In the caring, sharing newsroom of The Sun, they know what sells newspapers. And what sells newspapers keeps the advertisers happy. And keeping the advertisers happy keeps your job for another month.

So they dispense with the news, and retreat into lurid speculation. They give credence and a veneer of credibility to the knee jerk reactions of the armchair detectives. DFS sofas take an even bigger advert, and everyone is happy. Who said journalists weren’t professionals? Professional advertising salesmen.

Down in South London an unhappy family are making the best of life. Mum and Dad have divorced – it happens in the best of families. Grandma has stepped in to give the children a stable home whilst everyone else goes out to work to pay the rent. Even Grandma has a part time job. And a companion who does the housework for her. No news story there. Nothing to titillate the potential sofa purchaser.

Then Grandma comes home one day from work, and finds 12 year old grand daughter not at home. A worrying time. Has she gone to stay with a friend? Run away to join a circus? Got lost in the Arndale Centre? Grandma doesn’t know. She calls the Police. Sensible move.

Someone tips off The Sun. The Police? Post Leveson, I hope not.

Sun reporters swarm on the ground. They dismiss the innocent suggestions. The Police may not know what has happened, but Sun reporters are sharper than that. Didn’t the media know what had happened to Madeleine McCann and who was responsible – er NO! It cost them handsomely. Yeah, but Joanna Yates, the media knew who the shifty eyed guilty party was there…whoops, cost them handsomely again. Robert Murat? Oh dear! Lessons learned? Not a bit of it. Every penny of Leveson entirely wasted. For missing school girl is not sufficient to shift sofas. 100 Police engaged in the search doesn’t help.

What we need is colour! Emotion! That garage mechanic reading The Sun in his tea-break wants to slap his leg and say ‘Told ya, said it would be the step-father, dirty bastard, I’d string him up’ – when he calms down, there’s always the chance that he might register that DFS sofas have got a sale on this week-end…job done, everybody happy.

And so the innocent, reassuring, solutions to missing Tia Sharp fly out the window – are chased out the window. To be replaced by innuendo and speculation.

There is a witness who has come forward to say he saw Tia leaving her Grandma’s house alone, but that is a minor detail. Swamped by the media’s ‘belief’ that the ‘last person to see Tia alive’ was Stuart Hazell. Now Stuart Hazell has excellent potential to flog newspapers. Let’s see…post Leveson…

Oooh, 8 years younger than Grand-ma. That makes him Grandma’s ‘Toy Boy’. What’s the betting that neither Grandma nor Stuart helpfully disclosed their respective ages to the media?

‘Someone’s managed’ to get info from the Criminal Records Bureau! Past conviction for drug offences! Perfect!

‘Possession of a machete’? My cup runneth over! (The Telegraph particularly excelled themselves with that one – ‘ Missing schoolgirl left in care of ex-prisoner‘, with a sub reference to the machete).

So the ‘Drug dealing, machete wielding, ex-prisoner toy boy lover’ of Grandma is ‘led away’ by Police to a ‘waiting Police car’ through a scrum of photographers anxious to catch every shifty nuance in his face – a waste of time since the sub editors will routinely label him ‘expressionless’ or ‘stony faced’.

Or to put it another way, Grandma’s companion is given a lift to the Police station for unknown purpose – perhaps to identify pictures of someone who Tia has been seen with? The scrum have been tipped off though, and they crowd round taking the last picture of someone who might be charged and prove them all right.

Meanwhile you can complete your collection of Sun reward posters…a bargain £10,000 for fingering the killer of a ‘not completely white special police constable’, a measly £20,000 for Shannon Mathews safe return, £50,000 for Jo Yates’ murderer, £100,000 for the killer of Millie Dowler, £100,000 for the killer of a small white boy, a whopping £150,000 for the double billing of Jessca and Holly – and absolutely nothing for Jia Ashton. Jia was photogenic, but obviously not considered paper flogging material. Surprising what is actually. There’s £2,000 on offer for information about who mutilated a very photogenic horse, and a surprising £20,000 for the return of a CD containing Child Benefit details – I suppose the Sun would have been delighted to have that story for a mere £20,000.

As Roy Greenslade once said:  There is a long history of popular newspapers offering rewards in such circumstances, though there’s precious little evidence of them having any positive effect. The offers are really made in order to sell more newspapers.

Whilst they are busy selling more newspapers, there is an odds on chance that they have just added to the distress of a family whose daughter may be merely hiding with a friend. The current speculation is not helping to find her. If, sadly, it does turn out that she is another in a long line of children slaughtered by step-father or step-grand fathers, there will be plenty of time to say so when it becomes fact.

If, on the other hand, there is an innocent solution – how does our knowing that Stuart Hazell used to sleep with Tia’s Mother before he moved onto her Grand-Mother aid the search for her?

Leveson – a Billion pound failure. Fair trial anybody?

Edited to add: Update. It seems the reward is having an effect – marauding bands of locals searching garages for Tia have been met by armed garage owners…and the T-shirts are out already…

ChrisC August 11, 2012 at 11:00

Do me a favour. Just look at him – textbook underclass lifelong criminal.
He’s got extensive previous indicating the lack of any moral compass or self
control which has now lead him to upgrade to a new level of scummery. He’s
where he belongs now, I just hope the police do it properly and he gets banged
up for the rest of his worthless natural.

