Think back to May 4th, 2007. Remember what you were doing? Do you remember this face? That was the day the world was told of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance in the Algarve region of Portugal. There wouldn’t be too many people in Australia that have neither heard nor know some information in detail of this matter. I brought your attention to this old case because it quite the same as the recent event that has caused the upmost concern of importance and immediacy for news media over the past 2 weeks; the disappearance of 6 year old Kiesha Abrahams.
How this event has gained media coverage is fairly self explanatory but the depth and length that the media has continued with this story is what has surprised and frankly annoyed me most. When speaking in regard to media reporting on crime stories, Chibnell in 1977 said the media are influenced by eight news values. The facet of novelty was of course in action on the first few days, but 9 days on, the media are still reporting on this case with no new or exciting leads (Cited in Hayes and 
Prenzler, 2007; Goldsmith et al, 2006). The Telegraph headlined on Friday the 6th with (the only new factual information) news that the biological father Mr Weippeart has now been considered a suspect in her disappearance. Chibnell also says that immediacy influences news reporting, but yet for the first 7 days straight after Kiesha went missing; she has front-paged the Daily telegraph everyday with the same regurgitation that was said the day before. So in other words nothing else ‘newsworthy’ enough happened in Australia or the world to take front page status in the past week; other than the federal election that is.
Looking more specifically at an article which I found interesting, featured in The Daily Telegraph August 7th “Little girl lost and a city searches for answers”. As Alyce brought up in the lecture “Mass media devote a great deal of energy to deviance and sensational crimes”, which is quite true in this instance (as cited in Cohen 1972:17). The article mentions that “such cases always seize attention because of the imbalance between vulnerable child and adult malevolence, whether the adult is known to the child or not” and “Allegations of poor mothering have compounded the public perception that Ms Abrahams is not telling the whole story”. Hayes and Prenzler, (2007, p.2) also outline that media reporting on crime is “selective and subjective” in which the continued reporting of Kiesha’s disappearance is attempting to escalate public fear, portraying that this event is infrequent, where in actual fact more than 35000 people going missing annually in Australia alone, according to The AFP’s National Missing Persons Coordination Centre (website link below).
Now I’m sure everyone has formed his or her own opinion on who has or hasn’t ‘kidnapped’ Kiesha, (I sure know I have), but this assumption is purely based on the influence of the media and how they have constructed the articles surrounding this incident, because nor you or I will ever have the opportunity to interview any parties in this proposed crime. Whether this is a crime or not, is still yet to occur but the attention surrounding this issue is one of great public awareness and speculation. And until her body is found, dead or alive, please I beg of you, Daily Telegraph (as your the only one I buy) don’t waste more of your precious resources and my ever so valuable time reading this dull, tedious and repetitive babble.
The AFP’s National Missing Persons Coordination Centre http://www.missingpersons.gov.au/missing-persons/overview.aspx
The Wikipedia article on Madeleine McCann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCann
The Daily Telegraph August 7th “Little girl lost and a city searches for answers”. http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/little-girl-lost-and-a-city-searches-for-answers-20100806-11oii.html
Other newspaper articles showing a different perspective on the Kiesha disappearance
