30 Jan 2008

BAD STORY LASTS 11 DAYS UNLESS YOU FEED IT...THEN YOU GET A MONSTER




Tony Blair needed Alistair Campbell over Iraq.. the McCanns are the first couple to feel the need to defend themselves in this way by turning to political methods to convince the public their leader did not quite do something he probably did do! I like that! Trouble is, although we know that Gerry has big aspirations he is not our leader, just Kate's! Why have the McCanns chosen to play their defence out in public ...well I came into contact with six corpses before we came on holiday so that would explain why I smell of corpse...well we carried dirty nappies and rotting meat in the boot of the car... well ...7 months later we had drug tests done on the twins and guess what no drugs ...oh and we had drug tests done on Kate guess what...well we had tests done on the hire car (after it had been completely swept of all forensic traces and guess what... I struggle to imagine how Clarence Mitchell could bring himself to make such comments but hey that is his job.
Did he, or Gerry McCann really figure we were going to accept these er defences to all the evidence against them? Having put us through several months of "sightings" and just when we think we really cannot take any more and yes, a full 9 months later following all the "compelling" witness evidence against Murat - is it nine or ten? we get a series of creepy men from Granny Cooper who surely must be kidding when she tells us she is 50 - never mind the rest of what Gerry whoops sorry I mean she tells us (oh and IRONSIDE ARE THEY RELATED????) .....the McCanns want to make films, do documentaries.... lecturing us on the lack of a proper alert system in Europe and be paid millions for the privilege...Kate does not want to be a GP any more she wants to work for a Childrens Charity (unbelievable I know) to say we are all spun out and can hardly bare to read the "news" any longer would be something of an understatement and we find it all rather er staggering... Surely we can be forgiven for pleading - oh when are those PJ's coming - oh please, please just shut them up! We just want them put on trial for what they did to little Maddie, we did not like Alistair Campbell, we do not like Clarence and yes I am afraid, we do not like the McCanns either - so stop ramming it down our throats PLEASE. And PLEASE - STOP PERSECUTING INNNOCENT PEOPLE - DONT YOU THINK YOUR CREATED ENOUGH VICTIMS? Come on Kate - stop the spin and start telling the truth..for little Maddie's sake. PLEASE?

I wonder - will any other criminals get themselves a real life Alistair, will the public pay for it? I wonder...

Which paper gets the prize for the most McScamming stories big surprise folks - The Daily Express - as Rosie would say - we just need to defend ourselves we are not being abusive...who is "we"?

Profile Alistair Campbell - Claris's role model and mentor (what a couple of lovelies - I wish I was bestest friends with them too :-)))))

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3028250.stm




oh and Claris gets his own BBC profile too:
(that should boost his ego and help him to feel worthwhile useful and very important - sue me or try The Job Centre for a fresh start )




http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7010286.stm

Viv x




Spin is not the answerBy hiring their very own Alastair Campbell, the McCanns have fuelled the doubts they seek to allay Mark LawsonFriday October 26, 2007The Guardian


