NPR: Tabloid Editors Acknowledge Role in Diana's Death

Tabloid Editors Acknowledge Role in Diana's Death

British tabloid editors and reporters are a pretty tough lot, willing to do almost anything to scoop their rivals. I worked with two of them for several years in Canada, and what they would do to get a story defies the imagination.

They also hate to admit they've made a mistake. So I was totally amazed to see Tuesday's story in The Daily Telegraph in which the editors of the three largest British tabloids at the time of Princess Diana's death admitted they helped create "an atmosphere in which the paparazzi, who were chasing Diana when her car crashed in a Paris underpass, were out of control."

Phil Hall, who was editor of the News of the World, said it was a "circle of culpability": the readers who wanted the photos of Diana, the photographers who chased her everywhere she went and the papers that published the photos. A Diana scoop could mean an additional 150,000 copies sold for a single issue.

Hall's comments were echoed by Stuart Higgins, who edited The Sun in the '90s, and Piers Morgan, then editor of the Daily Mirror.

I actually have personal experience with "Diana frenzy." The first place that Diana and Prince Charles visited after their 1981 wedding was Halifax. My then-boss, one of those former Fleet Street reporters I worked with, took an off-the-record conversation that his wife (also named Diana) had with Princess Diana during a private party and turned it into a front-page exclusive: "Our Di talks to their Di." It created an international furor, and the paper was banned from all royal events for a decade.

I'll always remember that a Buckingham Palace reporter for a tabloid, who had once crawled through a half-mile of underbrush to get a picture of Diana in a bathing suit, called my boss "sleazy."

11:04 AM ET | 08-22-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

According to British tabloid, Diane was the love child of almost the King Edward and Wallis Simpson, born shortly after Wallis returned from the Orient where she learned certain Asian brothel secrets that convinced Edward to abdicate the throne.....otherwise Ian Fleming would have led a team of MI-6 assassins to eliminate the Nazi conspiring Simpson and Edward....and Diane was John McEnroe's sister.

.........fred call aka bigbro

Sent by fred call | 11:36 AM ET | 08-22-2007

Well, better late than never. Unfortunately, tabloids newest rabid pursuit is of those boring "celebutants". Sigh.

Sent by Vicki Chism | 12:24 PM ET | 08-22-2007

Without the saps who buy all that tabloid crap, Diana might be alive today. Just as the people get the government they deserve, they also get the media they deserve.

Sent by John R. Otten | 8:41 PM ET | 08-22-2007

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