This ambiguous relationship with the press will haunt any simple attempt to blame the

This ambiguous relationship with the press will haunt any simple attempt to blame the media for her death.In 1993 Sir David Calcutt’s report into invasion of privacy by the press was blown apart by the revelations that large sections of the establishment were well aware that Princess Diana and Prince Charles, or their friends, were briefing their own favoured newspapers with their side of the marriage break-up.Lord MacGregor, then the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, was forced to conclude that the intrusions into “the private lives of the Prince and Princess of Wales were intrusions contrived by the Princess herself and her entourage”. He also pointed out: “The Princess had, in practice, invaded her own privacy.”This included giving authorisation to her friends to talk to Andrew Morton for his book Diana: Her Own Story in which it was revealed that she had attempted suicide and was suffering from bulimia.The young woman who once allowed a photographer to take a shot of her with the sun streaming through her skirt became photography’s consummate manipulator. Her lonely pose in front of the Taj Mahal on a trip to India in 1992 was a piece of propaganda genius. But stunts like that made the public sceptical when she announced in December 1993 that she was retiring from public life.Her relationship with the press was further complicated by the close nature of her friendship with the Daily Mail. Sir David English, editor- in-chief of the Mail, acted as an informal adviser to the Princess and she conducted a number of secret liaisons with the Mail reporter Richard Kay who became a confidant.Yet at the same time Diana could be driven to distraction by the constant watch kept on her.

In 1993 she went to court to prevent the Daily Mirror printing photographs of her exercising in her gym, and on a skiing trip in 1994 she accused press photographers of “raping her”.Last year she obtained an injunction against a freelance photographer, Martin Stenning, accusing him of harassing her. It became clear that some photographers were treating Diana as their only assignment.Ultimately it was the side of her that wanted privacy and to escape the photographer’s lens that caused her death. On another day, in another frame of mind, it could have been a very different story.Diana: death of a PR dream Media+, The Tabloid. Once French news agency reports of the Princess of Wales’s crash started to come up on its news room screens the BBC immediately implemented a pre-rehearsed plan that was intended for the corporation’s coverage of the death of the Queen Mother. To get a continuous news service up and running as soon as possible the corporation took the unprecedented step of merging its international 24- hour news service, BBC World, with the frequencies used in Britain for BBC1 and BBC2.
The decision was taken after John Birt, director-general of the BBC, Will Wyatt, chief executive of BBC Broadcast, and Tony Hall, head of BBC News, made hurried phone calls to each other in the night.

BBC2 was able to get a short news item in just before it closed down for the evening but promised viewers new reports through the night. After taking the feed from the 24-hour rolling news service that is broadcast to the rest of Europe during the night, BBC1’s schedules were cleared all day yesterday for updates and analysis.The BBC refused to speculate on how it would treat the death of any other major figure, but it is thought that even the death of a serving prime minister would not receive the same amount of coverage. One source said that the Queen Mother’s death would be covered more out of duty than because of its news value. The Princess’s death combines the BBC’s need as the national broadcaster to do its duty to the Royal Family with being the biggest news story of the decade.The BBC has been rehearsing for some years its planned coverage of the Queen Mother’s death and reporters, newsreaders and even weathermen yesterday appeared on screen wearing black ties. Only John Sissons, the BBC’s main anchor during the day, went without one.As part of the plans it had been agreed that the national anthem should feature in all of the coverage: “We are the nation’s broadcaster and it was fitting that the anthem be played as a matter of respect,” a corporation spokesman said.On commercial television, ITN broadcast a special bulletin in the middle of the night on ITV then closed down until GMTV went on air at 6am. It took the financially difficult decision to drop advertising from its continuous news broadcasts yesterday until 6.30pm.

Channel 4 played a taped tribute in between news broadcasts from ITN until 10.30am while Channel 5 stayed with its children’s broadcasts but with extended news bulletins.All of the BBC’s local radio stations merged at 5am yesterday with Radios 2, 3, 4 and 5 Live. A special broadcast was presented jointly by Radio 4’s Today presenter James Naughtie and Radio 5 Live’s breakfast show presenter Peter Allen until 9.30am. Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live continued their joint broadcast throughout the day while Radio 1 switched to slow pop songs and Radio 3 to slow movements from popular classics.. It was a relationship that lasted only a few short weeks but it gave Diana, Princess of Wales, some of the happiest moments of her life Yet it also terrified sections of the British establishment. Dodi Fayed lived like a prince, owning a string mansions in Beverley Hills and moving effortlessly in the circles of the international jet set.
But he was also the son of Mohamed Al Fayed, the billionaire owner of Harrods and the bete noire of the British ruling classes.Twice spurned in his quest for British citizenship, Mr Al Fayed had apparently exacted his revenge by destroying the Conservative government through his revelations in the “cash-for-questions” affair.Having already controversially gained ownership of “the top people’s store” he could now imagine himself in attendance at the next coronation as the step-grandfather of the new king.The public only became aware of Diana’s links with the Fayeds in July, when the Princess was pictured in a swimsuit on board the Harrods owner’s yacht in the French riviera.It later emerged that the 64-year-old proprietor had long thought that Diana and his son were well-matched and had invited the Princess to join his family, including Dodi, 41, on holiday in St Tropez.