The pattern was familiar from politics: following a major interview, public and pundits dissect the answers given and not given, while the official press spokesman for the interviewee takes to the airwaves to explain what the responses really meant.
The latest subjects of this strategy, however, were not politicians, but Kate and Gerry McCann. Listening to Clarence Mitchell answering on their behalf on numerous news outlets yesterday morning, it struck me that one of the most remarkable aspects of the Madeleine McCann case is that her parents are the first private citizens to have their very own Alastair Campbell.
And yet, listening to the phone-in callers piling in with still more sceptical derision after their Spanish television interview and Mitchell's glossary on it, I also felt that their decision to respond to family tragedy with political methods has been a terrible error. By using manoeuvrings designed for vote-grabbing, they increasingly risk the treatment that politicians receive: the belief that they are public property and that everyone has a right to an opinion on their character and veracity.
Admittedly, in one way the McCann case has gone far beyond the political model. The two most celebrated image-manipulators of modern politics - Alastair Campbell and James Carville - had a rule about the attention span of the media. They believed that there was a limited length of time - Clinton's man first put it at nine days, Blair's at 11 - for which the same story would stay on the front pages before other events provided a distraction.
The disappearance of a four-year-old on holiday, though, has shattered these calculations. The name of Madeleine McCann has now appeared on the front pages of the Daily and Sunday Express for getting on for 180 days now, with most other mainstream papers of all kinds coinciding for at least half of those. Judged by sheer unanimity of coverage across all titles, the last equivalent story was probably the second world war.
Some of this has happened because of a change in media priorities: a retreat from serious political events towards the kind of news that could plausibly be the storyline for a Hollywood film - the obsession with Princess Diana, who has occasionally been allowed to share an Express front page with Madeleine, began this bias in reporting.
But, above all else, this domination of the front pages has happened because the McCanns have encouraged it and their financial backers have funded it. The reason the nine-day/11-day rule has not applied is that Campbell and Carville were working on a model in which the subject of the journalism wants the coverage to stop, and therefore adopts tactics - of silence or diversion - which encourage reporters to look elsewhere. If the events in Portugal were to have a clear ending of any kind, Madeleine's parents would share the usual human desire to halt media interest but, for the moment, their desperate desire to keep the public looking for their daughter has led them to court publicity.
It was presumably for this reason that the McCanns became the first doctors to have a spin doctor. Previous civilians who have attracted public interest, usually through sex with a celebrity, have had Max Clifford speaking on their behalf, but his role is not usually spokesman but broker, placing their revelations in a single paper for a slice of cash. Clarence Mitchell, in contrast, briefs universally for free in the style established by the White House and followed by Downing Street.
It's easy to see how the McCanns fell into the trap of getting a press spokesman. Though firmly protesting their innocence of the insinuations by Portuguese press and police, those suggestions of guilt have caused them to believe that they need their own counter-voice.
The problem with this approach is that the traditional purpose of spin doctors is to convince people that a leader hasn't quite done what he probably did. The more often the press guy comes to the podium, the closer his boss's career is to being over.
Another difficulty is that Mitchell is usually commenting on events of which he has no firsthand knowledge, so his briefings tend to elide fact with assertion. And his habit of answering one question but then deflecting the next on the grounds that a response would break Portuguese judicial rules may be legally necessary but transmits a sense of slipperiness.
The biggest drawback, though, is that the McCanns have turned to spin and media manipulation at the precise moment these arts are most discredited in politics. What they say in an attempt to keep their child's face in people's minds has the effect of turning a daily spotlight on them. Anecdote and phone-ins suggest these appearances increase the resentment and suspicion they are aiming to defuse. Their tragedy is becoming a public relations disaster.
comment@guardian.co.uk
almiller
October 26, 2007 2:57 AM
The 'spin' has turned into to out and out propaganda. I started doubting the McCanns the day they hired highly powerful lawyers but when Clarence Mitchell was hired, they really made a huge mistake. His daily blatherings are tiresome, now even predictable. What parents of a missing child hire literally teams of people unrelated to search efforts? I really don't understand the love affair the UK has with the McCanns. Madeleines parents need to speak more about what they personally have done to find their daughter rather than printing posters, releasing balloons and selling Madeleine merchandise on their website. Something is very fishy with this whole Madeleine mystery and I hope, in the future, the McCanns back off with all the publicity stunts.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Morning Viv, for anybody that's interested, there's even more spin from Clarrie tonight at the London School of Economics event -

The McCanns and the Media

POLIS/LSE Media Group panel debate
The McCanns and the Media

Date: Wednesday 30 January 2008
Time: 6.30pm
Venue: New Theatre, East Building
Speakers: Clarence Mitchell, Justine McGuiness, Kelvin MacKenzie, Roy Greenslade, Roger Graef
Chair: Steve Hewlett

The McCanns were the biggest media story of 2007. This event goes behind the headlines to ask why it became a media obsession, whether information or entertainment triumphed, and what impact the coverage has as the case continues.

