Her essay for the London Review of Books is published in full in the Sunday Tribune today, and, far from being tasteless or prurient, highlights just how the media can manipulate emotions . . . and never more so than in the case of Madeleine McCann, where every parent has been invited to indulge in an intense rollercoaster of blame and sympathy.

Now sections of the media have rounded on Anne Enright, taking the ironic headline of her essay "Disliking the McCanns" completely out of context and misinterpreting her typically blunt way of expressing her emotions.

The McCanns have been reported as being hurt and Enright has apologised "for any hurt" she may have caused as this was never her intention.

Those who take the time to read Enright's incisive analysis of the way we react to stories like the Madeleine McCann tragedy will surely recognise a lot of themselves and their own reaction in her description of how she felt about every twist and turn, every nugget of information leaked out in this story.

This is part of the modern media world. In an age of internet comment where everything goes uncensored, in a world where every emotion is analysed, it is not something we can prevent.

In his recent comments about the way journalists operated during the Wayne O'Donoghue trial, judge Paul Carney criticised the media, implying that Majella Holohan had been used by them to whip up the story even as they took bets on the outcome of the trial.

Yet he proved himself to be pretty media savvy . . . he must have known the massive amount of coverage his controversial speech would have garnered.

Carney used the media to make his point . . . perhaps getting more criticism and less support from his peers than he had intended. The McCanns used the media because they felt they had to. And some sections of the media are undoubtedly now using them.

Anne Enright has done us a service by analysing so clearly how that manipulation can work on the "ordinary" reader or viewer's mind and the way the detail of stories of "public interest" change the way we think . . . about ourselves, about those involved, about public policy even.

She does not need to apologise to anyone for that because the more we are aware that we are being manipulated, the better.