Nobody denies that it's horrible when little children go missing, and it's impossible to imagine how it actually feels were it, God forbid, to happen to your children.

But there is a line between sober reporting of this kind of tragic development, and sensationalising something to the point where the actual human loss seems to be somehow devalued and overlooked.

This screenshot of the Daily Express website, on the page where you can view its last seven front covers, is a case in point:

In case you can't tell, the front page has the word "Madeleine" splashed across in big letters on each of the seven days. (On two of them the word "Diana" has also made it.) The same photo of Madeleine is on six of the seven front pages.

This was drawn to my attention while reading the BBC Editors' Blog earlier on. In it, the BBC's head of TV news - Peter Horrocks - had the following to say:

"The situation that many facts are not reliably established has not stopped many of our press and broadcast colleagues from treating rumour as being newsworthy.

For instance, ITN led last week on a claim that a child like Madeleine had been sighted in Belgium. ITN headlined this with a lurid photo-fit of a suspect abductor with the words "Does this man have Madeleine McCann?"

The BBC gave little prominence to the possible Belgian sighting, on the basis that there have been many previous false sightings."

Well ITN are so unhappy about this accusation that ITV News editor-in-chief, David Mannion, has written back using the comments:

"I feel I must correct the impression made by Peter Horrocks concerning the reporting of the story by ITV News.

[Peter] singles out ITV News for leading on the potential sighting of Madeleine with a man at a café in Belgium to which the BBC gave little prominence on the grounds that there had been many other sightings.

May I point out that, like the BBC, ITV News has given little or no prominence to the countless sightings which appeared to have no basis in fact. The Belgium sighting, however, was different. The person who believed she saw Madeleine was a highly credible witness, a professional woman who worked with children and often worked with the police. We sought and achieved an interview with the woman in order that we might establish for ourselves, her credentials and to question her about what she saw. The police in Belgium confirmed that they regarded the matter worthy of detailed follow up investigation. In my book this was a story and your article, Peter, amounts to little more than an excuse for missing it."

Well, no, that's not a story. One hates to parrot the party line but, no matter how reliable the witness, there was absolutely no hard evidence (indeed now that the evidence has arrived, it strongly suggests the sighting was in error). If the same "highly credible witness" had said she'd seen a UFO, and had seemed pretty convincing when interviewed by ITV, I still doubt they'd have run the story unless they had bloody good visual evidence for the existence of such a thing.

The coverage of a young girl's disappearance shouldn't be about "missing stories". There are two stories: one, the girl is missing, and two, the girl has been found. While things remain in a state of flux it is absolutely pointless reporting on glimpsed sightings unless there is demonstrable, hard evidence to lay before the public. As for seven days of Express front pages, the continual use of Diana as a marketing device is sickening enough, without this.