CLARENCE CLARIFIED

‘madeleine’ Chapter 11:

At the beginning of June, Gerry had a call from the director of communications at the Foreign Office. There was concern in the government, he said, that Clarence was ‘becoming the story’. I am not quite sure what he meant by this. Clarence was certainly a visible presence and perhaps his open, affable style prevented him from being quite as anonymous as the Foreign Office would have liked. unquote

From: http://www.mccannfiles.com/id291.html

Kate And Gerry Mccann's Spokesperson Coming To Dubai IIR Middle East
10 June 2009
The brains behind the high profile Find Madeleine campaign, Clarence Mitchell, will be sharing his experiences first hand at IIR Middle East's annual PR Congress this November. [..] Mitchell, a former BBC journalist and head of media monitoring for the Cabinet Office resigned from the civil service in September 2007 to handle the intense international press interest in the case of Madeleine, who vanished while on holiday with her family in Portugal. http://www.prcongress.com/

'Find Madeleine' PR guru to visit Dubai Campaign Middle East
10 June 2009
The self-proclaimed PR guru who represented the parents of missing British girl Madeleine McCann during the investigation into her disappearance is visiting Dubai to give a talk on crisis management.

From Media Week Middle East (page 19):
Clarence Mitchell, official spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann, tells a Dubai audience how he used PR to battle with the press during the search for their missing daughter.
by PAUL McCLENNAN
15 November 2009
[..] Mitchell, a former BBC journalist of 20 years, quit his role as director of media monitoring at the British government's Central Office of Information in September 2007, to handle the McCanns' PR full time.

He was quick to point out to delegates that, "There is no evidence to suggest Madeleine is dead, and until the family know that for sure then we will continue to look for her". [..]
It wasn't long before Mitchell had to call upon his PR skills to help shape the stories that were published about Maddie. "A few months later I needed to get positive messages out into the media and rebuff the lies. We had to challenge the preconceptions - this was done privately with editors. We had to establish our own narrative and key messages," he said. [..]

Another challenge he is faced with is releasing fresh information to the media at the right time: "For the first anniversary we had to offer the press something decent to keep the interest going so we did Panorama and Hello!. For the second anniversary Oprah had been chasing us for some time so we worked with her. [The broadcast was televised in 144 countries.] I have 120 interview bids on the table for Kate and Gerry, from their local paper in Leicestershire to Larry King. We have also worked with Al Jazeera because we feel there's a chance Madeleine could be in the north of Africa."
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Dr Martin Roberts 12 January 2011 LIES, DAMNED LIES AND STATISTICS http://www.mccannfiles.com/id356.html

Peter Levy: “So the belief is that she is… she is alive and being looked after, and probably still in Portugal?”

Clarence Mitchell: “As… as Kate and Gerry have always said, until they have the answer as to what has happened and until they are presented with incontrovertible proof that she has been harmed, they will continue to believe – just as logically, without any evidence to the contrary – that she could still just as easily be alive.” Surely someone with professional credentials sufficient to have seen him seconded to the Foreign Office should realise that ‘belief’ and ‘logic’ are not stable mates. Clarence Mitchell probably does realise that. Just as probably he, as well as the McCanns, is banking on the rest of us not doing so.

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Leveson inquiry:  Witness statement of Nick Fagge (source: Levesoninquiry.org.uk witness statement of Nick Fagge journalist Associated Newspapers).

15. I believe the ‘family friend’ to which I refer was Clarence Mitchell. He would often give a public statement and would also give an ‘off  the record’ statement which he said could be attributed to a ‘family friend’. He did this to avoid being seen to be openly criticizing Portuguese officials.
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The Power Point Presentation (this is a selection of the images shown. For full PP see McCannfiles).

 The multiplatformcommsenvironment, no idea what the first line means and we already know all about the core mystery. Those damn shutters for a start. A debate about responsibility is not necessary, it is illegal, both in the UK and in Portugal, to leave minors alone.Leaving three children under the age of four alone is  a legal matter of parental neglect.

Most interesting is the entry on forum debates - so how exactly did Clarence manage libel in the blogosphere?  Tal Qual incidentally, if I recall correctly, was the first magazine which the McCanns considered suing for libel. This did not happen - it appears Tal Qual was stony broke.

