Madeleine McCann: Melissa Fiering Sees, An Algerian And Waldo
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
THE SUN (front page): “MADDIE SEEN IN FRANCE”
“Eye-defect girl in cafe” – Why do they stare, daddy?
DAILY MIRROR: “I SPOTTED MADDY AT CAFE IN FRANCE”
A picture of Melissa.
“’This is so significant because the girl noticed the blemish in the eye and it’s on CCTV for first time’ - McCANN FAMILY SPOKESMAN CLARENCE MITCHELL LAST NIGHT”
This is the Mirror’s “EXCLUSIVE THE HUNT FOR MADELEINE”
To France:
“The little girl was spotted in a motorway service station cafe by student Melissa Fiering, 18, who insists she clearly saw the distinctive flaw in her right iris”
Says Melissa: “My friend and I had music playing loudly out of our mobile phones and this little girl was dancing to it. It was only when I looked closely at her I realised it was Madeleine. She had a very thin face and her blonde hair had been cut much shorter, down to her jaw. But it was her”
Why so certain?
“I looked in her eye because I’d seen on TV that Madeleine’s got a defect in her right iris and I saw this girl had it. I could hardly believe my eyes but I knew for sure it was Madeleine. I called out her name and she looked up at me - she obviously recognised it”
Obviously. Dancing with a small child and then you shout out a name and she looks at you…
“But when I called out ‘Madeleine’ the man she was with got worried and started dragging her away from the queue”
The man with Madeleine is described as a “dark-skinned man, who was possibly Algerian”. Blonde girl with dark-skinned man. Like her?
What did Melissa do when he was spotted, this swarthy man?
“As he dragged the girl away he threw a white coat over her and pulled a woollen hat from his pocket and jammed it on her head. Melissa adds: ‘He didn’t say a word but as they got to the door he prodded the girl in the back. I tried to take pictures on my phone but I only got one and it was all blurred. I ran outside after them but they’d vanished”
Vanished?
“WE HAVE THE GUN THAT KILLED RHYS”
Rhys Jones was killed in Liverpool, shot by a youth on a bike
“Rhys’s mum Melanie, 42, and dad Stephen, 45, who have received a message of sympathy from Madeleine McCann’s family, issued a statement for tomorrow’s six-month anniversary of the shooting”
Why do we know this?
The message says: “We are still struggling to come to terms with the loss of our beautiful son Rhys. The pain we have had to face every day has been magnified by the poignancy of occasions like Christmas and Rhys’s 12th birthday. The last six months have been a living nightmare. All we want is justice for our son”
Rhys Jones is murdered in Liverpool. Rhys Jones was 11 years old. His parents are not suspects
DAILY EXPRESS: “MADELEINE IN NEW ‘SIGHTING’ AT RESTAURANT”
Dutch woman. A restaurant? Not a therapist. A student
The Dutch student is “100 per cent certain” she saw Madeleine McCann in a roadside restaurant in southern France
Says Melissa: “I called out ‘Madeleine’ and she looked up. The man with her was about six feet tall, with black hair, a black leather jacket and several days growth of stubble. He put on her coat and hat and bundled her away”
She adds: “I can’t stop thinking about it. I wish I had stopped that man. I wanted to pick her up, I am sorry I didn’t do that”
LIVERPOOL DAILY POST: “Madeleine McCann ’spotted’ in Southern France”
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: “Student claims to have sighted Madeleine McCann in France”
A reader comments: “Is this kid going to replace Waldo?”
ASSOCIATED PRESS: “French police investigating an alleged sighting of Madeleine McCann in southern France have determined it was not the missing British girl.
A police official says a Dutch tourist reported that she may have seen McCann at a roadside restaurant. Examining closed-circuit video footage, the investigators spotted a man and a young girl who resembled McCann, but determined it was not her.
