Review a piece of audiovisual material, which portrays PR practioners, providing your thoughts on the material’s depiction of PR/ PR practitioner’s

I have chosen to review, `When Louis met Max Clifford.’
Louis Theroux, known for his straightforward interview techniques, is persevering with his questioning but possesses a non-threatening manner that normally gets people to open up and talk. In this particular episode, it seemed he may have met his match when it came to interviewing Max Clifford. Max,a prolific publicist and media manipulator showed his candid personality by showering Louis with quick comebacks to all the questions asked of him.

The high-profiled publicist role that Max plays is probably what gain him the title of the ‘King of Spin,’ in the world of Public Relations, although not a true reflection of the industry, Max Clifford and his manipulation over the media is probably what most people have come to associate with PR.

As well as showing what Max’s own personality brought to the industry, the documentary also went a long way to highlight the fine line between fiction and fact when it comes to the world of celebrities. Max showed how keeping a story out of the press was just as importance as getting one in in the first place.

The documentary highlighted the lengths publicist such as Max will go, to stage manage events that show celebrities in the most positive light. Examples of this could be seen when Westlife and Simon Cowell showed up at a children’s hospital for no other reason than as photo opportunity to boost their credibility as caring celebrities.

The documentary made it clear that Max takes his work very seriously and won’t simply work with someone cause of the money, (which he openly admitted starts at a £10,000 a month fees.) Max revealed to Louis, when he asked if Max would help publicise him, that he would have to get on with his clients and have a two-way trusting relationship for him to consider representing them. He also said that the client’s goals needed to be realistic. He suggested that it is easy to spin a story to make someone look good; it is harder to make someone look good when their reputation is beyond possible help or their goals of success are unrealistic.

Lies and cover-ups come out of Max’s mouth as easily as the truth, from this it is easy to see how easily the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred. Max is a master at creating stories as smokescreen for the truth and is probably one of the greatest portrayers of the Grunig and Hunt publicity style model of Public Relations.

The documentary depicted Max as cool, collected and confident regarding his work. He is a businessman who knows his industry inside out, he knows without doubt what will and what won’t work for his clients. It was clear from the documentary that his power and influence in the celebrity world can go either way in regards to how it is used. Max tried on a couple of occasions to blacken Louis’s name, firstly by saying he slept with Christine Hamilton, secondly by having him photographed with models at a club. On this occasion, it was obviously only banter and no real harm was done. This however highlights just how easy, when the motive is a little less playful, stories can be manipulated and invented and very quickly become what the mass population deem as the truth.