Media Coverage
There had been curious revelations about documents and tapes kept by Paul Burrell, creating rumours that the trial was an attempt at a cover-up of some unmentionable secret.
The scandal threatened to undermine the goodwill towards the monarchy which had increased in recent years following the deaths of Diana and the Queen Mother.
In the absence of any confirmation or denial of the various stories in a court of law, progressively more scandalous allegations began circulating, including rumours of homosexual rape by a high-profile royal aide, and of a palace cover-up designed to divert attention away from a covert liaison between the aide and a member of the Royal Family.
The story remained at the centre of British press attention for a number of months after it emerged. The rumours combined the elements of monarchy, class, wealth, politics, sexual innuendo, secrecy, conspiracy and allegations of serious crimes together with issues of constitutional law in a story which held an irresistible attraction for the press, especially when combined with a tabloid circulation war which was raging at the time.
Read more about this topic: Burrell Affair
Famous quotes containing the word media:
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)