Posted: 21st, February 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,234) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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February 21st, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Matt
Hello
February 21st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
243 Matt.
Thanks. Yes, Isabel González is from Melilla (which is Spanish but physically in North Africa) and said she saw M and Murat’s girlfriend in Morocco (within a short space of time from each other I think, not simultaneously) on 15 June.
Back to work.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
coolandcalm,
I hope that any other communications between us will only happen following you answering my question (which is of interest to people here).
February 21st, 2008 at 2:58 pm
237…Chloe Spain
Isobel Gonzales is Spanish…..Morocco “sighting”…and also of the “sighting”
of Mr Murat’s girlfriend in the vicinity…during the attempts to finger Mr
Murat and girlfriend.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
coolandcalm
***********
your silence speaks volumes….
February 21st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
coolandcalm,
you make me tired, you long ago knew that I only use one name, I told it before. Now you tell us: how many names have you used on anorak?
February 21st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
120
Bâtman Says:
February 21st, 2008 at 12:20 pm
106 Man about town
“but the reality is that it is good that people are still looking.”
But its a pity her parents aren’t looking, isn’t it?
And an even greater pity they didn’t think it worth while to look on the very evening she ‘went missing’.
———————-
From the the many pages written on the night that Madeleine went missing Gerry was reported to have searched until 4 am reportedly in a very frantic state.
And I do strongly suspect that Madeleine Mcann was abducted.
I dont think she is the only child that was abducted but I think the Mcanns or Mcspins whatever you want to call them are doing the right thing by making the case so high profile. Every such case should send shock waves around the world like this. It is deplorable that children are being abducted daily(?) weekly(?).
————-
General comment
It would be just a bit an assumption for you to call me a member of Mcspin or whatever for believing that Madeleine was abducted and stated so as it would be for me to call you a child abductor for trying to say that she wasnt. So lets not go there - its infantile chitter chatter to resort to a slagging match when you have nothing bettter to add to the debate.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
222 ppy
I agree with your posts. If there are trolls, they are achieving what they want : us to quarrell instead of debating, and make us busy bickering about users’ names, instead of thinking about the case.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
217 - I thought I had given credit to Blackwatch off 3A’s. Apologies
February 21st, 2008 at 2:53 pm
204 Jolie
The ones I can remember are:
The Norwegian lady (Mari Olli) who saw “Madeleine” in a petrol station in Morocco was married to someone from Leicestershire and lived in the Malaga area on the southern coast of Spain.
The girl who saw the blond Moroccan girl on her mother’s back was Spanish and lived in the Levante (east coast - Alicante, I think).
This Belgian girl apparently lives in Barcelona (could someone provide a link?). This is where M3 are located.
Anyone got any more? I believe there was another but I can’t remember details.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
232 steveT
Yes, for a second I was imaging that Mr Bountyhunter had a multiple personality and had decided to try it out on us. I imagined her as a feisty spanish type, long black hair, heavy make up, red lipstick etc….i did giggle.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:50 pm
228 Brandon
Does it actually say he took the same car journey. That’s critical.
He could have met them at lisbon airport!
February 21st, 2008 at 2:49 pm
228 Brandon
Gulp. Its all a lot of dirty washing eh. But you know what they say, it will all come out in the wash.
The whole thing is scandalous. Off to have a look at pamalan…brb
February 21st, 2008 at 2:49 pm
217 Hannasus
Thank you. Really interesting.
We find all ingredients of Astroturfing in this case. And sadly enough, we are part of it since these forums are used by the Astroturfers. We give them stuff to analyse. But at least, we resist the spin, and we try to understand what is going on.
Though they might not see us as opinion leaders, it is good they are aware not everyone is gullible.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:49 pm
231
pppy
Could be interesting!
February 21st, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I wonder when Mr Bountyhunter is back, how he will take the posts Mrs Bountyhunter made?
February 21st, 2008 at 2:48 pm
From a Liverpool newspaper:
‘Speaking about the difficulty of living without justice, Mrs Healy said Kate McCann, 39, wrote to Rhys’s parents in the days after his murder to offer sympathy.
