The dangers of celebrity /Blacksmith

The dangers of celebrity

new kate

Why won’t they just shut up? Or, to put it more delicately, why are they just as intent now on getting stories into the media as they were, say, in the far off days of November 2007? What’s going on?

A campaign?

Yes, absolutely. Not the diary nonsense—that wasn’t part of any plan, only Mitchell aiming a fire extinguisher at the flames ignited in the Leveson inquiry. For the rest, just look at the evidence.

The McCann stories over the last month have been invented and offered to the media, not sought out by them, and they are all linked. Equally they haven’t been provided transparently in the normal manner—by media conferences or press releases—but by a news management team using the usual tricks: anonymity, source material restrictions, contact with favoured journalists, “false dialogues” (in which one of the media team pretends to be responding to a story which they have in fact provided) and a definite “line”. All the kind of stuff which isn’t far from phone hacking in its conscious duplicity and which has helped to land the press in its present miserable state.

The material about Scotland Yard, about Metodo and about the latest “abduction” claim has all been provided using these tricks and the parents are clearly the source. Ah, the supporters of the parents might say, this is all part of the never-ending “search for Maddie”.

No. The first Scotland Yard story speculating about the Barcelona sighting does not appeal for further information but actively misleads; the second Scotland Yard-related piece about Metodo does not seek information about the child;the latest story about “police accept abduction theory” is concerned only with the veracity of the parents’ version of events and does not involve Madeleine McCann at all.

Who gains?

So it’s not about the child. What is it about? The obvious answer is ask the parents. But it says something about their weird and unassailable place in society that the mere idea of asking them such a question, let alone getting an answer, is literally incredible. In the absence of any openness from the pair we can only say that it looks like they are seeking somehow to influence the news.

As in November 2007? But they were suspects then! Skulking in Rothley while their agents looked to thwart a European Arrest Warrant by “expunging” doubt and cementing vital public support. Now they’ve been exonerated. They have their review. There isn’t a word of criticism in the media and their privacy is respected. They have their own detectives checking for any possible sightings of the child. They are, by dint of the fund which directly benefits them, rich. And they have the ear of virtually anyone they wish to meet, from the archbishop of Canterbury to the home secretary. Left alone to get on with their work the British and Portuguese police may even find their daughter. So what’s wrong?

Either…

Given the circumstances there can only be two answers. The first is that the parents have lost it. There is the darkness surrounding the disappearance of their daughter, a darkness that can never be shared; and their subsequent fame brought with it the threat to identity chronicled in numberless celebrity break-downs and suicides. Kate McCann, indeed, that veteran of the Oprah Winfrey show, can remind one of the grotesque star of Sunset Boulevard in her consuming need for public approbation and belief. And Gerry McCann seems quite unable to communicate without simultaneously, perhaps unconsciously, burnishing the image which he believes that same public have of him. Perhaps their compulsive leaking and spinning is a symptom, not a vice.

Or…

The only other interpretation that would fit all the facts is that, while both may be unwell, their latest campaign has a certain rationality: just as in November 2007 they are attempting to use the media, and therefore the public, as a human shield. Only this time we cannot yet see the threat which they fear will engulf them.
Posted by john blacksmith at 00:39

http://blacksmithbureau.blogspot.com/2011/12/dangers-of-celebrity.html

Thanks Annabel

It's a mixture of both IMO. They are increasingly losing the plot because they've got wind the review is doing it's job properly.

Expect more desperate stories in the run up to February.

"Exonerated"?

I think not.

Perhaps by shallow minded sheep, but not by those who really care about the fate of Madeleine.

Not at all.

The trial to come is a big threat for them and, perhaps, their aim is to preempt any negative conclusion possible by trying to enforce the idea that they have been exonerated by Scotland Yard. And the xenophobic tabloïds are on their side, ready to bash the PJ, doesn't matter the truth.

margaret wrote:Thanks Annabel

It's a mixture of both IMO. They are increasingly losing the plot because they've got wind the review is doing it's job properly.

Expect more desperate stories in the run up to February.

Yes, I think it's a mixture too.
They've created this cold, dank, oppressive miasma of corruption and it surrounds them constantly. It gets in their hair and seeps through their clothes, like drizzle on a winter's day. Even the sanest person would not endure this demonic fog without some psychic trauma.
They are indeed still using the press and public as human shields, which suggests a modicum of hard-nosed reality at work, and yet the transparent absurdity of the concocted 'news' items hints that the mirror is beginning to crack from side to side in response to that unknown fear of which they cannot speak.

I loved the Sunset Boulevard reference!
Betcha glad they don't have a swimming pool, eh Clarence?

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up ......

I vote for number 2.

Me too Winterbells no2......something big is about to happen next year, now whether that be Amaral or Scotland Yard I dont know but its one of them that is disturbing the McCanns senseless, you only have to look at the state of them going into the Leveson Inquiry.

Mind you, the state of them at the Leveson enquiry is perhaps more about their constant need to get into character. At the Leveson enquiry she needed to look hurt and violated and he needed to look protective and angry and as we know, she in particular is a crap actress.... I'm thinking about her various attempts to 'cry', not to mention appear shocked and panic-striken on discovering her child had been 'abducted', 'They've taken her' indeed.

Who actually is Blacksmith - anyone?

Wasn't it supposed to be so important that everyone purchase Kate's book as it may contain clues to finding Madeleine? And wasn't the book based on Kate's personal diary? If so, you would think that she would welcome any of her thoughts being published, as they could provide that vital key or trigger someone's memory so that Madleine could be found.

However, the McCanns believe that they should be the only one's who should make money off of their daughter's disappearance. God forbid Amaral's book should make any money off of Madeleine's demise when he had absolutely nothing to do with her going missing. In the world according to the McCanns, only those who abandoned and neglected their children causing her disappearance should be allowed to profit. What a twisted world they live in.

mariang wrote:Who actually is Blacksmith - anyone?

He's a person, who thinks and writes intelligently and rationally about the McCann case. What more do you need to know?

Wintabells - yes, I gathered it was a 'person' - It was merely a question on whether this person was a proffesional writer, or just an interested forum/blog writer - that is all!

Whatever he/she is they write very well!

mariang

Yes he is good isn't he.

I can't get enough of his articles.

Its like my favourite sweet, yum,yum.yum - every-time I see that he has written another article I can't wait to eat - sorry - read it!

Thanks Annabel for the Blacksmith/goodqualitywristbands articles.

I read the comments and this one caught my attention:-


just briefly read before i could not read any more leveson saying how
all those stories about the mccanns being implicit in the death of their
daughter on nonsense."

How on earth could Leveson say that when the case is shelved, not closed????????He should be hauled over the coals for that.

Whoever he is, he has been blessed by the Power of Reasoning.