However, I had never heard of the British editor of Portugal's main English-language newspaper until I saw him interviewed at lunchtime over consecutive days by ITN news. Likewise the pictures of that once familiar area with police cordons and people being questioned has been shot to look claustrophobic and quite unlike the open spaces and relaxed atmosphere normally associated with Luz.

The news channels constantly cut to a picture of the little girl, who has turned four during the time she has been missing, wearing a blue Everton jersey.

The echo of those two little Manchester United-clad girls from Soham might not be a deliberate ploy by news organisations but the association is difficult to avoid.

This grim piece of imagery would on its own be disturbing. The constant monitoring of the case as headline news 24 hours a day is nothing short of hysterical. After exhausting interview opportunities in Portugal the news teams flocked to Gibraltar where a woman wholly unconnected with the family had taken it upon herself to distribute Madeleine's missing person information to holiday makers and locals there. Are news reporters cynical enough to be happy to follow this goose chase, so long as its in another luxurious holiday setting?

Meanwhile the constant updates are primetime viewing, dragging in an audience who watch, fingers splayed over their faces as they imagine the gutwrenching pain the McCann parents must be suffering. It's got all the elements of a 'great story'.

Are the parents to blame for leaving a child that young on her own, albeit in an apartment a few steps from where they dined? Is the captor English? Are the Portuguese police bungling the hunt? Will they find her at all? Where might she have been taken?

As each piece of the puzzle is examined, picked over and revisited by a team of quasi-sleuth reporters and anchors in our living rooms it's hard to stay detached. Anyone who has children cannot but be horrified that such a thing has happened, is happening, right now, before our very eyes, and yet we are all powerless.

Frankly it is a positive testament to Irish news organisations that no one has seized on the opportunity to discover Madeleine's Irish roots (although it was considered fair fodder when Ken Bigley's family thought the political significance of an Irish background might make a difference to his captors).

Not so the 24-hour news channels, pioneered by Sky News, who must stay constantly on the air and thus feed the global frenzy by exploiting every titbit of information or tittle-tattle that turns up on their desks. Whilst there must be an undeniable advantage to making as many people as possible aware that a small girl has been taken, no one has measured how much advantage there is in constant news coverage. Especially when the awarenessraising element of such heavy coverage is weighed up against the criticism that the parents have received, the effect on the life of a man, who may yet be proved innocent, who has been named as a suspect and the general fear and hysteria raised amongst all parents.

Although heartbreaking, using this 'people story' to feed the relentless news machine causes a distortion in the reality of the situation, turning a personal tragedy into a news story that receives the same treatment and almost as much coverage as 9/11. Can this endless media handwringing actually help find Madeleine? Does a general knowledge that the family have been praying at a Catholic church really help in her recovery? Or does this circus merely create a growing appetite in the general public for 'real life' stories that run and run. More dangerously, does it keep her kidnappers too wellinformed as well as those who might be considering doing something similar?