence of the McCanns’ innocence and was clear about the money spent on promoting their cause. He thanked the media for the support they had given in publicising the campaign to find Madeliene but critcised the ‘sloppiness and laziness’ of much journalism driven by ‘a commercial imperitive’ which recycled stories ‘entirely founded on misinformation, mostly wrong”.

David Mills who produced a Panorama on the McCanns which he subsequently disowned felt that the British media had failed to address the real sotry which was the failure in police procedure and forensics in Portugal and the UK.

Former McCann public relations advisor Justine McGuinness felt that the way that Madeleine had been turned in to a celebrity by the media (although surely the PR had a role?) meant that the public felt she could be treated with the same callousness afforded to a Big Brother contestent – hence of the appalling vitriol and unsubstantiated rumour on some internet forums: “A missing child has been turned in ot a celebrity which gives the public the excuse to disconnect from human feelings because she has become a household name”.

Former Mirror editor, now media commentator Roy Greenslade cited his own mother as an example of how the public still want to ‘blame’ the McCanns but he reserved his ire for the media. He sketched out how the media coverage went through four phases: sympathy (Overdone), scepticism (a sensible attitude), suspicion (based on nothing) and finally commercial cynicism. So the Express can print a headline, he said, that says “McCanns Split Over Maddie” which turned out to be simply a story that Gerry was going back to work while Kate was not. Greenslade said that the media has encouraged people to believe the worst about them and so it has now got to a point where people don’t care about defamation – all reporting is at the level of gossip.

Roger Graef, who produced a film for Channel 4 about the McCanns said he found himself in demand by the international media. And yet the only thing he had to say was that there was nothing to say. There was one fact: that Madeleine was gone. And yet he found himself endlessly interviewed about how there was nothing to say. The fact that so many people now inhabit imaginary worlds of conspiracy around this story, he said, was partly because ‘we cannot bear a narrative that has no end.”

That is, of course, most true for the parents themselves. They dared to try to use the media (on advice from experts said Justine McGuinness) and that decision and the media came back to haunt them and to hunt them down. The media initially swamped them with support and then finally drowned them in bile. The media suspended its critical faculties when it first joined a campaign to find a beautiful white middle class girl and it never recovered its judgement in the rush to judgement and in the daily stampede for front page fodder. The Internet provided an outlet for huge waves of sympathy for the McCanns – it also provided a forum for legitimate debate and commentary – but it was also the dark place that some very sad souls chose to huddle together, sharing their sick fantasies and reaffirming each other’s sad obsessions. A few of those odd people turned up at our debate demanding action against the McCanns and an end to ‘spin’. But as Kelvin pointed out they represent a big part of the public who don’t seem to trust anyone anymore. I am not sure if that’s the media’s fault, but it sure ain’t doing a lot to correct it.

Our debate chairman Steve Hewlett has written a very good article on this for the Guardian which stresses the doubtful benefits of PR in cases like this. And Tim Black from Spiked has also written a report on the debate here.

Much more on this debate when my interns report back in – the podcast will be up when the LSE techies have done their thing. In due course, Polis will be publishing a paper on this issue. It’s not a nice subject but I am convinced that it speaks volumes about the state of our media and the society that consumes it.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2008/01/30/mccanns-and-the-media-the-debate/

For reasons best known to myself I now have to endure adverts when viewing online television, nauseating to say the least but I think I can live with it - just!  I was fine when paying a small amount per month/annum for clean streaming but that privilege has been taken away from me, in favour of a more user friendly internet resource *splutter!*  Bit like the game of 'cookies', if you don't want you must pay, if you do want to read the news you must pay.

To put it bluntly, they've got you by the short and curlies!  Every which way you must pay.

Anyway, this recent change to my leisure hours has brought to my attention the persuasive methods used to sell and product or service, usually it's a cue to leave the room but on more than one occasion I've seen very young children being used to promote nationwide vaccines for the very young.  Children are advertising, children will watch the reminder for parents or guardians not to forget the well being of their offspring.

If I've seen it, you've no douobt seen it also - it's like a scene from Oliver!

Add that to the undeniable influence of social media on the immature minds of the very young, is it any wonder children are suffering?  Is it any wonder they become confused, sick and full of self-hatred?

Parents/guardians can be blamed to a certain extent but their contribution pales into insignificance when compared to industry's damaging effects on the young.  Social media 'influencers' should be removed and stuck somewhere out of sight and mind - their influence is toxic.  They even make big money by parading themselves on public platforms shared from here to the gates of hell.

This never happened before the advent of the internet - it's industrial scale!

No one seems to care about fellow human beings any more, those in a position or those who have the will to exploit share no concern for the health and well being of others - even adults who should know better, are guilty of exploitation - and vulnerability!.  Broadly speaking, this might not be anything new but the internet sure has opened new doors and made the corruption so much easier and more widespread than anyone could ever have imagined in the past.

