Review: The Princess and the Press
by Maiya Clark
Princess Diana was arguably the most popular public figure in modern times. She was a celebrity and media darling as well as a member of the British royal family. The PBS Frontline documentary The Princess and the Press chronicles Diana’s relationship with the media and explores the implications of making royalty, celebrity.
The film begins by describing media coverage of the royal family starting at the end of World War II, a period when the aristocracy wanted to seem more relatable and therefore welcomed the press. The movie then documents the history of the royalty-media relationship up until Diana’s death in 1997, a tragedy that many blamed on ruthless tabloid reporters.
But how did the relationship between the media and the aristocracy go from one of cooperation to one of animosity and violence? The film lays the groundwork for an answer to that question: it uses the story of Diana to demonstrate that the public’s desire for sensational news has superseded the news’ traditional deference for royalty and the government.
Since its beginnings, the news has fed people’s desire for tragedy and gossip. Sensational stories were widely reported because they sold the most broadsides, newspapers, and magazines. But at the same time, news about royalty and the government was reported with extreme care and self-imposed censorship. Specifically during and immediately following World War II, the media felt responsible for maintaining public morale and therefore presented the government and royal family in the most positive light.
This cooperative, deferential attitude set the stage for Royal Family, a BBC documentary that intimately portrayed the royals’ home life. The Princess and the Press presents this film as a key turning point in the aristocracy’s relationship with the media. Before, the royalty was seen as godlike and aloof from the rest of society, and the press’s deference only added to this aura. The making of Royal Family was the first time the royalty had invited the press to portray their home life. One commentator in The Princess and the Press points out that while this film may have humanized the royal family, it also set a precedent for media access to their lives that the royals would regret.
The film demonstrates that in the case of Diana, the royal family was right to regret this media access. The press’s new access to the royals happened in conjunction with a growing phenomenon of the time – criticism of the aristocracy. The documentary points to Rupert Murdoch, owner of tabloid paper The Sun, as a key player in this criticism; he demanded that reporters not treat royals as gods, and racy stories about the royals in The Sun weakened the aristocracy’s aura. These stories were a reflection of a growing critical outlook on aristocracy, but the stories themselves were only possible because of the royal family’s original cooperation with the press.
The public’s desire for sensational stories, combined with media’s new ability to fulfill that desire with stories of the royals, set the stage for Diana to become one of the most recognized figures of her time. The film demonstrates how Diana, the palace, the press, and the public all struggled to define the boundaries of what should and should not be reported. The palace, its wishes articulated by the Palace Press Officer, wanted privacy for Diana. The public wanted to see every facet of her life: where she went, what she wore, how she felt towards the other royals. The press wanted to profit by fulfilling that desire. And Diana wanted the world to understand her when the world, seeing her through the press, never could.