Food For Thought.... With Appetizers

Not being ones to run away from any of our responsibilities, let’s warn all our latest critics that when they criticize the opportunity, objectiveness or even the eventual distastefulness of our latest posts, they’re not critizing just the authors of the blog, but the entire Textusa family.

The blog's authors and its esteemed readers. Mind you, we think everyone should be subject to criticism, and we're not complaining about that, but just clarifying who is being criticized. Just that.

Let me explain, by recapping the events about what has been published lately, which, by coincidence, happens to have one central figure: Mrs Fenn.

It all started when we decided to do a post Where Have All The Gentlemen Gone?, image based, whereupon we wished to exemplify how odd was the behavior, or its absence, by a man that did not help an elderly woman carrying two shopping bags, up to her apartment.

At the time, Advocatus, gleefully jumped up in fun clapping in approval like a three year old before a puppet show.

But then, he was one of our best buddies, one of the gang, or so he thought.

He has, since then, and mainly by our doing, radically changed his attitude towards the blog. Clapping included.

Anyway, it was the blog authors’ full responsibility for that post having been published.

Let’s keep a scoreboard so that we can all follow what we're trying to say:  

Then we posted the Unpublished PJ Files, a post for which, the blog authors’ assume full responsibility for its publication.

And it was from then on that the “Fenn Frenzy” began to pick up pace.

On MMF the Unpublished PJ Files, got some comments that merited, on our part, the writing of our Colouring Hats post.

We consider the publication of this post to be of “shared responsibility”, between ourselves, loopdaloop who started the thread at MMF and Panda.

In this MMF thread, Panda brought into discussion what we disputed: the credibility of information, heard directly by Panda, based on a friend of Mrs Fenn, Edna Glyn.

It seems we were wrong. Panda, through a couple of comments to the post, corrected us.

It seems that it wasn’t information based on Edna Glyn, the friend of Mrs Fenn, but one, still heard directly from Panda, based on the friend of a friend of Mrs Fenn.

This originated our FOAF post, whereby we reacted to Panda’s already mentioned corrective comments.

We simply questioned what credibility such a "clearly identified" source could offer to the whole debate, which was NONE, and highlighted the amount of misinformation that the exact same source brought into the issue, which was IMMENSE… and INTENTIONAL.

So this FOAF post is in our opinion a shared responsibility between us and Panda.

Then, by own decision we decided to publish the Famous Last Words, a simple, image based post that we thought appropriate and befitting with thematic that was being dealt with: Mrs Fenn’s and her interaction with the Maddie Affair.

About this post, a reader asked us to translate the subtitles of the images posted.

We not only did that, but on our Famous Last Words (Full Version) took it a step further; and published the whole transcription of the SIC video. It’s another post with shared responsibility, in this instance between us and this particular reader.

Then another reader noticed that in the SIC video, it could clearly be seen that Mrs Fenn doesn’t bend down to place any shopping bag on the floor, apparently passing it to someone who doesn't ever appear.

We looked at the footage again, and noticed that that detail wasn’t the only one wrong in in the Mrs Fenn’s sequence of unloading her shopping. We showed exactly that on our Magic Is In The Air post.

Shared responsibility, between us and another reader.

A third reader then points out the absurdity of using a car to drive to a supermarket just down the street.

We agreed and added to our response, in our Wide Open post the fact that the 5G apartment's door appears wide open with no apparent or visible reason for it to be in that position.

Another shared responsibility between us and our readers.

And this is where we now stand on our scoreboard:

Not exactly...

Because we’ve had another reader point something out to us about the decorative tiles that can be seen by the 5G’s front door and on which appear to written “CASA DA WENDY”, or “WENDY’S HOUSE”. We’re not sure about the “WENDY” part.

To this reader, our fourth helper, we ask a little patience because we have to write this post right now. But just goes to show how attentive and participating readers we have!

As can be seen, the sequencing, the opportunity, the objectiveness and even the controversial question of  taste of our latest posts in which Mrs Fenn seems to be the central figure are only due to the great interaction between the blog and its readers.

It remains to be our sole responsibility on what is published and what is not. We’re the ones that, in the end, do click on the “publish” button and nobody else.

It’s also up to us to choose what we write about and what we don’t, so we’re not, in any way, diverting criticism away from ourselves onto our readers. We’re sharing it with them. Putting our reader right by our side, where s/he is to be, as s/he is indeed part of this family.

Constructive criticism should make all of us learn aand make each one a better person. Destructive criticism should make all of us proud, because the amount of vitriol it contains is in the direct proportion of the amount of pride with which it should be received: the bigger is the insult from an intentionally ignorant foe, the bigger is the compliment it indeed represents.

So, if anything can be called interactive, is what’s currently happening in the blog.

This makes us immensely proud, and, once again, we thank our wonderful, wonderful readers.

We love to interact with you, and promise to continue to do so.

Now, because it does deserve a mention, I would like to say a few words about if the eventual distastefulness, or not, of having published posts about a deceased person, in this case, Mrs Fenn.