She said: “Because Kate had been through such a trauma, it was an obvious thing to do for someone from Liverpool.
“It gets a lot harder; each day is harder than the day before.
“I can sympathise with them absolutely for not having justice, I really hope they get it at some point.”
She added they must be strong for eldest son, Owen, 18, saying: “I am very sorry for Rhys’s parents but the only difference is they know what happened to Rhys and his mother got to hold him.’
Well, setting aside any suggestions that KM, indeed, does know what happened to her daughter and possibly also got the chance to hold her…
… I do not like the implicit tone of what SH is saying.
I attended group (psycho) therapy for a while and, one of the first things I learned, was not to compare my own experience with that of others and say that my own was worse or that I suffered more than someone else did.
This is precisely what SH is doing, implying that, because Rhys Jones’ mother knows what happened to her son and got to hold him means that Melanie Jones’ experience is not as bad as KM’s.
Perhaps SH doesn’t realise what she’s implying, or appreciate the wrongness of what she’s saying but, if she does, then she is as despicable as her daughter and son in law.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:48 pm
131
markskidd Says:
February 21st, 2008 at 12:24 pm
124
Man about town
abductor?
are you from Team McSpin?
————-
No. Is it necessary when ones opinion is not the same as yours?
February 21st, 2008 at 2:47 pm
poppy
The pamalam site went down for a bit so I couldnt, but I think shes high lighted all the changes since in red.
http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/DAYS_1_to_50.htm
The significance is the day, and dates they went to lisbon.
This was when they allegedly moved and hid the body.
And clarence WAS there!!!
February 21st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
126
Lone Pigeon Says:
February 21st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
120
val Says:
February 21st, 2008 at 12:20 pm
106 Man about Town
with 1 million pounds in the Fund, perhaps you would like to explain why a
noted Detective Agency (preferably) U.K. was not appointed in May to start
searching for Madeleine? Also, why wait until October to appoint a small Agency
who have no particular experience in this field, and are charging £58,000 of
donors money who stated Madeleine would be home for Christmas?
let me let me please….
Ummmm because a noted detective agency would show them up to be the lying, seedy, selfish,warped,arrogant, self obsessed wan*ers that they are..maybe….in my opinion??
———————
Again our opinions are nothing more than speculation and dont matter.
I cant answer for another. I can do likewise as yourself and make fantastic assumptions but again, only assumptions and dont matter against the one basic fact. This is a Missing Child case.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
215 Dr Watson
Who decides who is a troll?
Last night someone decided to proclaim another poster as a troll. Why? I don’t know, I couldn’t see it. I did’t notice the so called troll being abusive. All I saw were others gloating/laughing & joining in. As I said in an earlier post if I missed something then please explain.
In general I agree with you…what is the point in multi user names. Perhaps in satire? Or maybe if you are or have been attacked yourself? My user name has been mocked ie…”you call yourself fair”etc.
Finally if someone is not here to debate (taking abuse out of the equasion) then simply don’t debate with them?
February 21st, 2008 at 2:45 pm
219
coolandcalm
**************
so you think its ok for the likes of gandy to post sick images do you…its one thing being on the other side but supporting sick feckers like gandy…..
February 21st, 2008 at 2:45 pm
223 jez
Thanks for that. Its all such a mess sigh
February 21st, 2008 at 2:43 pm
218 pppy
The blog told that CM was on the Lisbon - Casablanca flight with the MCs – but did he make the same car journey from PDL to Lisbon that day?
February 21st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
come on all, lets cut all the nastiness. This is a discussion board about madeleine and we all getting wrapped up in mud slinging.
I know exactly why people are changing user names, its because they have to hide behind different ones as they are cowards.
Opinions are personal, except where people are invited to express them, ie on this forum, so not everyone will agree or disagree or like anothers opinion, but it is the whole point.
Posters should at least have the bollocks to stick to one posting name.
Smile? Please? Its a depressing enough matter without all this name-calling
February 21st, 2008 at 2:41 pm
207
May Says:
**********
did you really expect it to be??