Elena ‘andcart
August 11, 2012 at 11:12

And you know what about this that the rest of The World doesn’t know? Two
relatively minor Convictions does not make a lifelong criminal. And God help
the rest of The Under Classes, is all I can say. And the child’s
Grandmother. What was it about her Body Language that you didn’t like?

binao August 11, 2012 at 11:41

I often lapse into a bit of hang ‘em, flog’em and confirming my worst
prejudices too. Kelvin McKenzie looks quite liberal and reasoned sometimes.
Trouble is this can condemn a fair section of the community just on their
appearance and behaviour- tattoos, facial ironmongery, foul language and
spitting, and sometimes on previous criminality. And of course we never know
if the previous are rare slips in behaviour or simply the tip of an iceberg
of undetected crimes.
The real issue however is not the guilt or
innocence of the character, it’s the compromising of justice.
Justice
isn’t something we should suspend for a good headline or two.
Or because
we think some scrote is guilty based on what we read in the Sun.

Elena
‘andcart August 11, 2012 at 11:58

Well, I actually believe that an Under Class exists, although not being
one of them myself. So what does that make me? Other than a stuck prick
with pretensions. I could so easily have been one of these people. But
don’t ask me how I avoided such a ghastly fate because I really don’t
know.
And you are right, Binao, all of this speculation does compromise
Justice. Even the guilty are innocent until proved otherwise.

Elena ‘andcart
August 11, 2012 at 08:55

Oh God, not Body Language again. This is an Art practiced only by those who
always know who done it, no matter how wrong they are later proved to be, like
Christopher Jefferies, The Landlord in The Yeate’s Case, and many others if I
could be bothered to think about it.
I didn’t see anything odd during the
interview with Mr. Hazell, but then I wasn’t looking for it. I generally leave
this sort of thing to The Police. I didn’t think he was guilty. And I’m not
sorry if I was wrong.

ChrisC August 10, 2012 at 21:06

Hazell either did it, or is very closely linked to whoever did. It was
obvious from the the moment he was seen with his shifty body language and fake
concern. I’d lay money that the gran is covering for him too.

binao August 9, 2012 at 20:50

It doesn’t help that lockup garages are sometimes not used for their
intended purpose.
On a local social housing area, finding that they were
indeed used, but none for their intended or other permitted purpose, garages
were demolished by the council and more homes built.
And didn’t Jasper
Carrott once have an unflattering regular lampoon of Sun readers?
Perhaps
it needs resurrection.

Ancient + Tattered
Airman August 9, 2012 at 20:06

I believe that there was once some abstract notion called responsible
even-handed journalism.

Jabba the Cat August 9, 2012 at 21:32

That was pre William Randolph Hearst?

yardarm August 9, 2012 at 19:21

Never mind Leveson. IF the child has been murdered and IF the guilty
party(ies) are caught and convicted, possibly quite a few (former) journalists
and editoirs, perhaps some late of the Sun, may indeed get to meet them.

Brian August 9,
2012 at 16:35

The purpose of newspapers is to sell newspapers. With the exception of the
price, what is printed on the paper is unimportant.

Engineer August 9, 2012 at 18:41

Well, there’s a lot of blank paper that has to be filled every day, and
it’s a lot cheaper sending reporters to New Addington than it is to send
them to Syria (or one of several unreported civil wars in Africa). Economics
involves Hard Sums and Big Numbers, so that rules it out as a subject for
tabloid chip-fodder, the Olympics will only cover so many pages, so that
leaves Human Interest – or, as Anna points out, poking noses into somebody
else’s tragedy. I suppose in the end, it’s just a reflection of some of the
less edifying elements of human nature; another form of free speech. In the
last analysis, the individual has to make a personal decision, and vote with
their cash. I choose to spend mine elsewhere.

Elena ‘andcart
August 9, 2012 at 14:45

So The Lynch Mobs are on the move. Somedebody is going to get hurt.
Stalkers Ahoy. But you can bet your bottom dollar that Lord Leveson knows
about this. And now was not a good time to prove that The Press are not
capable of behaving themselves.

Friend of Dog
August 9, 2012 at 14:37

Let us not forget Midsomer Murders, Frost, Lewis, Poirot, Z Cars, The Bill,
Eastenders etcetera, etcetera. They prove that the murderer is always the last
person to admit seeing the victim alive.

Furor Teutonicus
August 9, 2012 at 14:35

XX It is understood the group were looking for the missing schoolgirl when
they entered the lock-up in New Addington without permission. XX

Aye fucking RIGHT they were!

Damn, just spat beer all over my key board on reading that!

Anna
Raccoon August 9, 2012 at 14:59

Now why would the garage owner ‘be armed’ – what is in those
garages……?

JuliaM August
9, 2012 at 17:33

What’s in my garage? Not my car, that’s for sure! It’s full of all the
things that won’t go in the loft or the garden shed.

In New Addington? Well…probably nothing that mundane!

Woman
on a Raft August 9, 2012 at
21:13

Personally, I think it’s very suspicious if people have empty
garages. What are they planning, eh?

Jabba the Cat August 9, 2012 at 21:30

“Now why would the garage owner ‘be armed’”

I am always armed when on my premises, you never know when the mice
might stick their heads out of the mouse hole…