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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. |