February 21st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
212
Dr. Watson Says
******************
You’re joking arent you mate…. the likes of gandolf aka sledgehammer are allowed to post whatever they like..however nasty sick or depraved that might be. Did you see that lovely video posted by the sick bastard yesterday. Mods and admin did feckall, just goes to show how fair m and a really are.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
215 Dr Watson…
so how many names do you have and are prepared to disclose them on request?
I love the way it’s okay for (some of) the anti-McCanns to abuse at random but when just a couple who don’t agree sling it back it warrants calls to M&A.
I hate the bullying and cyber-thuggery that sometimes occurs but hey! Sticks and stones! We’ve all got a scroll button. I often use it.
This isn’t the kids network.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
brandon
Hya. The other day you were explaining that some of gerrys blogs for the 10th June had been recently edited…you said you were going to compare them - did you report back and did I miss it, or have you been too busy
Very interested in your observations
February 21st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
**********************
A number of weeks ago BBC News 24 announced that the ‘Head of Media Monitoring and Analysis’ was to review that day’s papers. Her name was Julia Hobsbawm.
Now we know that the ‘Head of Media Monitoring and Analysis’ at that time was Clarence Mitchell - but the BBC misled the British Public by suggesting a government official was to review that day’s papers.
Naturally Julia Hobsbawm embarked on a not so loquacious rant saying that the very idea of the McCanns being involved in Madeleine’s disappearance was plainly ridiculous. “It is time this country asked questions of the Portuguese police and Portugal itself, else we won’t go on there on holiday any more”, she said.
But Julia Hobsbawm is not a government official. Julia Hobsbawm is an independent PR consultant with deep New Labour links.
She was also a partner in Hobsbawm Macaulay Communications with Sarah Macaulay, now known as Sarah Brown, the wife of British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.
Why should this make for a conflict of interests? It is already understood that Gordon has taken a personal interest in this case, and although only unsubstantiated rumours circulate that ‘Gordon knew Gerry’ prior to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, it is alleged that Gordon Brown personally advised Gerry to ‘scale down his media campaign’ shortly before the couple were made ‘aguidos’. Gordon naturally sees the credibility and reputation of his office inextricably bound with the public profile of the McCanns; and indeed, there may even exist a discrete synergy between their respective media profiles.
MAPPING THE COMMENTARIAT: TRAVELS IN AND AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE
Julia Hobsbawm is now the founder and chief executive of media analysis and networking company Editorial Intelligence.
Editorial Intelligence specialise in analysing and exploiting comment and opinion in both print and online media. In simple terms, Editorial Intelligence help other companies and individuals realise the full potential of public opinion and debate by assisting in the management of what is published in comment areas, forum areas, letters pages and message boards. They even have a word for it; they call it the ‘Commentariat’.
We, my friends, are the Commentariat and the basic shape and fabric of our universe is something they seek to control. Naturally all those who inhabit this world are not equal; they seldom are. This world fragments like most into ‘high’ and ‘low’ opinion, mainstream and alternative, subordinate and dominant, pedestrian and elite. Whilst a new breed of commentariat has gatecrashed the opinion stage and started to challenge the primacy of newspaper commentators some are still more ‘notable’ than others. But it’s these fissures that make it such a vital and engaging issue. We ourselves might not be part of any ’special list’ but we certainly feature in its dynamics, offering no small degree of resistance to attempts to formalize its power.
Here’s how Julia Hobsbawm’s describes her company on the Editorial Intelligence website:
“Editorial Intelligence opens a door to a vital and growing world of print and online comment and opinion. What the ‘Commentariat’ says affects and influences the direction of public opinion and policy alike and with it, corporate reputation …
e.i was established to create a definitive portal to the Commentariat – the word coined by us to describe the world of comment and opinion which has increasing influence, not only on “the debate” but the shape and direction of policy, legislation and public opinion.”
