Madeleine McCann: Horrific Drama Turned Reality TV?

May 29, 2007 — -- Madeleine McCann was snatched from her bed in a Portuguese vacation resort as her parents ate dinner in a nearby restaurant. When Kate McCann checked on her kids, she found only Madeleine's twin siblings, Sean and Amelie.

As scuba divers, police on horseback and volunteers scoured the surrounding land and sea, the McCanns mounted a media campaign.

"Words cannot describe the anguish and despair that we are feeling as the parents of our beautiful daughter Madeleine," Gerry McCann told reporters at a torch-lit news conference.

"Please continue to pray for Madeleine. She's lovely," added his tearful wife.

But it's now been nearly four weeks since Madeleine disappeared. The Portuguese police are giving out little information. Suspects have been interviewed, but there have been no arrests. While the search continues and the trail cools, Madeleine's parents are waging a media campaign to keep their daughter in the headlines in the hope that attention will trigger a memory or spark a lead.

"It might not be physically searching," Kate McCann said, "but we have been working really hard and doing absolutely everything we can, really, to get Madeleine back."

Today the McCanns released cell phone video of their excited daughter boarding the plane to fly to Portugal on vacation. Also today, they will fly to Rome for an audience with the pope to discuss her disappearance. The McCanns are devout Catholics and have already visited the shrine at Fatima to pray for their daughter. There were, of course, camera crews in tow.

"I think they have been incredibly canny, media savvy," said Caroline Hawley, the BBC's correspondent in Portugal. "They have been, for example, giving the media the images that they need to keep the story going. We were tipped off when on Madeleine's fourth birthday they were going for a walk along the beach."

Celebrities Join 'Team McCann'

"Just as they got wind of the media dramatically scaling back their presence here in Portugal, they agreed to give interviews to British TV stations," Hawley said.

In those interviews the couple answered critics who questioned why Madeleine and her two younger siblings had been left alone in their hotel room. The parents said they checked on their kids every half-hour.

"I think that we did what many, many other thousands of people [do]," Gerry McCann told one interviewer. "I think you even said on television that you've either done it or would have done it in such a safe resort. No one will ever feel more guilty that us."

Meanwhile, in Britain, John McCann, Madeleine's uncle, is spearheading a fundraising effort to pay for the ongoing publicity and search, dubbed "Team McCann."

"We were determined that we were going to do something," he said before a news conference in London. "We weren't quite sure exactly what we were going to do."

What they've done is raise more than $600,000. There's now a $5 million reward for information. That's been donated by, among others, "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling, tycoon Richard Branson and Simon Cowell of "American Idol." There's a "Look for Madeleine" Web site, which has received more than 65 million hits.

"I think a lot of it comes down to a basic issue," said John McCann. "There's a vulnerable wee girl that's been abducted. People can relate to that."

Among 1,200 Missing, Madeleine Stands Out

A video montage highlighting a distinctive flaw in Madeleine's right eye was shown at the FA Cup Final -- the English equivalent of the Super Bowl -- with a worldwide audience of nearly 500 million people in 160 countries. There's a constant drip, drip of celebrity appeals for help from the likes of soccer star David Beckham.

The last time the British reacted like this was when Princess Diana died in 1997 -- it doesn't happen often.

"It's really heartwarming as well to see that it's not as bad a country as people think it is," one woman said at a makeshift shrine to Madeleine at the McCanns' hometown in the English Midlands. "It's not as angry and aggressive, and there's still a lot of love around and it's really nice."

But why the ribbons, the cards, the emotional investment? The Missing People charity in London said that since Madeleine had disappeared, 1,200 other British children had gone missing.

However, most cases are resolved within hours. A case like Madeleine's -- when a child so young is apparently snatched by a stranger -- comes along only once every three or four years.

"These are people in trouble," said Simon Jenkins, an eminent British journalist and historian. "You can sympathize with them. You can identify with them. And you want to know what happens to them."

Media Overhaul: Helping or Harming?

This is reality television. This is real-life drama.

"I do find it sort of prurient, I have to say," Jenkins said. "You're intruding into peoples' grief. But they wanted it. They invited the prurience. And it is, I think, not unnatural."

It's natural to put yourself in the McCanns' shoes. Nearly every parent you talk to on the streets of England will have a story of a time when they looked up and couldn't see their child. People want to know how this story will end.

"I know there has been a demand for a lot of coverage," the BBC's Hawley said. "I think also the story has touched a nerve. I think it is a story that appeals to the heart more than the head in a way."

No one yet knows whether the publicity is really helping or harming.

"Maximum publicity might lead to someone finding the girl, seeing her around, noticing something strange happening in their neighborhood," Jenkins said. "Or, of course, it might have the opposite effect. It might lead the person who's taken her to panic and do something terrible."

But the media campaign is the only way for the family to exercise some control, to influence a situation that is now out of its hands. All the family has left is hope.

"This is every parent's worst nightmare," Gerry McCann said last week. "I am confident and believe strongly that we will find her. It's not hard to continue believing. She's our daughter. The alternative would be to give up. And we will not give up our search."

Madeleine turned 4 nine days after she was abducted. Her family clings to the belief she was alive for that birthday.