HISTORY's Moment in Media: The Tragic Death of Princess Diana

It was 3 am in London 10 pm in New York 7 pm in Los Angeles and the worldwide media longamp160obsessed with her went into overdriveIn London where the BBC didn39t yet have a roundtheclock news channel an overnight reporter named Maxine Mawhinney anchored coverage until the more prominent presenter Nik Gowing was awakened just after 1 am and called into the studio In New York where the agendasetting newsweeklies were shipped to the printer on Saturdays entire issues were torn up and rewritten overnight The big American networks scrambled to find live coverage late on Friday night and their marquee anchors promptly flew off to LondonDiana wasn39t the first princess to be a modern media sensation Grace Kelly after all was already a celebrated movie star when she married Prince Rainier of Monaco and became Princess Grace in 1956 at the dawn of the TV era Queen Elizabeth39s sister Princess Margaret a celebrated chainsmoking fixture of the jet set drew global attention for her glamour her travels her romances and her divorceBut it was Diana who entered the public eye just as international television broadcasts became standard her 1981 wedding to Prince Charles was broadcast to 74 countries and watched by an estimated 750 million people More than 17 million Americans woke up early to watch it live She then matured as a public figure alongside the growth of the celebrityindustrial complex People magazine was founded in 1974 just three years before Charles and Diana39s fateful first meeting and since then she has appeared on its cover 58 times more than any other person in the worldShe was famously tormented by her media pursuers quotWhen I think about my mom the first thing that comes to mind is always the same one over and over againquot Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey during their high profile interview quotStrapped in the car seatbelt across with my brother in the car as well and my mother driving being chased by three four five mopeds with paparazzi on and then she was always unable to drive because of the tears quotBut she also knew how to use the media to her benefit perhaps unlike anyone else in the Windsor family You don39t set the record for most People covers without knowing how the game is played quotUnlike the rest of the British royals she innately understood the power of the media and she used it to become a superstar and later to wage war with the palacequot the Washington Post reporter Roxanne Roberts who helped cover her funeral once wrote quotShe believed she could summon the cameras when she wanted flattering stories and send them away when she39d had enoughquotThat antagonistic symbiosis came to its fateful seemingly inevitable conclusion in that Paris tunnel Diana and Dodi had spent much of their Paris stay trying to evade paparazzi and the Mercedes was chased through the tunnel by several photographers on mopeds But also its driver Henri Paul was later found to have a blood alcohol level three times the French legal limit The lone person to survive the crash bodyguard Trevor ReesJones was the only one in the car wearing a seatbeltDays later on September 6 an estimated 25 billion people worldwide watched Diana39s funeral which included her close friend Elton John performing a reworked version of his quotCandle in the Windquot originally written about another tragic media fixture Marilyn Monroe When People magazine published a Diana tribute for its September 15 issue which came out on September 7 the cover featured a simple blackandwhite photo It was the first and only time the magazine ran no cover lineDiana remained a media fixture even in death In 2011 Newsweek ran a spooky quotDiana at 50quot cover that depicted the princess digitally aged Tina Brown the celebrity editor who39d already published a bestselling Diana biography wrote the accompanying storyEven now the princess39 pull remains strong Last year the fourth season of The Crown the Netflix series chronicling Elizabeth39s long reign focused on Diana39s romance and eventualamp160disillusionment with Charles Netflix famously doesn39t release viewership data but the Diana season was according to Rotten Tomatoes the best of the series with a nearperfect score of 97Click the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: The Tragic Death of Princess Diana

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: The Tragic Death of Princess Diana

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