Right-Wing Media Watch: The Diana circus is back, and the tabloids still refuse to look in the mirror

There’s nothing as hypocritical as the tabloid press.

The Daily Mail spent the week serialising Charles Spencer’s new book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, splashing the bitter row between Diana’s brother and King Charles across its front pages.

Spencer alleges the King “gaslighted” him over a conversation following Diana’s death, while the Palace has suggested that grief can affect memory and judgement. Allies of the King, meanwhile, have accused Spencer of hypocrisy for profiting from the very privacy he once claimed to defend.

While the content of the book is likely to be about as dull as it comes, the sides taken by the newspapers are more interesting. The Mail firmly planted itself in ‘Camp Spencer’, splashing: “After the Palace suggests his damning memoir is ‘clouded by grief’, furious Earl Spencer tells MoS… IT’S NOT EVERY DAY YOU GET GASLIT BY THE KING.”

The Murdoch-owned Sun, meanwhile, seems to have chosen ‘Camp King’, declaring: “As Earl SAVAGES King… Hypocrite Spencer rakes in fortune from Diana death.”

And the Times joined in, reporting claims from the King’s allies that the “hypocrite Spencer” is peddling Diana’s privacy, while reminding readers that he once condemned the media for hounding his sister.

There is, indeed, plenty of hypocrisy in this sorry saga.

But perhaps the biggest omission is the one the newspapers themselves would rather not discuss: their own role in turning Diana into a relentlessly pursued commodity.

Indeed, Spencer famously attacked the press at Diana’s funeral, saying she had talked endlessly about escaping England because of the treatment she received from newspapers. He condemned the media’s “permanent quest” to bring her down.

Yet here we are, almost three decades later, with newspapers once again turning Diana’s private life, death and family relationships into a hugely profitable serialised spectacle.

The Daily Mail is making money from Spencer’s explosive new memoir by serialising extracts. The Sun is attacking Spencer for allegedly profiting from Diana while simultaneously profiting from another round of Diana-related headlines. And the Times is reporting the family feud while its own coverage helps keep the Diana industry alive.

And the press’s responsibility is not some convenient retrospective accusation.

In 2007, Phil Hall, editor of the News of the World when Diana died, said he felt a “huge responsibility” for what happened. He argued that if paparazzi photographers had not been following Diana, the car might not have been speeding, and the accident might never have happened.

Stuart Higgins, then editor of the Sun, said he had repeatedly questioned his own role, the paper’s role and the media’s role in Diana’s death and the events leading up to it.

And Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror, acknowledged that the paparazzi had become “ridiculously over the top” and conceded that “we in the media were culpable” in allowing it to happen.

None of those admissions amounted to accepting direct responsibility for the crash. But they did acknowledge that the press had helped create a culture in which pursuing Diana was enormously lucrative, intrusive photographs were in constant demand, and her private life had become front-page currency. As Hall later put it, the choice facing editors was effectively between conscience and profitability.

That history does not mean Spencer’s claims should go unquestioned. His recollections can be scrutinised, the Palace’s response examined, and there is a legitimate question over whether someone who once condemned the exploitation of Diana’s privacy is now profiting from it.

But it is difficult to ignore the irony of newspapers condemning Spencer for exploiting Diana’s memory while once again turning that memory into a profitable media spectacle themselves. Almost three decades after her death, the Diana circus is back, and the tabloids still seem remarkably reluctant to look in the mirror.