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Maddy mystery ... and the media
What are we to make of Gerry McCann's call to scale down the media campaign to find his missing daughter Madeleine?
Just the day before, his sisters had appeared on TV's This Morning and Richard and Judy.
And Mr McCann himself made his request during a highly publicised appearance at the Edinburgh Television Festival.
For the Press, the mystery of what happened to Madeleine on May 3 has been one of the most extraordinary episodes in media history - and certainly not its finest hour.
Initially, understandably, every outlet got behind the family. This was a story the public could not get enough of - and desperately wanted a positive outcome to. It involved people's darkest fears - child abduction.
A young, white, middle-class British couple, both doctors, found themselves engulfed by terrible events.
Yet, there was something it seemed unfair and spiteful to mention.
They had left Madeleine and her twin brother and sister alone in their unlocked apartment, which opened onto the public highway, while they dined with friends at a Tapas bar some distance away.
Some of you will be shocked by that statement. You won't have read it all joined up like that in the papers.
Put whatever spin you want on it - they were checking regularly, it was just like being in their garden at home - but this was where the whole McCann campaign began to come unstuck. The papers had to accommodate it without implying any criticism of the McCanns.
Meanwhile, the parents certainly didn't brook any criticism of their actions.
Give or take a few critical pieces from commentators, the media remained on message. Even if some of the public did not.
Remember those early May evenings in Praia de Luz? The TV satellite vans' permanent presence; the photocalls with Mr and Mrs McCann as they walked to and from church; the trips to Fatima and the Vatican.
What you won't recall are any of the more standard news breaks on a story such as this.
There had been considerable restraint surrounding the story. Oddly, there was no information relating to the seven other people in the holiday party - to the extent no one even knew what their names were. And no effort, apparently, to find out.
Odd all round, because for newspapers, that is the type of information - the routine 'human' side of the story - which keeps a story 'alive' when there's nothing happening. For some reason, this anomaly in the campaign survived.
Until about 15 days ago, when the first of what Mr McCann describes as "wild speculation" appeared in the Portuguese Press about the case - allegations that have been reprinted in many British papers.
"I can see more clearly that staying in Portugal may be counter-productive," he says. "That generated pressure on people to write things and maybe the pressure is too great."
Of course, Mr McCann must also be troubled by the wild speculation that is rampant on web forums.
Log on to some of those sites and you'll find extremely harsh criticism of the McCanns. That's where the latest translations of Portuguese papers appear early every day.
Mr McCann is right to be concerned. But turning off the media spotlight is not going to be a matter of simply asking the media to go away.
The difficulty is "the campaign" hasn't been setting the agenda for some time now. The first intimations from Portugal - since confirmed - that the police were considering the possibility that Madeleine had died on the evening she disappeared effectively moved the focus of attention.
The steam went out of the campaign to find Madeleine McCann because while she was still missing, she was close to being presumed dead.
That fuelled speculation in the Portuguese Press and created a frenzy around other possible options - none of those driven by the McCann campaign.
The McCanns can't turn off what they didn't start. Now, the question of what happened to Madeleine McCann has been returned to where it probably should have been exclusively all along - not in TV studios, not on wristbands, not inside copies of Harry Potter.
But in some poorly-lit, messy office in police headquarters, Portimaio, Portugal.
What are we to make of Gerry McCann's call to scale down the media campaign to find his missing daughter Madeleine?
Just the day before, his sisters had appeared on TV's This Morning and Richard and Judy.
And Mr McCann himself made his request during a highly publicised appearance at the Edinburgh Television Festival.
For the Press, the mystery of what happened to Madeleine on May 3 has been one of the most extraordinary episodes in media history - and certainly not its finest hour.
Initially, understandably, every outlet got behind the family. This was a story the public could not get enough of - and desperately wanted a positive outcome to. It involved people's darkest fears - child abduction.
A young, white, middle-class British couple, both doctors, found themselves engulfed by terrible events.
Yet, there was something it seemed unfair and spiteful to mention.
They had left Madeleine and her twin brother and sister alone in their unlocked apartment, which opened onto the public highway, while they dined with friends at a Tapas bar some distance away.
Some of you will be shocked by that statement. You won't have read it all joined up like that in the papers.
Put whatever spin you want on it - they were checking regularly, it was just like being in their garden at home - but this was where the whole McCann campaign began to come unstuck. The papers had to accommodate it without implying any criticism of the McCanns.
Meanwhile, the parents certainly didn't brook any criticism of their actions.
Give or take a few critical pieces from commentators, the media remained on message. Even if some of the public did not.
Remember those early May evenings in Praia de Luz? The TV satellite vans' permanent presence; the photocalls with Mr and Mrs McCann as they walked to and from church; the trips to Fatima and the Vatican.
What you won't recall are any of the more standard news breaks on a story such as this.
There had been considerable restraint surrounding the story. Oddly, there was no information relating to the seven other people in the holiday party - to the extent no one even knew what their names were. And no effort, apparently, to find out.
Odd all round, because for newspapers, that is the type of information - the routine 'human' side of the story - which keeps a story 'alive' when there's nothing happening. For some reason, this anomaly in the campaign survived.
Until about 15 days ago, when the first of what Mr McCann describes as "wild speculation" appeared in the Portuguese Press about the case - allegations that have been reprinted in many British papers.
"I can see more clearly that staying in Portugal may be counter-productive," he says. "That generated pressure on people to write things and maybe the pressure is too great."
Of course, Mr McCann must also be troubled by the wild speculation that is rampant on web forums.
Log on to some of those sites and you'll find extremely harsh criticism of the McCanns. That's where the latest translations of Portuguese papers appear early every day.
Mr McCann is right to be concerned. But turning off the media spotlight is not going to be a matter of simply asking the media to go away.
The difficulty is "the campaign" hasn't been setting the agenda for some time now. The first intimations from Portugal - since confirmed - that the police were considering the possibility that Madeleine had died on the evening she disappeared effectively moved the focus of attention.
The steam went out of the campaign to find Madeleine McCann because while she was still missing, she was close to being presumed dead.
That fuelled speculation in the Portuguese Press and created a frenzy around other possible options - none of those driven by the McCann campaign.
The McCanns can't turn off what they didn't start. Now, the question of what happened to Madeleine McCann has been returned to where it probably should have been exclusively all along - not in TV studios, not on wristbands, not inside copies of Harry Potter.
But in some poorly-lit, messy office in police headquarters, Portimaio, Portugal.
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