But Sun readers don't appear to have been told this - it's only in the Mirror.

Now we wonder whether the Sun and editor Wade will face criminal child abuse charges.

We somehow doubt it.

simply buried away in an online Guardian story - the news that lies pay off.

www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/26/sun...ar-newspaper-website

None of actually knew that Alfie was not the father, although several suspected it.

Correct Emma; I should have said suspected.

as this tale was reported widely in Oz newspapers I'm writing today to the Communications Minister to demand to know why media outlets weren't prosecuted under laws here that make it an offence to posess stories of underage illcit sex- let alone profit of them.

Particularly as he was on a TV panel show last night defending his unworkable and pathetic new attempts to 'censor' the net ala China/iran, having accused all who oppose him as "enablers of chld pornographers"

I know just the right alarmist NGO who will take this on as well.

In the USA there is a fightback over the hysteria and witch-hunts that are jailing kids:
******************
Three teenage girls are suing a US prosecutor who accused them of peddling "child pornography", after semi-nude pictures of them were sent by mobile phone to friends.

The complaint is the latest legal wrangle over "sexting" - the apparently popular practice of sending nude or semi-nude photos to friends by mobile phone.

Teachers alerted the authorities after discovering a waist-up image of two girls covered just by a bra, and another image of a girl topless.

District Attorney George Skumanik called for the girls to undergo five weeks of behaviour courses and take a drug test or face prosecution, according to a letter apparently sent to the teenagers' parents.

The American Civil Liberties Union, a cosignatory to the complaint, said Skumanik's threat was unconstitutional, and prosecution could have landed the girls on the sex offenders' register, blighting future job prospects.www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/27/1237657112529.html

It is, I'm afraid, apparent that there is a fascination for the sex lives of the underaged. Particularly among that group of people who scream "paedo" the loudest. Our kids are bought, sold, sexualised and exploited. Not least of all by those who claim to be interested in "protecting" them. The sick bastards who sold this story through their newspapers never seem to face any kind of sanction. Perhaps because they are titilating their readers who don't want the illicit thrill of reading this kind of stuff to be taken away from them. What a sick world.

It is astonishing how the media is ignoring this huge story - they really do band together at times of crisis.

Slag off Wade and the next field to catch fire could be your own.

If a citizen's complaint was made to the police and they had to investigate a paper blatantly and irresponsibly wrecking two children's lives in order to get a good story - and encouraging others to break the law too - I bet very little media coverage would be given to it.

Ooops, it could be us next.

I still don't see how they are encouraging others to break the law. Kids have been having sex for centuries. If you mean others might want to sell their story, then I think that's also unlikely because a) it's already been done and so won't have any "shock" value, and b) this one has badly backfired for everyone except the media who have profited by it. There was also the court order which brought an end to the main coverage.

Well said JK. 14 year old girls facing jail in America for posting nude pics, 12 year old boys having their unfortunate lives exploited by child abusing newspapers here. Meanwhile, daytime chat shows on both sides of the Atlantic regularly exploit the emotional problems of young teenagers for national tea time entertainment and the morality of it all is never even guestioned. And I guess taking on Oprah Winfrey or Rupert Murdoch isn't really such a fat profit earner for the NSPCC and the other supposed 'child protection' charities.

This world sickens me sometimes.

I caught an edition of an American talk show where the guest was a young boy who claimed he'd been having sex since he was seven, "Because it feels good." They also brought on his young girlfriend. I remember thinking, as I gawped, that this would not be allowed in the UK. I don't know how old the show was because I'm sure they repeat them often. I think it was Sally Jessy Rafael.

Nothing to do with Alfie, of course, but this dicussion reminded me of it.

while what you say is true-the "encouragment" bit comes from tablods perpetually promoting the idea that money can be made from sex-illegal or not.

I'm not sure it sank into the minds of the vast general public that the Alfie tale was nixed. (and I agree with Locked Out-I'd seriously be wary of people who buy newspapers to read these tales, let alone those who profit from them)

While the Alfie debacle floundered this time, there will be another and another media outlet willing to take a chance. Why wouldn't they ? It's not as though they will be punished.

And again today-a 14 year old girl in the USA has been charged with producing and distributing child pornography- for posting nude phots of herself on her MySpace site.

Unwise of her but to drag her through the courts is a shocking and brutal case of abuse in itself. Those partciating in prosecuting should be strung up from lampposts.They are evil.

And yet MySpace and all the social networking sites are probably are responsible for most of the grief that happen on the net.

(The fact that MySpace-purveyors of porn that encourages members to post nude pics of themselves, and The Sun ,purveyors of soft porn , are both owner by R.Mrdoch is purely coincidental.)

Emma Bee wrote:
None of actually knew that Alfie was not the father, although several suspected it.

We knew that it was biologically impossible for a pre pubescent boy to father a child.