Is the missing girl "Madelaine" story news in the states?
 

The site has got 66 million hits in the last few days.

Alexa are saying about 44% where from the UK - that works out that half the population have looked at the site.

I do hope they find her - but I wonder if she was some ugly, fat, black kid the same effort would have been put in?

We have a lot of our own missing girl stories. Do you hear about many of them?

To answer your question, no.

No have not heard anything.

i've seen it mentioned on msnbc 3 or 4 times at least in the past few days

It was a fair question since the case had apparently been heard of enough to be debated on another board. My parents had heard about it and mentioned it to me the other night..though, they probably pay more attention to UK news because I am here.

Strange case because if that was my child I would be pulling every bit of publicity I could get too. Yet, I wonder where the yellow ribbons are for Alan Johnston..for all the mention of her birthday it was his birthday the other day too.

The Lidls across the street from me has a poster of her up..I mean, I guess there is a chance she is in Thamesmead but I bet there are missing kids from Thamesmead and you never see their faces in the window of that shop..or any shop here.

So, dunno...I hope she has managed to stay alive wherever she is and I don't blame the parents one bit for getting her face infront of everybody they can.

Agree 100% - The parents are amazing......

It does seem to be limited to British viral attack. I've only ever seen it on the French news once, and that was like 2 weeks ago. But still, I don't hold it against any parent that can capture their media like that to find their missing girl.

I've seen it posted on myspace, but not on any of my local news stations

Here in the US we have a channel, rather sensational, that does things like that. It is called Court TV. I find it great to listen to while I am on the computer. (The Phil Spector trial is on and it is remarkably trashy.) I have seen this story mentioned quite a bit. I think they have a message board.

Edit, had to google for it but here...http://boards.courttv.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=401

Just saw it on ABC World News evening edition. Its too bad that all th missing kids couldn't get the same kind of exposure and sports celebrities helping their cause.

Apparently it's all over the world.
Saw it this morn on MSNBC

And yes, you make a good point, kids disappear everyday somewhere in the country and in the world...they only publicize the "Cute" ones.
I guess it's more horrible when the kid is cute and white.

We had a Mexican-American little girl killed here last year and dumped in a dumpster. It was weeks before they could find out who she was (parents fled back to Mexico), and I'll bet nobody else in the world heard that story, or the other few hundred kids on the Amber Alert website, milk cartons, fliers, leaflets, and The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website everyday.
I hope it ends well, but I have always wondered what makes one missing kid more important to the media than another?
And I'll bet it has to be crushing to the parents of missing children to see one kid singled out, while they sit around and wait for answers with no media attention, and national support for their child.

those stories are horribly insensitive to the thousands of parents who have lost children.
They don't even think.

Yes it is a story in the US. To those of us who actually read newspapers and watch the news, we have seen the case. I first heard of it last week. I read that they have a suspect in mind. I do have to say though, the parents should have never left those children alone in that apartment. It is pretty easy to hire a babysitter.

That's been the big debate here - I'm sure in hindsight they would agree with you.

Its been on CNN for a while now. Its getting coverage here.

Well I hope they find their daughter. Even if she is deceased, she deserves a nice burial. I think it would be horrible to not ever know what happened to your child or to never find a body. That has to be a horrible nightmare.

I read about this in the NY Times today, but it's not anywhere close to as big in tv news like American missing people are. Of course, only pretty, young white girls seem to get any serious media attention on either side of the pond. If you are male, old, black or ugly and missing, it merits at best a ten second mention, not the hundreds of hours that young, white girls get.

I dont watch the news religiously but I've seen it a couple of times on Australian TV.

Interesting how some people - completely unrelated to the girl or family - are pledging millions of dollars as reward.

White kids get the attention because its middle aged white people who watch the news. I bet if you did a poll and seperated caucasions from non-caucasions, most of the non-caucasions would have never heard of the story or wouldn't care.

Plenty of people in their 20's through 40's watch the news. Some people like to know what is going on in their state and in the world. To think only white middle aged people watch the news is a stupid statement on your part. I am going to assume that is why the world is going to hell. To many stupid people in it.

Don't know if you heard about the 4 men that they arrested in france/belgium last week but if anything they had in mind (taking a 4/6 yo girl rape her a weekend, the nastiest s&m and finally brandmark her before her release just "so she could remember for the rest of her life") happened to madelaine she's better of death than alive.