As you saw, I answered, the quickest way possible, to Joana’s comment, a blogger which you know how much I respect, that the fact that a person passes away doesn’t exempt it, here on earth, from its earthly sins.

We do sincerely ask for a soul to rest in peace, but the deceased person’s actions, and especially its consequences, don’t cease to remain accountable, if they’re accountable. Obviously we think that Mrs Fenn’s actions are.

This said, let me get to what I promised to do, and that was the food for thought post.

We would like to point out to our critics that they completely missed the point of our posts. They were not about Mrs Fenn.

She has appeared in most, if not in all of the posts, but it was all about HOW Mrs Fenn is shown in that particular news report done by SIC.

Mind you, we do think that Mrs Fenn’s participation in them are obviously is not to be discarded, as they tell much, so will most likely be subject for future discussions, but what was, or is, at stake was how she was portrayed, what the viewer was shown.

Journalists do they job, they don’t pretend to do it. Like soccer players don’t pretend to score a goals or ballerinas pretend to do a fouetté rond de jambe en tournant.

They do it, it’s their job, and it’s with what they feed their families.

But, as was shown, we were shown a rigged piece. The single fact that Mrs Fenn takes a single bag out of her car and then appears with two, demonstrates, clearly, there was editing, and, even if only locally, scripting.

We were shown a powdered up product, a journalistic flair to make the product more attractive to the viewer.

In more precise wording, image manipulation, subtle, almost unnoticed, but there.

That means there’s a difference, however minor or relevant, between reality and the message shown.

And once you change reality, you misinform.

Let’s be honest, it happens all the time, and is, most of the times, harmless. The ratings dictate such procedures, to which we witness daily.

Want an example? The TV presenters’ make-up when they appear before the cameras.

Is that a major misinformation? No, it isn’t, but it’s misinformation nonetheless. We all know that it’s there, but how often do we forget about it? Then how surprised we really are when we see what they really look like when meet them in “real-life”…

Let’s now focus on to the SIC video.

The storyline with Mrs Fenn was basically to show an elderly lady indignant with what the British newspapers had said about her, and simultaneously show her executing an everyday activity such as carrying her shopping into her house.

Anything wrong with that?

Apparently not. It’s done all the time, isn’t it?

She even may have had to have gone shopping, she may even had some renovating works going on in that apartment, and she may even have liked to leave the door wide open for some reason… but the question one MUST ask is why powder up Mrs Fenn?

After all, the message supposedly to be conveyed was that of a woman angry with false news report about her. That’s it.

The words she said when standing between the cars should have been enough, shouldn’t they?

TV airspace is an expensive resource, so why waste it on grocery bag carrying and walking in an apartment with a previously opened door?

Mrs Fenn is the central piece of this news piece, but is far from being the central character of this story. Much less in late August 2007.

To powder up the McCanns, would be comprehensible, but Mrs Fenn? Why bother? Or better yet, why?

Did any other "supporting role" character, besides Mrs Fenn, get the same sort of “benefit”? On SIC,  SKY NEWS, or in any other TV Station? No. No other.

But it’s not about Mrs Fenn that we want you to think about. We want you to think about two other pieces of information that it’s in this particular TV news piece.

The news report, is apparently false in it’s title: “Maddie Case - McCann’s couple neighbour denied being heard by the PJ”.

Yes, Mrs Fenn, verbally, only denies that she’s ever spoken to journalists, doesn’t speak about going or not to the police.

But by saying that what the journalists have written was total rubbish, having these journalists written that she’s to speak, or had spoken to the police, then she’s, in effect, denying that she has done that also. She’s indeed denying, there and then, that she has spoken to the police.

Which we now know to be false, but that is the main issue of this news report, so it’s what we expect the piece to be about. Not the falseness, the denying. No one, but herself and about another hundred, or more, British and Portuguese citizens (many more Brits than Portuguese) knew she was lying then...

But now read the last part of the transcript:

“As for the McCann couple they’ve a rented house in Praia da Luz until the second week of September. Despite having left attending the Ocean Club, Kate and Gerry continue to shop at the nearby supermarket. This Wednesday the car was parked a few meters from Robert Murat’s door, the English businessman who still remains as the sole “arguido” in the process.””

There are two issues with no connection with the news report and completely irrelevant to its purpose:

First, the McCanns are continuing to shop at Baptistas.

Second, the McCanns parked that same afternoon their car just a few metres from Murat’s house.

Why bring up these two issues completely out of the blue? Want to think about it for just a minute?

The fact that the couple has a house rented for another two weeks, can be considered of general interest, but the two things just mentioned make absolutely no sense whatsoever being mentioned, on August 22nd, 2007, on a news report about an elderly woman denying something.

Did I say that TV airspace is expensive? Very expensive, indeed?

I did? Sorry, I’m like Mrs Fenn. With the passing of time, memory seems to fade quicker by the day…