12:50PM BST 08 Sep 2007
The McCann case is dominating the Portuguese media today, with coverage varying from publishing anonymous police sources to criticising the press for doing just that.
In the Diario de Noticias, sources linked to the case are quoted as saying that the police suspected Kate McCann was “mentally unbalanced” and that Gerry McCann had admitted to giving a sedative to Madeleine. “One of the lines of investigation is that the child was given too much medication,” it reported.
Showing more restraint, the main leader in the upmarket daily Publico calls for calm, reminding readers that the judicial process must be left to take its course. However, it argues that the case has reached a point of no return. “The Portuguese police (criticised already, even in this paper) is risking its credibility irreversibly. Either it has some trump cards up its sleeve to make us understand and justify the hypothesis that everyone hopes is not true. Or it is shooting in the dark and ruining its image, not just domestically but in front of the world, which has seen this case spread like an open wound.”
Nicolau Santos, a columnist in Expresso, defends some of the accusations against the local police. “On the one side, the Portuguese media is putting pressure on the police for results, to find the guilty, to discover the girl. Meanwhile the English media insinuate that the Portuguese police is incompetent and hasn’t conducted the investigations in the best possible way. In the middle of such pressure the police don’t react in the best way.” He adds: “We are not in the middle ages, where they burnt witches at the stake based on flimsy evidence. But if we don’t take note we’ll get to that point transmitted live on TV, of course.”
In the tabloid Correio da Manha, columnist Octavio Ribeiro takes aim at the British press pack to make a wider point about national characteristics. He says the media has been overly enthusiastic in believing the McCanns’ story from the beginning.
“The behaviour of the English press in the Maddy case is the symptom of a serious disease. The way that the mass of British papers and not just the tabloids militantly kept to a fixed idea of what had happened, goes against the principles of good journalism.
“I remember the hysteria about the ‘secret dossier’ that was the basis of the decision to invade Iraq. And Blair: safe, sound and popular too after it was revealed as a deception.
“The way that Maddie has until now been treated by the English press shows that any agile press spokesman has an easy job.”
On a lighter note, in the Diario de Noticias, Ferreira Fernandes, writes that the latest Portuguese contribution to world culture after the custard cream is the word “arguida”, which has been the subject of articles in the international press.
He explains the word by saying it is a typical fudge. “It is accusing someone and then saying ‘don’t take it badly, mate’. You can’t get more Portuguese than that. The world arguida has conquered the world. Now all that’s left is to convince the judges.”
In the tabloid Correio da Manha, columnist Octavio Ribeiro takes aim at the British press pack to make a wider point about national characteristics. He says the media has been overly enthusiastic in believing the McCanns’ story from the beginning.
“The behaviour of the English press in the Maddy case is the symptom of a serious disease. The way that the mass of British papers and not just the tabloids militantly kept to a fixed idea of what had happened, goes against the principles of good journalism.
“I remember the hysteria about the ‘secret dossier’ that was the basis of the decision to invade Iraq. And Blair: safe, sound and popular too after it was revealed as a deception.
“The way that Maddie has until now been treated by the English press shows that any agile press spokesman has an easy job.”
On a lighter note, in the Diario de Noticias, Ferreira Fernandes, writes that the latest Portuguese contribution to world culture after the custard cream is the word “arguida”, which has been the subject of articles in the international press.
He explains the word by saying it is a typical fudge. “It is accusing someone and then saying ‘don’t take it badly, mate’. You can’t get more Portuguese than that. The world arguida has conquered the world. Now all that’s left is to convince the judges.”
