Letter: The diseased culture that killed Diana

Sir: It is quite wrong to blame public demand for the press's pursuit and destruction of Diana, Princess of Wales. "The public" is a mass of consumers easily manipulated in their need for goods of virtually no value - such as the tabloid press. They bought Di because the press sold - marketed - her. Marketing is an art which does not wait on demand: it creates it.

To sell to a mass market, the tabloid press needs to appeal to the most universal of emotions in ways which are stereotyped and predictable, but which have to appear new every day.

Princess Diana was the best thing they have ever had. The tabloids made her into a commodity of enormous value: an icon to love, lust, beauty, success, hope, who was also weak and vulnerable.

They created the demand for "their" Diana and exploited it ruthlessly. They called the paparazzi into being: and they killed her.

Don't blame the public; they were manipulated as much as she, and to the same commercial end.

DICK FROST

Orton, Cumbria