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August 31, 1997
DIANA'S TRAGEDY A time for reflection... ...as the news reaches our team, mid-way through an assignment on Northern Ireland, that Diana, Princess of Wales, has been killed in a Paris car crash with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed. The early morning hours add to our sense of disbelief and shock. Diana is mother to Prince William, heir to the throne; she is one of the most popular public figures in Britain, Europe and the world. Almost immediately, however, the reaction of Britain's Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, focuses attention on one of the key issues now confronting us all: "Serious questions will need to be asked as to whether the aggressive intrusions into her privacy have contributed to this tragedy." To this correspondent, what the Foreign Secretary is talking about goes far beyond the complicity of the paparazzi who had been in pursuit of the couple's car moments before the fatal crash. Why ? Because the overkill in coverage by the mainstream media of the breakdown in the young royals' marriages and its aftermath is as much in evidence here as are the excesses of the tabloid press and its photographers. This unnatural focus on scandal and celebrity reveals both an erosion of balance and perspective within the news industry, and the inextricable link that has developed between icons of journalistic excess, such as the Princess of Wales, and the business that creates, then feeds upon the sensational coverage that is the result. Almost any London-based correspondent will tell you that over the past decade or so, too many of their owners and editors -- particularly those of North American companies -- have come to view marital meltdown in the House of Windsor as the most important running story in Europe. "It's the only yarn they consistently demand of me, and a distraction from all the real news that needs to be covered," one Canadian magazine writer told me last year. Seasoned reporters have traditionally sized up the validity of any new twist in the saga by asking what broader constitutional significance is at issue. In other words: what direct effect does each new event or utterance or photo opportunity pose to the monarchy's place in the political and social life of Britain and the Commonwealth ? Too often the answer is none at all. Yet yards of copy and hours of airtime are given over to the countless rumours and intrigues whipped up around the royal family. Sure, Diana and other young royals instigated some of this coverage. At times they fought their battles on TV and radio and in the pages of Britain's newspapers. All the more reason, in my view, that the world's quality media institutions should have adopted a more reasoned, disciplined approach to the story long ago. Instead, too many news managements have strip-mined the more sensational aspects of the royal family's gaffs and misfortunes. And now, with equal parts irony and shame, the news industry will make of Diana in death -- even more so than it did while she was alive -- an object of morbid curiosity and reporting excess. But wait a minute, I hear the big media owners saying, it's the public's insatiable interest that is to blame. It's the readers and listeners and viewers who demand this sort of intrusive, repetitive and meaningless soap opera-like coverage. But this is the same tired old excuse the tabloid barons employ whenever their conduct or content comes under scrutiny. It's a blind they hide behind while they shamelessly stimulate, titillate and massage the market's interest with stories that have no meaning, but which, if headlined and promoted properly, will sell papers and grab ratings. Media fatcats do not follow the market, they create it, then recreate over and over to drive up profits. After all, it wasn't the public who paid out the $2 million windfall to the photographer who snapped the first shots of Diana and Dodi on holiday in France. It was the masters of the international media market, as they cashed in on the sales value they have carefully developed over the years for the image of the Princess of Wales. Now, finally, this disturbing prospect: an avalanche of coverage descending upon the memory of Diana. But how many journalists will examine just how large a role the institution of the commercial media played in this unsettling drama ? Too few, I fear. But as we watch, there's one thing we can do as responsible news consumers -- in our role as the essential basic component of the marketplace -- tune in to the quality programs and turn off the trash. |
| Next time... | from one troubled community, the prospects for peace in Northern Ireland.
See you then... |