On March 13, 1986, British tabloid The Sun , which had already established itself as a platform for sensational stories, ran a front-page story with the headline “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”. The story alleged that Freddie Starr, a British comedian, had eaten the pet of a young woman and partner of a friend of his, who he had fallen out with. She pitched the story to The Sun . During the 2012 Leveson Inquiry into media ethics, Max Clifford, Mr. Starr’s publicist, admitted he had been called by the paper’s then editor Kelvin McKenzie. After checking with Mr. Starr and his manager (who both denied the occurrence), Mr. Clifford told Mr. McKenzie he was happy for the story to run anyway, because Mr. Starr had a forthcoming tour and he was happy for the publicity.
The headline remains among the most notorious ever in British tabloid history, typifying the sensationalism and dalliance with facts that they have become known for. The incident was one of numerous headlines and scandals in which Mr. Clifford played a part over a long and controversy-ridden career.
Mr. Clifford, like the news and spin he purveyed, was a bundle of contradictions. He claimed to be a socialist (which he insisted was borne out via his penchant for exposing scandals around Conservative politicians), while building up vast personal wealth and property, through the hefty 20% commission he was known to charge for his scoops, or his ability to quash stories at the drop of a phone call. His reach extended from author and politician Jeffrey Archer (whose downfall he brought about after revealing details of an alleged false alibi) to David Beckham (Mr. Clifford was behind the 2004 story that alleged the footballer had an affair with his former personal assistant Rebecca Loos). Rising to prominence from a relatively poor background, Mr. Clifford had little place for modesty or the impact that he could have on editors and stories. Had he been in charge of Bill Clinton’s publicity when the Monica Lewinsky story broke, the scandal would never have reached the light of day, he boasted to TheNew York Times in 2006.
For the past couple of years, Mr. Clifford had dipped out of the limelight after he was jailed for eight years in 2014 for sexually abusing four teenage women. He had always denied the charges but his “contemptuous attitude” had spurred the judge to a longer sentence.
Go-to man
Over the past week, analysis of the life and work of Mr. Clifford returned to the media spotlight, following his death in custody. While to his critics he had long symbolised the problems with the direction that British tabloid journalism had taken — he was considered the go-to man if you wanted a story spun, make the headlines, your story quashed or attention taken away from it by another headline — in the context of the global debate on the preponderance of fake news, he was also a reminder that it was far from a new phenomenon.
This week, the BBC dubbed him the “King of fake news... For Clifford... evidence was a costly distraction,” it noted. Others, such as TheFinancial Times , saw his death as bringing down “the curtain” on a particularly insalubrious period for the British media. Mr. Clifford himself had been called in to give evidence to the media ethics inquiry that followed a phone hacking scandal in 2011. He told the inquiry at one point that people preferred to read “nasty things about others than to read nice things”.
Vidya Ram works for The Hindu and is based in London
