As classic examples of mind-numbing 'documentaries' which reveal nothing and seem to only serve a purpose of filling 30 minutes of prime time between two episodes of Conoration Street, this one was text book.
The premise seemed to be simple: Attack the Press. Accuse those grubby journalists who deal in print of peddling rumours and lies about the McCanns and you'll easy fill half an hour. Get a few attention-seeking columnists and you're off.
What the programme failed to address, quite handily from their point of view, is the roll TV has had to play in the McCanns saga. TV did what TV does - it turned a news story into an event. Almost as soon as Madeleine went missing, just before a bank holiday weekend, senior anchors were flown out to Portugal to report on, as it turned out, very little, because the police in Portugal aren't like the police in the UK - they don't talk.
Every little development, no matter how small, became a flash item on the breaking news tickers. ITV, which demonstrated its commitment to news by axing its rolling news channel last year, was among the first to interview the Sunday Mirror journalist who pointed the finger at Robert Murat. Yet five months on, here's the same lot pointing the finger at the Press (Fact: when ITV and the BBC claimed to have 'learnt' the detail of a story, what they mean is read it in the first editions) accusing them of a witch hunt.
Another fact for you: A reporter with a note pad can blend in. A cameraman and reporter can't. On the day Kate McCann was interviewed, and subsequently named a suspect by police, do you think the booing mob would have assembled had it been a few blokes with pens and still cameras, and not a gang of screen time-hungry news presenters, breathlessly describing Kate's 20-yard walk from car to police station door?
But that, apprently, is nothing compared to the grand crime of the witch hunt the Press has embarked on. Yet examine the claim of witch hunt, and the evidence they present, and all they had was The Sun's columnist John Gaunt. Who had the cheek to say, in print, that Madeleine's parents were wrong to leave them in the apartment by themselves. Which, if most of us are honest, we'd agree with. So rather than being guilty of a witch hunt, based on the evidence Tonight presented, all the Press has done is offer opinions in opinion columns, in addition to news at the front of paper. TV News isn't allowed to do opinion pieces, or editorialising, as it is called. Jelously?
The next piece of evidence offered up was the fact every twist and turn has been reported on the front pages of most newspapers. It is true to say some of it has been extreme, but to accuse the Press of 'running the story to sell papers' (quote) is a bit rich when you consider how the TV news, particularly ITV, kept it at the top of the news agenda during the long summer months of no news.
So, having accused the Press (notice they don't use the word media in this case. They do normally, so they can share in the hard-earned access right the Press have built up over a century) of a witch hunt based on little more than a few columnists' legitmate opinions and the fact the story has dominated the front pages (and still is talked about in offices up and down the land), Tonight turned its attention to that other scape goat of modern times: The internet.
Websites globally have been filled with conspiracy theories about Madeleine, as well as plenty of opinions. So what? For every crank slagging the McCanns off, there are five logging on to the official website to offer support. Websites also have conspiracy theories about Diana (MI6), Elvis (aliens) and George W Bush (mate of Bin Laden). Yet none of these form the key plank to a pointless documentary's 'evidence' about a witch hunt.
The sad thing about Tonight's programme is that it got it right with the title: there has been a witch hunt. A very cruel one. But it has nothing to do with the British media: it has either come from the police in the Algarve or from senior journalistic figures having their ears bent by editors concerned about the image of the Algarve. That's where the investigation should have gone. But that takes lots of time, lots of money, and, let's face it, it's much easier, and cheaper, to line up Max Clifford, Vanessa Feltz and Fiona Phillips, to be talking heads on an issue without substance and then pad it out with a few pictures of front pages.
All Tonight achieved last night was to prove it isn't a serious factual programme, it's a cheap space filler which doesn't deserve the kudos it gains from having Sir Trevor McDonald introducing it. As a result of the nonsense it churned out, it made itself as guilty of the trumped it crime it wrongly accused the Press of. In a nutshell, it was exploitation of the McCanns in the worst possible sense.
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