There can be no denying that children have been exploited and otherwise abused throughout the centures but that's no good reason to worsen the situation.  Adults should be protecting children, not ignoring them or using them!  Everything a child sees and hears and feels whilst on the journey from birth to adulthood, stays with them for the rest of their lives.

Not much hope for the future is there?

Parents are making their children sick with anguish

As a childless man it’s hard to say, but something has gone very wrong with how we bring up our young

Tim Stanley

15 September 2024 8:14pm



Buried in Lord Darzi’s report on the ailing NHS are two alarming statistics. First, the number of children waiting for a diagnosis of autism rose from 6,000 in 2019 to over 70,000 in 2024. Second, the number of children undergoing “restrictive interventions” in hospitals – such as force-feeding the mentally ill – has quadrupled. Combine this with data suggesting youngsters are out of work because they can’t cope or just don’t want to do it, and you have the picture of a generation afflicted by Anguish.

How do we account for it? This isn’t like flu; you don’t catch ADHD or anxiety. Darzi notes that some believe the spike in suspected autism reflects rising awareness “as stigma has reduced”, while others argue it is “the result of self-diagnosis induced by misleading discussion on social media.”

So, the challenge either emanates from individuals, i.e. is real, or is a panic encouraged by the community, i.e. is imagined. (In either case, it should be noted that the number of adults requesting an autism diagnosis has risen yet faster, albeit from a lower base).

I admire Darzi’s frankness. Most politicians avoid discussing Anguish for fear of offending parents. No one wants to suggest a voter might have contributed to their child’s problems by being too liberal, too strict, overprotective or absent, and are covering up their mistakes by resorting to therapy or pills.

Conditions such as autism or ADHD most certainly do exist. They run in my own family, and though I’m not sure if one can pinpoint the cause, applying a label can help predict challenges and develop strategies to cope.

No, the existence of any given condition shouldn’t surprise us in itself. It’s the numbers. A spike this seismic – 6,000 to 70,000! – points either to a definition of autism that has expanded into meaninglessness or a more concrete social phenomenon.

Another example of the latter might be eating disorders, which jumped in the 1990s – with its heroin chic and obesity panic – and rose again under lockdown (which helps account for force feeding).

When a young person loses agency, as they did during Covid, starving or harming oneself can be perceived as a means to reassert control.

Hence the Anguish – including various tics being presented as autism – is the product of material conditions. We have created a world that screws up its youth and one message of Darzi’s report is that we can’t afford to go on doing it. A struggling NHS can no more handle millions of shut-ins than it can chain smokers.

So, let’s do something. Let’s commit never again to lockdown children. Let’s ban smartphones in school. Let’s follow Australia: impose a higher, tougher age limit on social media. Phones are frying undeveloped brains, and it’s strange that the British government – so keen to control sugar or vaping – has given up on controlling their use. Even odder that so many parents have, too.

Society has made parenting harder by forcing people to work long hours for shrinking pay, or biasing the tax code against single-earner households (addressed in the Tories’ last Budget). But we also need a frank conversation about how parents are freely making choices that disadvantage their children, from screen time to projecting their neuroses on to others.

I’m not supposed to comment on this because I have no kids of my own, but I have noticed one vast difference from how I was raised: children have gone from being part of the family to defining the family. Their actions and moods are treated as if they were meteorological phenomena of a newly discovered planet, around which adults orbit like curious satellites. The tiniest tremor is an earthquake. Every meltdown is catastrophised into a sure sign the child is damaged and will be so for life. So many times I’ve had to say to friends, “I’m sure he’ll grow out of it” – and if at the age of 40, darling Oscar is still screaming in the food aisle of M&S, then we can start to worry.

Why can’t adults remember what it was like to be young? The pains and fears, but most importantly that they eventually go away.

It is, for example, perfectly natural for children to question their gender. It’s the most essential thing about them and, as they sexually mature, the most frightening. What is not ordinary is to treat doubt as certainty, to put a confused child on puberty blockers. And yet during the 2010s, we saw a surge in girls seeking gender care that smacked of classic cohort behaviour, opening up a pathway to medical intervention.

The lesson of the trans craze is that many professionals are not nearly mature enough to diagnose the mental health of children and some doctors might themselves be insane. Whenever we apply therapeutic language to young people’s symptoms, we risk medicalising the normal experience of growing up – and diverting the “patient” away from maturity, which necessitates resilience, and towards incapability, as a ward of the NHS.

The way we treat the Anguish might be making it worse, because it is the product of a society that is egocentric, pessimistic, helpless. A depressing culture nurses depressed people.

Darzi’s report pins the NHS’s collapse on austerity. When it comes to funding, he’s correct. But the pressures of an ageing population at the top – dementia deaths have doubled – and permanent adolescence at the bottom are the by-products of prosperity. As a friend likes to put it: no one’s depressed in Somalia because they’re too busy being poor and hungry.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/15/parents-are-making-their-children-sick-with-anguish/