C4 to Screen Image of Dying Diana

Channel 4 defends Diana crash photos

Staff and agencies
Monday May 28, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Channel 4 today insisted it will broadcast as planned a programme
about the death of Princess Diana including graphic images of the car crash that
killed her, despite calls for it to be cancelled.

The programme, The Witnesses in the Tunnel, to be shown on June
6, includes a series of pictures of the immediate aftermath of the crash in a
Paris underpass on 31 August 1997, The Observer reported yesterday.

One photograph shows Diana receiving oxygen from a French doctor,
Frederic Mailliez, who had been travelling in the other direction and who had
not yet realised the identity of his patient. It shows that the princess was
thrown forward into the footwell behind the driver's seat. At the front of the
car a passing student is shown trying to help Trevor Rees-Jones, Diana's
bodyguard.

There are other graphic images of the inside of the car, although the face
of the dying Diana is blanked out.

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,,2089780,00.html)

This is absolutely disgusting. I can't believe, ten years after her death, TV programs are still being made about this woman, column inches in newspapers devoted to her and valuable blogspace being filled up with inane ramblings about her.

This is a list of things that are more important than Dianna, 10 years after her death. Please note it is not exhaustive, it is just the first few things off the top of my head.

1. Climate change
2. Poverty
3. Disease
4. War
5. Crime
6. Religious fundamentalism
7. Corruption
8. Ignorance
9. Deforestation & species extinction
10. The 'chavification' of the culture.

Point is, ten years ago, before Dianna was killed in a car crash, no, not assasinated by MI5, MI6, Mossad or Al Queada, working singly or together to prevent a Muslim ascending to the throne of Britain, when she was killed in a car crash because her driver was blind drunk and she was too thoughtless to put on her seat belt, THE LIST WOULD HAVE BEEN EXACTLY THE SAME.

The only important aspect of this story is that it shows Channel 4 is continuing to find new ways to prove no-one ever lost money under-estimating the taste of the British public. Even within my memory, there was a time when Channel 4 was good - Boys From the Black Stuff, GBH. But somehow, since the mid 90s, it seems to have re-written its mission statement, and now thinks its purpose is to make Channel 5 look good.

I mean, what are we to make of this statement (from later on in the Guardian article):

"Channel 4 today said ... Only one image shows the occupants of the car after
the crash and it has been appropriately obscured to avoid any unwarranted
intrusion into their privacy or that of their families."

WTF? How can they claim that they are avoiding "unwarranted intrusion into their privacy"? We know who the people in the crash are. So their privacy in this case is non-existant. As for 'unwarranted', can Channel 4 please explain what public good is served by this? None, so it is unwarranted.

They might argue they are following their remit to challenge and shock viewers, but, really, if they wanted to there are a million more worthy ways of doing it. If they want to show snuff, why not show some kid dying in Darfur or Eritrea, or the children's ward of an African AIDS hospice - which would be a far more appropriate tribute to dopey Dianna, wh'se sole useful to contribution to public life was to say "Err, AIDS is sad and landmines are bad." Instead, they've gone for the most predictable, easy and obvious way of generating publicity and public attention. It is mailto:F#*@!g depressing and Channel 4 should be shot for it.