April 29, 2011, Westminster Abbey – Oh, What A Royal Media Circus For The Next Five Months And Beyond

Philip Stone November 25, 2010 Follow on Twitter

Can you imagine the flurry to book hotel rooms and suites; trying to make appointments at the top hair and beauty parlors in London for those not travelling with their own hair and makeup artistes, will there be enough limos available -- no, we’re not talking about the guests for William and Catherine’s royal wedding April 29 at Westminster Abbey, but rather the hoards of international star journalists who will be in London for the great day. The great media frenzy is off and running.

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They may be British monarchy, but it seems, as usual, that the North American media has already gone gaga over Kate (she prefers Catherine) and Wills. So with some pride British television kept showing on its continuous news coverage of the happy engagement announcement  how, with trumpets blaring,  ABC’s Good Morning America started that fateful November 16 day with the joyous announcement that Kate and William were formally engaged. And by evening it had only gotten worse -- yes, there was NBC’s Brian Williams on America’s top rated evening newscast gushing to the nation the top headline of the day – the royal engagement. Really, that was the most important event of the day affecting Americans?  Is it true that Britain’s royalty are America’s royalty, too?

Now that the happy day has been announced, April 29, 2011, London will be the star anchor capital of the world if the 1981 marriage of William’s mother, Diana, to Prince Charles is anything to go by.   Anybody who is anybody in the media celebrity world just has to be there.

The global media gushing is well underway. In Canada, for instance, Macleans pitched its royal engagement commemorative issue -- a “special 132-page perfect-bound edition explores the romance that has captivated the world.” According to Macleans the engagement has “captivated Canadians like few events do. It’s a romantic, good-news story, though not without the tragic undertones of Diana’s fraught marriage and her untimely death under the glare of insatiable media attention.” Well, that just about sums it all up, although the Canadians can be forgiven, after all they are still part of the Commonwealth.

Take pity on those British magazines that for so long have trumpeted a Catherine and William engagement, only to be caught with their new issues just out on the day the announcement hits. So there was Hello! Magazine, for instance with its November 22 magazine on the newsstand headlining “William and Kate, The latest on a possible engagement before Christmas” when everyone knew the announcement had already been made. The only consolation would be that it least had a picture of the two on the cover – but then it seems most weeks it has had a picture of the two on the cover.

What Hello! and the British media in general have been praying for is another icon to replace Diana. It’s hard to believe she has been dead 13 years. Even these days personality magazines and the tabloids find reasons to occasionally put her on the cover or front page for flimsy reasons – August magazines often run remembrance articles -- knowing full well her pictures still sell.

The British public still has not forgotten Diana, no matter how much some members of the Royal Household may wish that after 13 years she would be a non-entity. William has gone out of his way to bring her back to mind by giving Catherine his mother’s engagement ring – that ring picture made front pages around the world – and saying it was his way of involving his mother in his engagement could not have been more sentimental and he got great press over that!  And who will forget the young William and Harry at Diana’s funeral in Westminster Abbey – the very same place where William will now be wed. With his marrying a “commoner”, it all makes for a media fairy tale.

Prince William remembers very well how his mother died in that Paris underpass tunnel August 31, 1997 – her Mercedes car was being chased by paparazzi  and there are nasty stories about how after the crash the photographers were more interested in taking pictures than getting help. So, he is particularly protective to Catherine and apparently as part of asking her father permission to marry her he reiterated that he will always protect her.

©graphicnews.com

When she was a mere private person in the early days of her William relationship the paparazzi treated her as fair game and made her life a living hell, as they had done with Diana. But the Royal Household has learned from the Diana times. Kate was not eligible for government security so Prince Charles stepped in to pay for her protection. And  the Royal Household told the Press Complaints Commission that it would not tolerate her invasion of privacy and wouldn’t think twice about suing, and that message got passed on to British editors.

Indeed during Diana’s time when the public came down hard on the paparazzi for making Diana’s life hell their response was basically, “Don’t blame us, blame the people who buy from us.” What they were saying is that if editors didn’t buy their pictures then they wouldn’t be wasting their time covering the subject at times and places where they shouldn’t. The editors never stopped buying and printing the Diana pictures, but the manner in which Diana died seems to have sobered them up for how they treated Kate.

On the whole the media, including the tabloids, have been pretty good to Kate once the privacy ground rules were set. And when the paparazzi understood British editors wouldn’t be buying invasion-of-privacy pictures, and would get sued if they did and printed them, she was able to lead a somewhat normal life. Sure, there was always coverage when she and William were together  and some of that has gotten out of hand at times including being chased by motorcycles and a car – shades of the Diana tragedy --  but Catherine has not been hounded by herself near as much as was Diana.

But now she is “public” person – formally engaged to the future heir to the British throne – she becomes fair game. On the other hand the British government now provides for her security and that will put a definite crimp in what the paparazzi will be able to get away with.

The family has hired top privacy lawyers and it is said William is just waiting for the first paparazzi incident to file both criminal and civil action to protect their privacy when they are not on “duty”.  Already this year lawyers acting for the private Kate got an out-of-court settlement of £5,000 plus legal costs for invasion of privacy – a picture agency distributed pictures of her playing tennis last Christmas on a property owned by Prince Charles. The line in the sand has been drawn!

But until April 29 the media feeding frenzy will go crazy.  For the ladies in particular it will be all about THE wedding dress of the century. Anyone who gets an exclusive on that will be laughing all the way to the bank. Copies of the engagement ring are already on sale globally.

And, of course, it’s not just traditional media anymore – there’s social media to contend with that makes everyone a global commentator. Already the Anglican Bishop of the London suburb of Willesden has fallen victim to being too free with his social media words on Twitter and Facebook. He talked about the royal couple’s “shallow celebrity status” and that got him suspended by his boss, the Bishop of London who happens to be a close friend of Prince Charles. The contrite bishop  made a groveling apology, “I accept this was a major error of judgment on my part,” but he is still on gardening leave. No doubt the message has gotten through to those who care for their jobs that it is not just friends who read social commentary.

Sure this is a happy good news story, and in today’s world we all need some cheering up, but for outside the UK and the Commonwealth are we so desperate that this is the lead item?