"It would be a great reform if wisdom could be made to spread as easily and as rapidly as folly."

Winston Spencer Churchill

The Media and the Princess

Thankfully, it is only occasionally that we get the chance to study the effects of a media catastrophe - or of a catastrophe in the media - or of a media report of a catastrophe.

The death of the Princess of Wales may have been all of these. Regardless of our personal feelings, there is a media lesson here. Like most media lessons, it is one that we have to unravel for ourselves, sorting out the different threads meticulously, after the fact, to figure out what happened, what has been happening, and what roles various influences might have had on the course of events.

It's a tough lesson to begin a new school year with, but one media teachers may not be able to ignore.

One of the hardest things for many of us to accept will be to acknowledge that we did not really "know" Diana. We only knew of her. And all that we knew of her we knew from one form of media or another. We only knew those things the media saw fit to tell us - or to show us - about her. Very few of us have actually ever been in her presence, let alone exchanged words with her; yet she has, for many, taken on the familiarity of a close acquaintance. It will be hard for many to acknowledge that the real person may well have been different from the image that they have personally constructed of her.

The impact of the breaking story was as strong as Tianenmen Square, the bomb at the Atlanta Olympics, the Cuban missile crisis or the Kennedy assassination(s).

How the media handled the story is one lesson. Some media went with it for 24 hours, non-stop (CBC Newsworld) while others went on with their regular programming of sports, comedy and Sunday morning religious services.

What role the media played in the story is another lesson. Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, said, Sunday August 31, in an announcement to the media: "I always believed the press would kill her in the end. . . . Not even I could believe that they could take such a direct hand in her death as seems to be the case." Inquiry into the background relationship between Diana and the press, with, perhaps, some reference to the way Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York (Fergie) was treated by the press, might lead to an understanding of this statement.

(Was it in "La Dolce Vita" that we first saw the paparazzi?)

Another lesson might lie in the way the story has developed in the very few days since the event, with rumours of a drunken chauffeur, seven paparazzi arrested, 20 rolls of film confiscated, varying reports on the speed of the vehicle - all details that tell us to "stay tuned".

And there is the quotation from the National Inquirer, staking out the high ground - not without a certain irony - by refusing to bid on any pictures that might be available of the crash itself, and suggesting that all other press should also "shun" these pictures.

The chicken and egg questions of the interplay between the media and popular taste, between the creation of celebrity and the reporting about celebrity, between feeding popular demand and creating it can all be very fruitfully explored in the context of this catastrophe. (If we are tempted to call it a tragedy rather than a catastrophe, then we should make a point of showing that it does indeed have elements of tragedy in the true Aristotelian sense. E.D. Hirsch Jr. will be proud of us if we do.)

How the story played in different countries, what prominence it received and for how long, what angle was given by whom, how long the story stayed in the news, how the story was given new angles as it developed - are all questions that will respond well to inquiry by media students.

Other questions may be:

• How much privacy should celebrities be entitled to? (Especially those who have been known to court media attention at other times.)
  
• Where does freedom of speech fit into the formula of paparazzi and celebrities? Does the press serve the public or pander to it? (E.D. Hirsch Jr. buffs might intervene here with a lesson on the origin of the word "pander".)
  
• Where does the mainstream media get off when it points the finger at the "tabloids" and cries, "How dreadful"? (Summarized from Vince Carlin interview on CBC Newsworld.) If the press is overstepping the line, where is the line?
  
• Does the press, like the former, famous Senator from Wisconsin, lack a basic sense of decency?
  
• How will the British Royal Family react through the media?
  
• How might other "stories" be affected by Diana's death? (The AIDS story, the land mines story, the Camilla Parker Bowles story.)

As the story grows legs, more questions arise for the media teacher.

• Which parts of the story are perhaps not being told? Whose versions are we not hearing? What spins are being put on the story? By whom? Why?
  
• What are the contradictions that are taking shape in the world-wide adulation of the princess? (How could she be at one and the same time both the Princess of the people, and a jet-setting, high-living society figure?)
  
• How can she be praised as "such a good mother" considering some of the decisions she has made in the past about the style of life to pursue?
  
• How can she be blameless in the matter of the drunken chauffeur when she outright refused protection from MI5?
  
• How can the Royal family both remove her title of Your Royal Highness, and send Charles to France to claim her body and then cover the coffin with the Royal Ensign?
  
• Now that the story of the driver's blood alcohol level is known, what will happen to the story about the paparazzi? Should Earl Spencer apologize for his earlier statement?
  
• Another series of investigations could focus on the huge public reaction. The masses of flowers that have been purchased; the 15 books of condolences that are now available for mourners to sign and leave messages; the demand for a longer funeral route (despite Spencer family wishes for a private funeral) so that more people can line the route; the establishment of a fund for people to contribute to her favourite charities. (How much has so far been spent on flowers?)

The responsibility of the media teacher and the media student is to probe, to challenge, not merely to accept all that is offered as news. In this case, some of the probing might set media teachers and students against the tide of popular opinion - or rather "popular sentiment".

All of the above is based on my own exposure to this story through my own, Canadian media, with occasional forays into CNN and other US sources and the odd CBC Newsworld BBC feed. After the media frenzy over Diana, the press was faced with a competing death. Imagine the editorial conferneces world wide as editor after editor asked, plaintively: "Why couldn't she have waited a couple of days longer?"

September 9, 1997

Further Reflections: The Death of Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa's picture was indeed on page one the morning following her death, but in my paper it was a picture of her with Diana. Her story was on inside pages. Will we get a memorial edition for Mother Teresa? Will the world cup of soccer postpone its games for her funeral? Will millions flock to shrines of aristocratic residence to deposit acres of greenhouse flowers on the ground? Who will sing at her funeral? Will she receive an Arthurian burial on her own island?

Please forgive my skepticism.

Media teachers can ask

• How is/was the life of Mother Teresa (un)like that of Diana? How do we know?
  
• How was her death different? How do we know?
  
• What problems were caused for the press by the death of Mother Teresa so close to the time of Diana's own death?
  
• How have the press responded to this difficulty?
  
• Count the column-inches/radio-TV minutes devoted to each story day by day, comparing day one after the death of Diana with day one after the death of Mother Teresa etc. Use the data as a source to pose questions, make observations, write op-ed pieces and letters to editors at newspapers, radio and TV stations.
  
• If you were asked to assess which death causes the greater loss, how would you assess each life?
  
• What happened to the tabloid press' new-found respectability and respect for Diana in the months following her death?