From my link above, about Diana's death .. TIME Magazine
Our views, from another country.
The unspoken villain in his eulogy was the paparazzi and their sponsors on Fleet Street — the notoriously hard-nosed, intrusive tabloid newspapers that remain a staple of British life. From the Murdoch-owned Sun and its competitors the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star to their middle-market cousins the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, these newspapers offer readers a daily helping of news and sport steeped in moralism and prurience, reflecting the obsessions of a broad stripe of the country’s middle class. Celebrity news remains the stock in trade, and twenty years after her death Diana’s “beloved boys” remain rich targets. Yet the manner in which Diana met her end did change the way the media approached the royals, and vice versa. This is the story of how it happened.
“Editors couldn’t get enough of her”
In 1961, TIME explained the relatively new term “paparazzi” to its readers, comparing them to streetwalkers because “they cling to their place in society.” The article helped popularize the word synonymous today with the invasive photographers who pursue their celebrity quarries by any means necessary. “No one is safe [from them], not even royalty,” the 1961 article explained.
In the late 1960s, media mogul Rupert Murdoch entered the British newspaper industry and bought failing broadsheet the Sun. Knowing that the poorly-resourced paper would not beat its competitors on news, it turned its focus to features and, as people were watching television in ever-increasing numbers, centred its attention on the lives of actors both on and off-screen. “The content of his papers shifted towards a fascination with the sex and love lives of the famous,” wrote Kim McNamara in Paparazzi: Media Practices and Celebrity Culture. Other papers followed the Sun’s lead, including the News of the World – shut down in 2011 in the aftermath of Britain’s phone hacking scandal – which transformed from a broadsheet into a tabloid in 1984.
Tabloid newspapers, known as ‘red tops,’ developed into a staple in British society, with a unique reputation of being both rude and funny. “From the 18th century onwards, Britain has had this real disrespect for authority in print,” James Rodgers, Head of International Journalism Studies at City, University of London, told TIME. Over the past half-century or so, tabloids have been credited with holding a great deal of influence over the British public. As well as there being a long tradition of Murdoch’s papers backing the winning side in general elections, tabloids were credited with creating the public mood that led the U.K. to leave the European Union in the Brexit vote last year. However, the influence of tabloids was called into question following the U.K.’s snap election on June 8, when Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May – backed by all but one major tabloid – failed to secure an increased majority. “I think there are questions over the influence the popular newspapers have now and will continue to have in the future,” said Rodgers.