Editorial Intelligence is a new-media PR company. The company’s original initiative was to create a ‘bridge’ between the two sparring worlds of public relations and journalism (S.Morris, The Independent). Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, the two have enjoyed a strangely proximate yet volatile relationship for many years and the exchange of personnel (and fluids) between the two spheres has been nothing short of incestuous. On the surface of it, Hobsbawm’s intention seems entirely noble; take two-warring factions of reasonably likeminded individuals and persuade them to enter a compromise. Persuading the PR camp was easy enough. For the PR camp it was much like gaining another right hand. One hand could prepare the press-sheets whilst the other could manhandle it into a credible, if largely derivative press report and distribute it through a readymade channel. Persuading the journalists was to prove more challenging; how could the two tribes ever be friends when they were founded on conflicting principles? Journalists uncovered the truth and PRs suppressed it. It was the job of the Public Relations executive to manipulate the media and it was the job of the media to be the media. Traditionally, at least, journalists should be fiercely independent. They go out and source their own stories. They make their own tea and tie their own shoelaces. And when the situation merits it, they even fight their own libel cases.
And it was at this particular crossroads that they met.
For the price of a single-malt and unfettered access to key-figures, a good number of journalists exchanged their ‘fierce independence’ for a more placid and tractable alliance. But we can’t lay the blame squarely at Hobsbawm’s feet. Hobsbawm simply exploited an already sizeable crack in the market: putting the man or woman who had something to report in direct contact with the man or woman who could report it. Hobsbawm compared the service to a GPS navigation system. Editorial Intelligence afforded journalists a way of following their noses, finding their facts and chasing their sources without even leaving their armchair. The days of the investigative journalist pouring over phone records, address books, tax records, rifling through panty draws and placing one’s testicles in engagingly volatile situations were to surrender to labour saving exchanges like Editorial Intelligence.
Whistleblowing had given way to an altogether different kind of blowing skill.
Within weeks Editorial Intelligence had attracted a number of distinguished journalists to its advisory board. Six of them have now resigned. Matthew D’Ancona, the new editor of The Spectator, and John Kampfner, his counterpart at the New Statesman, John Lloyd and the BBC’s business editor, Robert Peston. Whether journalism and PR exist in the same moral sphere or not, they’re now certainly more committed bedfellows. And whilst Hobsbawm has been keen to distance herself from her PR past, there’s little doubting that the fundamental appeal of her services is comprised of little more than conventional lobbying. Like some discreet and engaging 18th Century Madam, Hobsbawm has a prodigious knack for pairing her shy roster of clients with the boys and girls who make up her ‘special’ list.
What’s in it for the rest of us? Well it all depends on whether you are a chief executive, a strategist or planner, politician, broadcaster, Public Relations executive or researcher – the good majority of which comprise the main bulk of Editorial Intelligence clients (clients which include, incidentally, Sky News, BBC Media Centre, the Electoral Commission, the General Medical Council, ITV and the Metropolitan Police).
On the face of it at least, Madam Hobs has something to satisfy even the most ‘unconventional’ of kinks and needs.
HOOKERS, FAKERS, SOCK-PUPPETS AND HACKS: THE OLDEST PROFESSION STARTS BUZZING AND GOES GUERILLA
As any good Madam knows, variety and choice should constitute the basis of a well-stocked household and to this end, Hobsbawm and her team have compiled over 800 detailed profiles of the UK’s key print and blog commentators - what they write and when they write it. For a £4,000 annual membership fee Hobsbawm smoothes the awkward and occasionally inhospitable terrain between the two spheres. Should a sexy and fun-loving organisation of nefarious intent seek likeminded commentator for caring and loving relationship, then Hobsbawm’s house of dolls can make it happen.