Steve Hewlett is a media consultant and former BBC editor. Roy Greenslade is a media commentator, columnist and blogger, and Professor of Journalism at City University. Kelvin MacKenzie is former editor of the Sun, firmly establishing it as Britain's biggest selling newspaper. Clarence Mitchell is a former BBC royal correspondent and now spokesman for the McCanns. Justine McGuinness is a PR guru who manages the Find Madeleine campaign. Roger Graef was the executive producer of the recent Dispatches which featured the McCanns.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

For further information please email polis@lse.ac.uk or phone 020 7107 5249.

http://tinyurl.com/2kbrym

Anonymous said...

I would love to attend this but unfortunately am on the wrong continent.
I think it would be wonderful if instead of the usual gathering of sheep some well disciplined, thinking people skeptical of the whole spin story went and asked some pertinent questions. Is anyone from here going?

Anonymous said...

I am also on the wrong continent. I am also afraid that if I were able to attend I'd probably disrupt the debate by continually heckling that bastard Kelvin MacKenzie for what he said about the Liverpool fans at the Hillsborough tragedy.

Nevertheless it should be interesting. I'm sure a few bloggers will attend and return to give us plenty of food for thought.

Unknown said...

Hiya Sue/Doc

I hope our contributors will give us the "lowdown" on this - which I look forward to. Like Doc - I could not have managed to go - it is only 100 miles or so - that is not the reason. It would have been trying to be polite to Clarence Mitchell - too much for me I think!

Luv Viv x

Anonymous said...

Hi Viv, sorry I posted this on the wrong page.

Madeleine's parents 'not suspects'

British police and child protection officers do not suspect Madeleine McCann's parents of involvement in her disappearance, the couple's spokesman has said.

Clarence Mitchell said officials had assured him in private briefings that they were treating the case as one of "rare stranger abduction".

He was speaking as he launched an outspoken attack on the "appalling" standards of some media coverage of the disappearance of the Kate and Gerry McCann's daughter in Portugal in May.

Mr Mitchell, who acted as the couple's spokesman shortly after Madeleine went missing and reprised this role four-and-a-half months ago, said he was completely convinced of their innocence.

He told a packed theatre: "I have never once seen or heard anything from either of them to give me any cause for suspicion in any shape or form.

"I have also had briefings privately from the police and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre that also gave me complete reassurance that the authorities, in this country certainly, are treating this as a case of rare stranger abduction, as they call it."

But Mr Mitchell said he felt "shamed" as a former reporter by the "sloppiness" and "laziness" of certain journalists in covering the story.

Speaking at a debate on The McCanns and the Media at the London School of Economics, Mr Mitchell said: "What we have taken issue with, and our lawyers continue to review, is the aspect of coverage that is not only distorted but wilfully misrepresentative at times of the facts as we know them or the lack of facts. In that vacuum I'm afraid some very sloppy standards have crept in."

He singled out "the sloppiness and laziness of some of the journalists, and the lack of independence of thought and checking of facts".

Mr Mitchell said he understood putting a story about Madeleine's disappearance on the front page could add 70,000 sales to some newspapers, meaning there was "definitely a commercial imperative" to reporting on the case. He assured the audience they could be certain that "every single one" of the negative stories they read or heard about the McCanns was untrue.
http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=7405844

--

Apparently he also admitted that he was behind the closure of the Mirror forum!

This man thinks he is God. He must have a lot of favours owed him.

I spit in his general direction!

00.25

Unknown said...

Hi Sue - I would like to be a llama with you - covering the 25 yards!

His words are so disingenuous - I am sure there may well have been a comment that such incidents can, sometimes, be an incidence of rare stranger abduction.. emphasis on the rare though eh, Claris in the other 95% of instances it is the parents - I think we need to also look for what he does not say!


If he is trying to get my forum shut down..the only thing I have noticed is it just gets better and better with some extremely intelligent posters here. CHEERS CLARENCE!
Luv Viv x