Missing schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman have dictated the news list at the Cambridge Evening News since they went missing more than a week ago.

The girls seem to have vanished from the streets near their home in Soham and police are keeping the story in the media spotlight by revealing information every day.

The News has carried three pages about the girls in each edition from day one, when they had first bite at what was the biggest national story since the Legionnaire's disease outbreak in Barrow-in-Furness.

It has the advantage of knowing the police and the personalities involved, and is also much closer to the story than any of the other media because its Ely district reporter James Fuller knows one of the families.

He joined the local search for the girls as a friend of Kevin Wells rather than a reporter for the News.

Editor Colin Grant said: "Because he knows the guy he's been phoning him every day firstly to see how they all are and then to find out the latest news.

"We secured an exclusive with Kevin one week on that we ran yesterday. But that's been overshadowed by Tonight with Trevor McDonald, which was on last night so we put the interviews with both sets of parents from that on our centre pages.

"We have kept the story fresh with our local contacts and local knowledge.

"We have five editions a day and we have been updating them regularly because the press conference is at 10am and that sets the agenda for the day, as well as giving us chance to work on a number of connected stories."

He said there was still a lot to do - with backgrounders and features on the case. James was working on it full time but others were brought in when the content demanded.

The story, though not centred on Cambridge, is relevant to Cambridge people because many people who pick up the city paper live out of town. Extra copies are being printed to cope with the demand.

While new angles are breaking the story will not diminish but as time goes by, and if there are fewer searches and no reconstructions or traffic checks, the column inches devoted to the girls will also be fewer.

Colin said: "It will still be very important to us and I have no doubt it will be front page news for some time to come and most likely the lead story. But if there are no definite new leads it will certainly start to diminish."

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