Time for a quick recap. Julia Hobsbawm goes on BBC television and is immediately mistaken for someone else. She also has a company that matches people with something to sell and issues to raise to people with people who can sell and raise them. Nothing remarkable about that you might say, all companies employ sales execs in one way or another. The difference here is that most sales execs don’t wear false noses and moustaches when carrying out their duties. Whether we are stupid or just naïve most of us assume that what we read in a newspaper or a blog is the independent and neutral opinion of the author. Hobsbawm, on the otherhand, offers her clients a candy painted gingerbread world where predatory PR execs, Hansel and Gretel can follow a trail of breadcrumbs to a friendly and accommodating woodcutter of their choice. And should this woodcutter (or ‘wordcutter’) be persuaded to endorse their product or agenda – then it can only have a fairytale ending.
None of this is new of course. Buying off hacks or sock-puppets to pose as impartial voices has been going on for years. Viral marketing, guerilla marketing, buzz marketing, stealth marketing, undercover marketing, roach baiting, astroturfing – it’s all the same deal. A marketing company might plant someone in a location where target consumers are likely to gather. Whilst there, the plant will hype-up their product to whoever they encounter, even to the extent of handing out samples. The consumers won’t even be aware they are being marketed to.
Naturally this technique came into its own with the advent of the Internet.
In Internet chat rooms and forums its only natural for people to perceive everyone else in the forum as peers, the semi-anonymity lessens the danger of being exposed, and one single marketer can profoundly influence thousands of prospective customers. During the ‘Dot-Com’ boom at the end of the last decade, rogue brokers and stock promoters frequently used chat rooms and message-boards to generate a buzz and drive up the price of a stock, inspiring consumer confidence in a ‘chop stock and barrel’ kind of fashion. But the goal of any undercover campaign is to produce a buzz, whether you’re a white-collar spammer or a mainsleaze journalist. Yet unlike other conventional media, consumers tend to trust forums, blogs and columns more than any other. They’re perceived as more transparent, more neutral.
And for anyone who thinks this is the stuff of fantasy, then perhaps now is the time to remind you of Sony’s disastrous ‘fake blog’ scandal.
In late 2006, Zipatoni produced an online buzz marketing campaign known as ‘All I Want For Christmas is a PSP’, for Sony Computer Entertainment America, the makers of the Playstation platforms. The campaign combined what were alleged to be amateur videos with a blog supposedly written by an impartial gaming enthusiast. And to lend a certain amount of authenticity, the blog was even written using faux hip-hop and Internet lingo. But after suspicions had been raised, some readers conducted a WHOIS search and Zipatoni were ceremonially unmasked as the site’s registrars.
In this instance, the gingerbread trail led straight back to the witch.
When both the videos and the blog were discovered to have been created by the company as part of an advertising campaign, there was extensive criticism of the campaign on the Internet. The campaign was poorly received by the gaming community, and sufferd a barrage of criticism in the press. An in-house post-mortem concluded the campaign had been being counter-productive.
But for every scam uncovered there’s a thousand that remain anonymous.
THE EU GETS TOUGH WITH FAKE BLOGGERS: OUT WITH THE TRUCKERS AND THE KICKERS AND THE COWBOY ANGELS
In the old days companies used what is known as a ‘boiler room’ full of telephones and computers where advocates and campaigners sympathetic to the issue or movement would petition likeminded individuals in an effort to create enthusiasm and support for the specified cause: influential groups, important dignitaries, celebrities, elected officials, financial backers, high-ranking members of the skills-based Professions – no one was without use. And sadly, little has changed. But what should we call this crisis? A Cash For Columns Scandal? A Cash For Comments Scandal? In typical graffiti fashion it has New Labour written all over it. It’s Blair’s signature or ‘tag’ if nothing else.
So pervasive is the problem that the EU is preparing legislature to tackle the problem of fake bloggers.
Under laws due to come into force at the beginning of 2008, companies or individuals falsely representing themselves as consumers on fake blogs, supplying bogus testimonies on websites such as TripAdvisor, or producing fake book reviews on Amazon risk criminal or civil liability. As The Times has already reported, ‘whether a commercial practice is unfair will be assessed in light of the effect it has, or is likely to have, on the average consumer’s decision to buy’ (S. Coates, The Times). The directive is anticipated to ensnare commercial organisations - big or small - meaning companies will no longer be able to pay private bloggers or professional agencies to post false or misleading blogs or reviews online.
