slutet på sagan prinsessan dianas död i press, radio och tv

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The End of the Fairy Tale – Princess Diana´s Death in the Press,
Radio and Television
By Marina Ghersetti and Håkan Hvitfelt
On the morning of Sunday, August 31, 1997
in Paris, Diana, Princess of Wales died from
injuries sustained in an automobile accident.
The accident received enormous attention
from the world’s news media, not least the
Swedish. It was partly a question of a new
type of journalism – one that became an
illustrative example of how events judged to
have great news value are handled today. By
studying the media coverage of Princess
Diana’s death, we can likely identify patterns
for how other events – also far-reaching in
character – are covered. Since the Princess’s
accident, several disparate events have been
given a great deal of space in the Swedish
media; for example, the 1999 conflict in Kosovo
and the 1998 fire in a Göteborg dance
hall. Despite these events’ disparate characters,
there appears to be a repeated pattern
associated with their media coverage. We
can say generally that:
• A small number of separate events and
courses of events are given increasing
amounts of space in relation to other contemporary
events. Other more important –
and in some sense more relevant – events
risk total exclusion from news reports.
• The growing dominance of TV and the
increasing awareness of pictures in the
press direct the media’s attention towards
events and circumstances for which there
is good access to news-related pictures.
• Demands for knowledgeable and reliable
sources are low, due to (among other things)
162
the pursuit of dramatic information, media
requirements for quickly filling a great
deal of space, and the increasing
working pace in the newsrooms.
• Lack of factual information is compensated
for with speculations. On the whole, at
least as concerns events with great news
value, we see increasing amounts of fiction-like
features in media reports.
• “Ordinary” people’s reactions are given
considerable attention in reports. This is
often a question of a journalistic technique
intended to mediate drama and strong
feelings as opposed to the facts.
• The individual journalist’s own voice is
evident. We hear it, for example, in speculations
and commentary, as well as in the
choice of angles and interviewees and of
which parts of the interviews will be mediated.
The phenomenon of journalist as
source is becoming increasingly common.
• Among the various media, uniformity of
coverage of the same event is apparent.
This is partly a consequence of their pursuit
of the best news-related pictures (in combination
with a decreased number of national
and international news-services), and
partly due to a competition situation whereby
very few news desks dare to deviate.
The media coverage of Princess Diana’s death,
however, also included other interesting elements.
Following is a summary of reporting
in the most prominent Swedish media
as well as comments on this reporting.
Marina Ghersetti, researcher and teacher at the Department of Journalism and Masscommunication
at Göteborg University.
Håkan Hvitfelt, professor at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication at
Stockholm University.