Yesterday afternoon, I made the trip down to my old
university to attend a talk given by Max Clifford to the current crop of
journalism students. Thankfully, alumni were also invited otherwise this blog
post would never have happened and what a crying shame that would have been.
The talk consisted of an opening speech of around 45 minutes
in which Clifford gave the spiel about how he got into PR, where he started, a
large amount of amusing anecdotes about people he’s worked for and with and so
on. I think his favoured line about Colonel Sanders, chickens and trust issues
got an airing at this point. This was followed by a Q&A session that lasted
around 45 minutes that consisted largely of either questions about his clients
or slightly harder questions about the nature of his work and influence on the
press.
First things first, I cannot praise the man enough to taking
time out of what I imagine is a very busy schedule to speak to a group of
students (the evidence that he has a very busy schedule was clear by the fact
he was on his mobile straight after leaving the room). Furthermore, as well as
speech and Q&A, he stuck around to answer individual questions afterwards
for an extended period of time. Give that man some more praise.
Secondly, like all self-made men (women to but “self-made
people” doesn’t have the same slight alliteration to it that I so thoroughly
get a kick off of), I have nothing but an inordinate amount of respect for him;
he recognised himself that there was an element of ‘right place, right time’
about parts of his career but you have to be there and ready to take advantage
of those times and, if you can do that, you have every right to do whatever you
like when you’ve made it.
Thirdly, parts of his speech, his anecdotes and his answers
to questions from the floor were interesting, intriguing, appalling (with
regard to taste) and entertaining. The way he runs his business was revealing,
his stories about some of his clients (kept anonymous largely) were very
amusing and his views on the Leveson inquiry, phone-hacking and the effect of a
famous footballer’s retirement and the stories about his sexuality that may
come out then and how that will effect homophobia in the sport were all very
libellous but all very interesting.
However, despite all this, throughout the 90-minutes or so,
one could not help but think it was something of a performance designed to
dazzle and leave you a bit star-struck. Naturally, as a PR man, he has the
instinct, skills and experience to suppress information that he wants to
suppress leaving you wanting a little bit more.
When questions from the floor came about the nature of the
celebrity/media nexus and how the press can be free and fair given the
influence of people like himself, he had a habit of side-stepping the issue,
throwing in an anecdote and moving on. His skill at this has been honed on more
difficult opponents than student journalists, as can be seen in the Louis
Theroux documentary on him. He always seemed one step ahead of the game and
able to give you a glimpse of some genuinely shocking information but yanking
it away from your grasp. As you’d expect from someone in his ‘racket’ of course.
In a Q&A session it’s a lot easier to do this as there
is the lurking sense not to dwell on a point as a questioner and engage in a
debate as other audience members would also like to participate and time is
limited.
As a journalist, he would be an absolute dream to interview
as he has some very forthright views on issues (such as News International,
phone hacking and Leveson) and the benefit of a one-on-one session would be
advantageous to get more telling answers than he seemed to give yesterday by
placing more pressure .
However, the likelihood of myself ever getting into that
kind of situation is probably rather slim so yesterday was a much appreciated
insight.
All in all, I did not know what to expect of Clifford before
the talk. On reflection, I found him engaging, funny, interesting, a little
pervy old man-ish, generous with his time, a master of the PR art and equally
adept at leaving you wanting that little bit more. Oh to be able to open up his
head and have a root around inside.
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