Max Clifford ain’t my scamster, say PR folk

Max Clifford arrives at Southwark crown court in London in May 2014 to be sentenced after being convicted on eight counts of indecent assault. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

Your headline (‘Clifford rewrote the rules of public relations: for him a made-up story was as good as a real one’, 11 December) implies that Max Clifford had a lasting influence on public relations practice. Far from it. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations states in clause 2 of its code of professional conduct that members must check “the reliability and accuracy of information before dissemination”, which certainly prohibits fabricating material from scratch as Max Clifford was doing.

‘Freddie Starr ate my hamster’ was one of the headlines that resulted from Max Clifford’s promotion of fabricated material. Photograph: the Sun

If Max Clifford ever did apply for CIPR membership, he was certanly unsuccessful, and if he had made it then his tendency to make stories up would have got him expelled. Indeed, in your news report (Max Clifford, disgraced celebrity publicist, dies aged 74, 11 December) you quote Francis Ingham of the Public Relations and Communications Association, the CIPR’s sister organisation, as saying that it had never accepted Clifford as a member. I certainly agree with Francis about the disservice Clifford did to the practice of public relations.
Jane Hammond FCIPR
Public relations practitioner, Rochester, Kent

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