As Roy “Count the Tapas” Greenslade, official commentator to the state funeral of the UK press might ask, “Why indeed?”
What were the McCanns doing when they got involved – right up to the hilt – with this nauseating industry? Why did the parents of a missing child who claimed from day one that they wanted to provide the widest possible knowledge of what had happened to Madeleine McCann almost immediately turn to the personnel, address book and methods of outfits designed for exactly the opposite purpose – the secret limitation and distortion of information about events? It is, quite frankly, inexplicable.
Or is it?
Reporting for the kiddies
Of course we have the Authorised Version put forward in the pair’s interests, a kind of repeated mantra: unforeseen crowds of media people after return from Portimao – flee them or work with them – all pulling together for Mudeleine – nice Alex Woolfall teaches how to deal with all these media people – Sheree Wood sent by the government to help – Justine blah blah – Clarence blah blah – gradually they helped get the message of hope for Madeleine across in the most effective way blah blah.
It isn’t very pleasant reading that garbage now, not in the light of what we know. Starting on May 4 the parents used unpaid proxies, friends and family whose role we’ll examine, to get information into the media that had nothing whatever to do with any “search for Madeleine” but already included purely defensive information in the parents’ own interests, not the child’s, as the evidence proves.
And after this first, amateurish but successful attempt to use unpaid proxies they immediately started working with Alex Woolfall, not the media itself. Woolfall is the recipient of glowing testimonials from the McCanns for his expertise; rather less often do they mention that his expertise was in the very “Crisis Management PR” that Greaseball Oil turned to.
Oh, how we boast
Have a look at a current puff by Bell Pottinger the CMPR specialists that Woolfall was representing from May 4 on. As successful examples of their services their website gives:
Eurostar Independent Inquiry: providing communications support for the publication of the independent inquiry [our italics] into Eurostar trains trapped in the Channel Tunnel during bad weather.
McLaren: supporting the CEO and senior management of McLaren during the FIA investigation into allegations of theft of technical information.
Mark Warner: providing 24/7 crisis management support following the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from a Mark Warner resort in Portugal.
You can see why Eurostar would want their services after having left two thousand passengers shivering under the Channel for 16 hours, an experience described fervently, if unoriginally, as “a complete nightmare” by one victim. Another complained “...no proper organisation. There is water but people are hungry. Staff are pleasant but have no idea. I'm exhausted and also angry at being treated so badly." Pretty minor really – but note the italicised bit: “support for the publication of the independent inquiry”. In other words Eurostar were worried that an independent report would hammer them so Bell Pottinger were paid to stop the reader getting the words of the findings by placing distorted versions of them in the media. Not much point in having independent enquiries really then, is there?
But that was trivial stuff: with Maclaren you’re getting into proper CMPR territory – theft allegations with millions in sponsorship at stake as well as a possible finger on the collar. Get busy fibbers!
Mark Warner, whose reputation was very much word of mouth, wanted to make sure that their USP didn’t become “Stay with us and return one short” after May 3. Fair enough. They failed, unfortunately for them and their future, because the McCann frenzy was too big to handle and their take on things – “no evidence of a break in” – was drowned, if that is the appropriate word, by the abduction claim.
No use to Mark Warner but great for Gerry
So what were the parents doing sitting at Woolfall’s feet while he taught them his methods? Was it his experience in fund raising, or raising awareness of lost tots that they were soaking up? Not according to his CV:
“His experience covers product contamination and sabotage; death and serious injury in the workplace; redundancy, administration and Chapter 11 announcements; regulatory breaches and fines; sex discrimination and whistle-blowing cases; fraud and theft; pension fund deficits; use of child labour; medical negligence and a wide range of other controversial issues.”
And “covers” doesn’t mean fighting against these horrors, so that you could argue his expertise might be valuable in the equal horror of a child kidnapping, say. Not at all – it means protecting the interests of those accused of them! With a record like that the guy would be a great, a superb, choice to work for the abductor – but for the victim’s parents?Why?
Kate McCann confirms in her book that “we came to rely on Alex Woolfall as our de facto media liaison officer. It was he who guided us early on, giving us simple advice that has served us in good stead since.” You can say that again, Kate. Woolfall’s advice was utterly and completely cynical, comparing the media, as Kate indiscreetly recounts, to Pavlov’s dogs slavering at the prospect of reward. All they needed, he told Kate, continuing the laboratory animal analogy which came naturally to him, was to be fed something to keep them happy: that way they were yours.
More reporting for the kiddies
Not at all the Authorised Version that found its way into the media that summer in the quality dailies, is it? That tale of amateur but enthusiastic family members and friends beavering away at do-it-yourself searching and campaigning, with “young Calum” putting together a website, ol’ uncle Alex smiling benevolently and everyone pulling together like a hick chorus line from a Hollywood musical. No, there wasn’t much mention of throwing meat to the dribbling media dogs then.
Why were they in the business of throwing meat at the dribblers in the first place? Kate McCann again: “He told us to ask ourselves the following two questions before giving anything to anyone [our italics] in the press: what was our objective and how was it going to help?”
Kate speaks the truth!
She speaks truly and conclusively, in this instance at least. That sentence describes perfectly the times when they step out from behind the protection of paid liars: every interview they have ever given shows the same cold, cynical calculation in using the media for their own aims only. No interest in informing the public, no frankness about themselves, no sincerity, only example after monotonous example of steadfastly, rigidly, following the Woolfall Crisis Management method – only ever speak to the public via the media to get what you want.
And indeed if what they wanted was merely to “search for the child” and get a campaign going in her interest in spring 2007, arguing perhaps that they would sup with the devil if that would help them in that objective, how is it that the record doesn’t support them? For at the time when, as Kate herself states, the searching had temporarily come to a halt because of “other distractions”, that is the period after they returned to England – how was it that their CMPR effort only then began to reach its peak? Even as they landed yet another CMPR specialist, Hanover Communications, was engaged and ready to go, as the Bureau wrote nearly two years ago when we published its boast:
“We helped the McCann family deal with the media storm which surrounded them on their return from Portugal in September 2007. From scratch, we created a comprehensive media handling package within six hours which enabled us to handle 850 media calls in the first week. By giving journalists positive stories to report, coverage turned from hostility to the McCanns to sympathy about their ordeal. This campaign won the crisis communication category at the 2008 CIPR awards.”
Not much mention of Madeleine McCann there.
You know, when a couple immerse themselves so deeply in the techniques and practices used almost exclusively by those facing the possibility of financial catastrophe, disgrace or, particularly, prosecution then the old saying comes irresistibly to mind: if it walks like a duck and looks like a duck...
