Hommage du Blacksmith Bureau
28.10.2016
What He Did
AJS writes: The work that Nigel did in creating and maintaining McCann
Files is, of course, well known. That site is simply a gem to anyone who wishes
to research the case in either its narrow or broader aspects. Most of the English
language primary sources are there as well as a wealth of other stuff but perhaps
the most valuable material is potentially the most misused or misunderstood:
media reports.
Such reports tell us almost nothing of value about the
supposed subject being covered but, potentially, a
great deal about the people providing the
information and why, for little ever goes into a national UK paper
without a hidden reason. Until Google it was impossible to track what
they were up to.
Few wanted to search through giant volumes of essentially
shallow thinking in press
cuttings libraries sorted by date, not thematically; journalists had
long got
used to living in a kind of permanent present in which the continuity of
(hidden) special interests in their stories was largely unseen and
unchallenged.
With Google’s help the genius of Nigel changed all that. His
long, scroll-like threads followed press reports thematically for days and
weeks at a time and suddenly – a revelation, in Mr Redwood’s words – it was all there: with a little practice you
could see which group had fed the story originally, how it was added to and
developed, which journalists were in the pockets of which PR people, how
alternative versions or rebuttals of the original story were handled and so on.
It was extraordinary to see a half-century old modus operandi stripped naked in this way, as though the people involved had been bugged at their place of work. And the reality
was not pretty: an industry completely infiltrated and corruptly available for hire. His exposure was a clinical Anatomy of the Lie.
Nigel’s work in the collation and sequencing of the broadcast
media revealed an industry less corrupt financially than the press but open to similar abuse due to the overwhelming power of the image on the screen and its ability to
make us suspend or dismiss rational thought. Few people remember the words used
in TV news reports: they remember the mood
not the boring facts, or absence of them, and this provides a splendid
cloak
for manipulation, whether for "good" or ill. Who remembers the words to
the news item about the drowned refugee child on the beach? The words,
all spoken of course in the undertaker's voice that well-fed
correspondents can turn on or off like a tap, or in Olga Guerin's case
like a faulty fire alarm, didn't matter: it was the picture that
ultimately opened the doors to Germany. Such is the power of television.
The Dom Pedro Hotel, like Phillip Greene’s vulgar and
disgusting gin palace and his McCann-carrying private jet, is now a byword
for greed and the style to which the parents became accustomed with others' help. Its notoriety is due largely to one of Nigel’s triumphs:
putting together the footage from the numerous media conferences given by Gerry
McCann when he returned to Portugal and allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions.
It remains genuinely shocking to this day: the deception,
the shamelessness, the outright lying to the Portuguese public, time and
again,
about the reasons for his presence in the country. And
in there also is Mitchell, stating that staying in a luxury hotel (while
secretly consulting his libel lawyer) was a justified use of the money
donated to
that wretched fund. Yep, Gerry McCann was entitled to the money because
he was “searching”
while staying in the Dom Pedro. Where, under the f*****g bed?
Such are Nigel’s innovations and they remain as relevant today, perhaps
even more so, than when he developed them. Our friends the City
correspondents, the sort of people who enriched Piers Morgan by using
the media to illicitly increase share prices, for example, hardly need
reminding that the Nigel Moore method works well with them too.
What He Is
As many will be aware he’s had a tough life and some harrowing personal
tragedies. Yet you wouldn’t know it when communicating with him about this case: in all the time I knew him he radiated
balance, fairness and a sense of proportion. I never
knew him to be openly hostile to the McCann pair. Often, when I’d written
something that I thought might be too strong I sent it to him for his opinion
and was rewarded with his calm analysis. He was, indeed, the first
person I’d occasionally allow to
edit my
work in decades and I always agreed with his suggestions. In my
experience he
was trusted by everyone involved with the case who dealt with him and - a
considerable rarity, this - as much in Portugal
as in the UK, from GA down. I never knew him to breach anyone’s
confidence. He had no front to him, no desire to impress or big himself
up.
About the snakepit side of the affair – when that black-toothed and
poisonous crone BB, for example, stated repeatedly that “everyone knew” that the
commentator Dr Roberts was actually him, which of course was deliberately calculated to make people distrust him –
he shrugged it off. When a couple of crooks tried to take over McCann
Files he got rid of them and later described the episode with weary amusement.
To those who think that this might be an idealised portrait
I can only reply that I write about him as I saw him and hope to see him again.
Any fears among the less realistic of our readers that he dropped out under intimidation
are groundless: Nigel was
sensible
enough not to libel and was pretty impervious to pressure. Over the past
few
years, though, he found it a burden to keep up such a high maintenance
site
while dealing with a sea of troubles; appealing for funds for the site
was something he dreaded, which is why when the appeals did come they
were late and hesitant, as though he felt he was imposing. He is
uninterested
in money. FWIW, over the past eighteen months or so he found the flight
into unreality that appeared to have overtaken case comment troubling
and expressed his dissatisfaction vigorously. It is one of life's
typical and bitter ironies that, having provided the tools to research
the case properly, he watched them being ignored in favour of assertion
and fantasy.
Although Brenda Leyland was a Bureau reader, and a complimentary one, I never had any
relationship with her and therefore knew nothing about her personality from
close up. Yet it is the sense of appalled sadness I felt at her death, and the
unspeakable treatment of her by the media, that springs to mind whenever I think of
Nigel and his long travails. He too was targeted
by the (fed and prompted) media and he too has paid a price for what he did. But it’s something deeper than that.
La structure de mccannfiles.com - mai 2007-octobre 2016