Don’t  quite know how rapid balancing of the message works but sounds good. Challenging preconceptions, key messages and right at the bottom, focus on finding Madeleine.
Yes, we know. Carry on…btw. shouldn't that item have been top of the agenda?

 From the Vanity Fair Interview – September 2007, published January 2008: Lately, word has leaked out that the McCanns feel abandoned even by Gordon Brown, once their close ally. Their spokesman doesn’t quite deny this. “That was one of our backers who said it. We would never be that impolitic,” he says. “But it is true that we have requested a meeting with the prime minister to show him the strength of our case, to explain Kate and Gerry’s innocence—and yet all we’ve been offered is a medium-level-consular meeting, which we rejected.” 

The government liaison didn't really go so well it seems.

Speaking on behalf of campaign and Fund. To provide strategic comms advice in context of wider investigative campaign?  Would that be the picture of the creepy man with dental problems which featured so prominently on the Power Point constructed by the McCanns themselves? The last point is not clear - investigative messages to be conveyed to whom? 

Managing the practicalities: The anniversaries are important.  The 24/7 phone line is no doubt essential to provide an unending list of sightings. There is no information on how or if these have ever been followed up.  If  ‘spike days’  accounted for  more than 300 calls, then on average - in a month, we may expect about   5000 calls a month. So what happened to that information? 

Were  the McCanns paid for these interviews?  If some 120 of these were being ‘nurtured’  - was that because the fee had not yet been agreed? The Oprah Winfrey interview was reputed to have netted the McCanns at least  a million pounds.
Anniversaries - two so far, this presentation was given in 2009. The publicity mentioned above, I gather, is to be repeated for Christmas so in effect two anniversaries a year.

Hourly liaison with all those named would surely be impossible – it’s not clear what CM means to communicate here.

Latest developments:   this time with Clarence holding a picture of a woman who featured in one of the more romantic stories given to the press. At least it was a change from the creepy, spotty paedos.

The most interesting information is at the end:
Retained agency in Portugal to enhance engagement with opinion formers and PT commentariat.

Some relevant information:


Correio da Manha published an article on 2^nd of June 2012 about the firm Setestrelas and their retainer services pertaining to Ongoing (a firm in need of positive publicity). The article stated that Setestrelas  was retained on a monthly basis by Ongoing who paid them around ten thousand euros. In one of the reports Setesetrelas  was found to advance as an objective the elimination of negative comments from the first page of comments of a given site. Presumably by adding enough  positive comments to push the negative entries  off the first page.

And from:   http://mccannfiles.co.uk/id1.html Editorial Intelligence

Here's how Julia Hobsbawm's describes her company on the Editorial Intelligence website:
"Editorial Intelligence opens a door to a vital and growing world of print and online comment and opinion. What the 'Commentariat' says affects and influences the direction of public opinion and policy alike and with it, corporate reputation ...
e.i was established to create a definitive portal to the Commentariat – the word coined by us to describe the world of comment and opinion which has increasing influence, not only on “the debate” but the shape and direction of policy, legislation and public opinion." unquote

REBEKAH AND THE SY REVIEW

It’s a little quiet on the blogs and forums these days, so when I came across these little gems I

thought I’d share them.  The Leveson Inquiry was full on interesting moments and also

embarrassing moments:

Such as the one where Leveson was forced to ask Rebekah Brooks whether, as reported, she threatened her friend Cameron with 'a week of bad headlines' about Theresa May, his Home Secretary, if he didn't agree immediately to a multi-million pound Review into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, preferably to be announced on the same date, 12th May 2011, as Dr Kate McCann's book, 'madeleine', was published.

The exchange below starts more or less in the middle of the questioning of Rebekah Brooks, the preceding paragraphs explain how the McCanns came to have the book serialised by the Sun, although Ms Brooks could not for the life of her remember if it had set them back by half a million or a million pounds. Never mind, she must have helped with the  ‘Open Letter’ (1) I feel, so neatly phrased as it is.

 

7   Q.  Let's see whether we can agree or disagree on what may

 

             8       have happened.  When you were discussing the

 

             9       arrangements with the McCanns, you asked if there was

 

            10       anything more they wanted.  Do you recall that?

 

            11   A.  Maybe, yes.

 

            12   Q.  And Dr Gerry McCann said that he wanted a UK police

 

            13       review of the case.  Do you remember him saying?

