Has the press treated Kate Middleton differently from Lady Diana Spencer?
You bet. For reasons that have never been entirely clear, Prince Charles’s various relationships with women received inordinate press attention throughout his 20s and into his 30s. When it became clear in 1980 that Diana was “the one”, the popular newspapers went into overdrive. A so-called rat-pack of staff reporters and photographers emerged, augmented by a host of freelance hangers-on. They harried and harassed Diana on a daily basis for months. Barely a day passed without a picture of her being published alongside speculative stories, often based on quotes from anonymous “friends”. By contrast, Kate Middleton has received much less coverage and been subjected to very little harassment.
Why should Kate have had such an easy ride?
In the wake of Diana’s death, itself attributed in part to the pressure of press interest, both the press and the Palace took stock. National newspaper editors amended their code of practice in order to prohibit undue harassment, and the machinery of self-regulation, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), opened up a dialogue with the Palace. An unwritten concordat enabled Charles and Diana’s sons, William and Harry, to enjoy their schooldays in relative peace. In William’s case, that “deal” also protected him from press scrutiny during his time at university, when he met Kate. So she also benefited from the papers’ enforced reticence.
So what happened to the rat-pack?
After Diana’s death in 1997, the papers were consumed with interest in the relationship between Charles and the woman he admitted had long been his mistress, Camilla Parker-Bowles. Would they marry or not? The squad of royal reporters therefore remained in place to follow that story. But Camilla was neither as glamorous as Diana, nor was she a fashion icon, so the photographic pursuit died down. As the years passed, with Charles’s aides carefully re-building his reputation in order to allow him to marry without undue controversy, and Camilla offering no hostages to fortune, newspaper interest dwindled. By 2005, when they married, the rat-pack had already disintegrated.
Surely there were, and are, eager paparazzi around to obtain candid pictures of Kate?
The hordes of freelance photographers who followed Diana around in the 1990s, and lived off the handsome proceeds, have largely disappeared. There is no market in British publications for their work. With one or two exceptions, editors have obeyed their own code by refusing to publish pictures obtained by harassment or due to intrusion. Editors are now expected to make themselves aware of the provenance of the pictures that arrive in their offices. On the rare occasions when they have overlooked that obligation by publishing, the Palace has contacted the PCC on Kate’s behalf and there have been swift, and usually public, apologies.
Does this mean that William and Kate will enjoy a marriage free from all press intrusion?
Yes, if they maintain the same level of distance from newspapers in future as they have done thus far. One key reason for the huge coverage of Charles and Diana’s marriage was the off-the-record briefings of journalists by their aides and friends and, in Diana’s case, directly by her. It appears very unlikely that William and Kate will fall into that trap. However, there could be a problem in an heir to the throne vanishing from newspapers because monarchy depends to an extent on visibility. Then again, will there be newspapers by the time he becomes king? Sounds like the subject for a future Cherwell Tute…
