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[Tuesday, 18:55, correction made (thanks, laclotte]

News does not unfold, it bulges and bursts, sometimes leading the public to make assumptions that can get in the way of finding the truth. We all need to be critical readers.

Take the case of Madeleine McCann.

Some weeks ago a friend sent me an e-mail, a chain letter that started with a relative of Madeleine McCann’s. Madeleine is the little British girl who disappeared in Portugal three months ago, whose story has been covered massively by the British media and widely by media in Europe. The message made me slightly uncomfortable, as chain letters always do (I generally delete them quickly and hope friends won’t send more), but I didn’t forget that the information in this one, clearly legitimate, was important, and I’m including it now, albeit rather late, with the poster it refers to:


Updated: 18:00 , Saturday May 12, 2007
Madeleine McCann’s family believe a new picture of the missing four-year-old could play a vital role in the search for her.
The photo of the youngster shows clearly the her distinctive right eye, where the pupil runs into the blue-green iris.
It is this distinguishing mark that will identify Madeleine to those on the lookout for her, according to aunt and uncle John and Diane McCann.
The Glasgow couple aim to distribute the appeal poster, which features the Crimestoppers telephone number, as far afield as they can.
Mrs McCann said: "The purpose of the poster is to highlight the distinction in Madeleine’s eye.
"We want to make the most of it, because we know her hair could potentially be cut or dyed."
Mr McCann added: "The poster was designed by a friend of the family and I’ve begun Emailing it to acquaintances in different parts of the world.
"I’m asking people to circulate it the best they can and make it be seen."

I did not run this in GenevaLunch at the time because most people who wanted to follow the story could do so easily in the UK and Irish press, and it did not have a clear link to the Lake Geneva region. Much as the story has been heartrending, there are unfortunately hundreds and hundreds of other missing children whose stories are not told. Editors have to make decisions every day about which news items are of direct interest to their readers and which are not.

The disappearance a week ago of little Ylenia in Switzerland created a link, however feeble, between the two cases. Madeleine is again much on the minds of many English-speakers in Switzerland. I ran a story yesterday.

Not surprisingly, Swiss police also saw a possible link and alerted Interpol. Police in Spain and Portugal were put in the picture about the Swiss case, a fact that a senior police official in St Gall, Switzerland, mentioned at a Monday press conference. This was picked up by local media and it promptly leapfrogged into a handful of online, mostly British tabloids. It was spun into a new "fact": police in Switzerland suspected a link. This appears to brought it to the attention of the Portuguese media, who were already dealing with new developments in the search for Madeleine, reports (not clearly confirmed) that blood samples had been taken from the walls of the room where Madeleine was last seen, and that police had impounded several vehicles (easier to confirm) near the apartment where Madeleine’s family stayed in the Algarve.

The presumably more reliable Times in London put all these bits and pieces together Monday morning in a story that slid from presumption to fact. The Swiss man suspected of Ylenia’s kidnapping, Urs Hans Von Aesch, had become a pedophile for the reporter. Police have confirmed that Von Aesch’s DNA was found on Ylenia’s possessions, including her clothes. All of her clothes were found in her backpack, which implies that the child must have been nude and St Gall police have said that the worst must be considered.

The BBC got into the act, but using very cautious language, "It is understood . . .," "If tests confirm . . .," "Is is believed . . ." and then Reuters ran a story along the same lines.

What has happened here is that editors are afraid of missing a big story as it develops so they report on what others are reporting, to cover themselves, and the story gets bigger simply because more news media are reporting it, not because more is really happening. The temptation to push speculation over the line into fact is often too great for editors to resist.

So here is the problem: with each assumption we begin to accept as fact, we close our eyes to other possibilities. Any fan of detective novels knows that the best clues are often the most obvious and the most overlooked. What if, in Ylenia’s case, we are indeed looking for a pedophile – and Von Aesch is an accomplice, not actually a pedophile himself, part of a criminal chain and looking for a reward only? If the public knew this it might be able to help police more. Grant you, this seems unlikely, and most of us could be forgiven for assuming the worst about the man, but then the truth can be inconvenient. What if, in Madeleine’s case, Von Aesch was indeed on vacation in the Algarve (not yet confirmed) at the time of her disappearance but had nothing to do it and yet was haunted by her disappearance? Could that have led him to commit a similar crime? Would the false trail of his whereabouts cause people to overlook a key clue in Madeleine’s case?

These are events where police trails go hot and cold, cold and hot. Something happens, but the stories are not unfolding as dramas lapped up by the public do. Editors think in terms of deadlines, which means things must unfold and so they do, but sometimes they have to be forced. The public wants to know more. And so the news bulge grows.

Meanwhile, it’s clear that news on the Internet travels, as do criminals and abducted children.

While there is any hope these girls are alive, let us keep our eyes and minds open.

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