 

            14   A.  That I do, yes.

 

            15   Q.  Do you remember your answer being: "Is that all?"

 

            16   A.  I may have said it slightly more politely: "Is there

 

            17       anything else before we conclude this meeting?", but --

 

            18       I don't particularly remember saying that, but maybe

 

            19       I did, yes.

 

            20   Q.  I'm not suggesting to you that it was impolite; I'm just

 

            21       summarising the gist of what you said.

 

            22   A.  Maybe, yes.  We had been going through a list of issues

 

            23       that Dr McCann and Kate McCann wanted to be assured of

 

            24       before we went forward with the serialisation, so

 

            25       possibly.

 

 

                                           102

 

 

 

 

 

 

            1   Q.  Did you then take the matter up with Downing Street

 

             2       direct?

 

             3   A.  No.

 

             4   Q.  Did you not tell Downing Street that the Sun was going

 

             5       to demand a review and the Prime Minister should agree

 

             6       to the request because the Sun had supported him at the

 

             7       last election?

 

             8   A.  No, in fact I didn't speak to Downing Street or the Home

 

             9       Secretary about this, but I know that Dominic Mohan or

 

            10       Tom Newton Dunn will have spoken to them.

 

            11   Q.  Pardon me?

 

            12   A.  They would have spoken directly to either Number 10 or

 

            13       the Home Office.  I'm not sure.  You'll have to ask

 

            14       them.  Probably the Home Office, I would have thought.

 

            15   Q.  That the Sun wanted an immediate result and that

 

            16       a letter would be posted all over the front page from

 

            17       the McCanns to the Prime Minister asking for a review,

 

            18       unless Downing Street agreed.  Did that happen?

 

            19   A.  I think that's how the Sun launched the campaign from

 

            20       memory.  It was with a letter, yes.

 

            21   Q.  The Home Secretary was told that if she agreed to the

 

            22       review, the page 1 letter would not run.  Do you

 

            23       remember that?

 

            24   A.  No, I don't.

 

            25   Q.  But as the Secretary of State did not respond in time,

 

 

                                           103

 

 

 

 

 

 

             1       you did publish the letter on the front page.  Do you

 

             2       remember that?

 

             3   A.  I do remember the Sun kicking off the campaign with

 

             4       a letter, yes.

 

             5   Q.  But you don't believe there was any conversation or

 

             6       indeed threat to the Secretary of State?  Is that right?

 

             7   A.  I'm pretty sure there would have not been a threat, but

 

             8       you'll have to -- we'll have to ask Dominic Mohan,

 

             9       because, like I said, my involvement was to discuss the

 

            10       campaign in the continued search for Madeleine with the

 

            11       McCanns and to do the deal on the book and to -- they --

 

            12       because I had done so many campaigns in the past, they

 

            13       wanted my opinion, but after that I left it to both

 

            14       editors to execute the campaign.

 

            15   Q.  What I've been told is that you then intervened

 

            16       personally, Mrs Brooks.  You told Number 10 that unless

 

            17       the Prime Minister ordered the review by the

 

            18       Metropolitan Police, the Sun would put the Home

 

            19       Secretary, Theresa May, on the front page every day

 

            20       until the Sun's demands were met.  Is that true or not?

 

            21   A.  No.

 

            22   Q.  Is any part of that true?

 

            23   A.  I didn't speak to Number 10 or the Home Office about the

 

            24       McCanns until, I think, after the campaign had been won,

 

            25       and then it came up in a conversation that I had -- and

 

 

 

(1)

Our Letter to David Cameron, 11 May, 2011

Dear Prime Minister,

As a devoted father and family man, you know the importance of children. Our beloved eldest child, Madeleine, was abducted from Praia da Luz, Portugal, four years ago. Since then, we have devoted all our energies to ensuring her safe return.

Today we are asking you - and the British and Portuguese governments - to help find Madeleine and bring her back to her loving family.

We live in hope that Madeleine will be found alive and returned to us. One call might be all that is needed to lead to Madeleine and her abductor.

To this end, we are seeking a joint INDEPENDENT, TRANSPARENT and COMPREHENSIVE review of ALL information held in relation to Madeleine's disappearance. Thus far, there has been NO formal review of the material held by the police authorities - which is routine practice in most major unsolved crimes.

It is not right that a young vulnerable British citizen has essentially been given up on. This remains an unsolved case of a missing child. Children are our most precious gift.

Please don't give up on Madeleine.

Kate & Gerry McCann