Nor will they be able to do it themselves.
So do all PR companies employ people to write press releases, sit in forums, write letters, post comments - all with the expressed purpose of directing public opinion and safe-guarding the interests and reputations of companies or people in the public eye? Well only those that are worth their salt do, that’s for sure.
A directive is usually issued to show that the weight of public opinion favours sympathy toward any policy or issue that they happen to be backing at the time: to shape the heart and minds of the Commentariat and apply peer pressure on public opinion.
Neither will it any surprise to learn that the media-savvy Tony Blair said: ” The new technique is commentary on the news being as, if not more important than, the news itself”.
Peter Mendelson - arhitect of New Labour with Tony Blair - went one better:
“of course we want to use the media, but the media will will be our tools, our servants; we are no longer content to let them be our persecutors.’ (’The Silence of The Sheep’, Peter Oborne, Spectator, 2000)
Whether forums and message boards have contributed directly or in part to the shape and scope of these investigations remains to be seen, but there’s certainly no doubting that forum members have seized control of a substantial area of hostile territory and vital strategic ground from the mainstream Commentariat.
Words are indeed like hooks to be tossed over battlement walls. It is no longer simply a case of breaking news, but breaking opinion.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING CLARENCE: A FEW MORE SPONTANEOUS SODS GET KICKED UP ON THE ASTROTURF
I think it would be safe to speculate that under the professional guidance of companies like Editorial Intelligence, PR executives like Clarence Mitchell, working on behalf of the McCanns, will have lobbied key journalistic and non-journalistic personnel in an effort to manage a crisis.
When used at a grassroots level - often with non-journalistic personnel - such behaviour is known as astroturfing - endeavouring to create the impression of spontaneous, grassroots behaviour. Individuals are recruited to simulate the impression of a popular movement using a variety of media which is likely to include letters to newspapers from so-called ‘concerned citizens’, paid opinion pieces, favourable reports and the formation of grass-roots lobbying groups that are commonly funded by the PR company in charge. In the case of one popular criminal investigation, the impression of popular opinion has been supported by a range of popular merchandise that first identifies the contributor as ’subject’ and later foments their loyalty. The Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser called such a process ‘interpellation’. Ideology circulates and propagates itself using a variety of non-repressive state apparatuses: the Church, the School, the Family, the Workplace, Television, Chucklevision – and now the Commentariat. In the first instance, however, the individual must first recognise himself or herself as part of the collective process. This will usually take the form of an appeal to latent fears, guilt or common anxieties, culminating in you or me interacting voluntarily with the movement at hand. Merchandising offers such a process; wristbands, T-Shirts, posters all offering us a means of announcing and cementing our loyalty to the issue at hand and – as a natural conclusion of that - the innocence of the suspects. And Astroturfing provides the support. Popular opinion must be seen to self-replicate again and again and again – spontaneously, without coercion - until the community of spectatorship operates at full capacity.
Remember joining in with Paul and Barry Chuckle in all manner of ‘to me, to you” horseplay? Well it’s a little like that. It’s just something you fall in with, whether you find it funny or not.
New Labour themselves used Astroturfing techniques in the run up to the 2005 Election. The Political Editor of The Observer, Gaby Hinsliff even ran the following story: “How Labour used its election troops to fake popular support”. Hinsliff’s report was based on a Channel 4 ‘Dispatches’ programme that showed activists writing letters to newspapers and posing as ‘local people’ to greet Blair on campaign trail. That’s right, a tactic invented by US pharmaceutical firms to promote drugs, and adopted by the Republicans to prop up George Bush after 9/11, was imported to Britain to help get Tony Blair re-elected. Hinisliff reports:
“Model letters were drafted for them to ‘write’ to local papers, as if they had been spontaneously roused to complain about Michael Howard’s tactics - while party staff were drafted in to represent ‘local people’ whom Tony Blair could meet on campaign visits. ‘Spontaneous’ demonstrations against rival politicians were also organised, with activists instructed to use handwritten homemade-looking placards.”
