While Sarah Ferguson grossly overstepped the line, can you imagine what it would be like to have everyone taking pot shots at you, trying to trip you up and create more headlines?
The media, especially dodgy tabloids, will need more scintillating headlines tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and the day after that. Some will wait and be opportunistic as planes crash and children go missing. Others, like dodgy Mazher Mahmood, will create "news" by setting up high profile people, playing on their desperation.
Question: Would it have been as big a headline if it was an unknown woman?
Yes, those at such a high profile as royalty are sometimes set up as symbols of the social order.
But there are layers of issues in this story, layers of pride, antagonism and hidden, or not so hidden, agendas.
The story:
"The duchess of York was said to be "devastated" and "deeply regretted causing any embarrassment" yesterday after being caught on film accepting a $40,000 payment as part of an apparent cash-for-access deal to her former husband, the British trade envoy, Prince Andrew.
It is the biggest royal scalp to be taken by the News of the World's veteran investigations editor Mazher Mahmood.
Throughout the film of the conversations with Mahmood, in an exclusive hotel in New York, a Belgravia restaurant and a nearby London flat, Sarah Ferguson stresses that her former husband is "whiter than white". There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on behalf of the Duke of York or that he knew of her activities."
The media, especially dodgy tabloids, will need more scintillating headlines tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and the day after that. Some will wait and be opportunistic as planes crash and children go missing. Others, like dodgy Mazher Mahmood, will create "news" by setting up high profile people, playing on their desperation.
Question: Would it have been as big a headline if it was an unknown woman?
Yes, those at such a high profile as royalty are sometimes set up as symbols of the social order.
But there are layers of issues in this story, layers of pride, antagonism and hidden, or not so hidden, agendas.
The story:
"The duchess of York was said to be "devastated" and "deeply regretted causing any embarrassment" yesterday after being caught on film accepting a $40,000 payment as part of an apparent cash-for-access deal to her former husband, the British trade envoy, Prince Andrew.
It is the biggest royal scalp to be taken by the News of the World's veteran investigations editor Mazher Mahmood.
Throughout the film of the conversations with Mahmood, in an exclusive hotel in New York, a Belgravia restaurant and a nearby London flat, Sarah Ferguson stresses that her former husband is "whiter than white". There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on behalf of the Duke of York or that he knew of her activities."
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