The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as a spontaneous and independent public reaction to any number of political issues, commercial products, services, crises or events. Astroturfing may be undertaken by anyone from an individual pushing their own private agenda to highly organized consortiums with sound financial backing from large corporations or activist groups.
Naturally, the tactic has a long and ignoble history. In the period leading up to Nixon’s 1972 election, the Committee to Re-Elect the President orchestrated several campaigns of ‘public support’ for decisions made by President Nixon during his previous four years in office. This ‘campaign’ consisted largely of sending telegrams to the White House and placing an apparently independent advertisement in The New York Times.
The practice is now specifically prohibited by the Code of Ethics of the Public Relations in America – but not so in the EU.
HE WHO CONTROLS THE COMMENTARIAT CONTROLS THE WORLD: WHEN TALKING B*LLOCKS BECOMES A SERIOUS CAREER OPTION
With the rise of new-media it has been increasingly apparent that the so-called Commentariat play a pivotal role in shaping public opinion and public policy. If you can control the Commentariat either by gentle persuasion or intelligent argument then you can control policy and its impact. The treachery occurs when interested parties pose as members of the Commentariat and use their invisible arsenal to dictate the course of argument and ultimately, its outcome. It’s identity-theft on an editorial and political level. In cyberspace, nobody can hear your screams. We similarly can’t see your face or be offered any assurance of your agenda. It’s one thing to offer surveillance, it’s quite another to offer deep-cover and although Hobsbawm doesn’t make this explicit, I’m sure both she and her team are able to source qualified ‘field-ops’ should the job demand it.
Hobsbawn and co. cheerfully announce that they have have compiled over ‘800 profiles of the UK’s key print and blog commentators’. They have ‘detailed records of publicly available information about their publishing, broadcasting and speaking histories’. Clients are trained in gathering and processing information.
If truth were told, the only thing they don’t appear to offer their clients is training in the use of firearms and explosives and the discipline of hand-to-hand combat.
And I’m sure that with the right kind of persuasion - even this can be arranged.
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UPDATES: THE MCCANN’S PR MACHINE
Media and Public Relations companies associated with the McCanns include Making It Ltd (Esther McVey - Find Madeleine Fund Director), River Media Ltd (Jon Corner, twin’s Godparent), Justine McGuinness (lobbyist and PR Manager), Clarence Mitchell, Mark Williams-Thomas’s WT Associates, and Alex Woolfall (Head of Issues and Crisis Management for the Bell Pottinger Group).
Out of the list only Bell Pottinger can boast direct links to New Labour and Downing Street. Ex-Labour Party staff at Bell Pottinger include Cathy McGlynn (an adviser to Jack Cunningham when he was Agriculture Secretary), Amanda Clow (from Tony Blair’s office before the 1997 election), Amanda Francis (a former adviser to Mo Mowlam), Jav Chavda (a former researcher for the ‘Rapid Rebuttal Unit’) and Nick Williams.
Bell Pottinger’s Alex Woolfall was dispatched to Pria Da Luz as the McCann’s media representative in the first few weeks of the investigationm relieved duly by Clarence Mitchell, at that time Head Of Cummunications’ at Downing Street.
Interestingly, Bell Pottinger have a history of Nucelar Clients, including BNFL and the Nuclear Decomissioning Agency. Gerry McCann on the otherhand sits as a guest member on the medical subcommittee of COMARE - Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment.
COMARE played a key role in the Nuclear, Renewables proposals put forward in the Blair Government’s 2007 Energy White Paper: Meeting the Energy Challenge, published in May 2007, after research was alleged not to have identified any evidence of increased incidents of childhood cancer in areas surrounding nuclear power stations.
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There is an update at the end with many links and references but as I am scared of Carmen and the spam machine I deleted it.