Letter: Happy to draft the Royal Family's complaint

Sir: Our broadcasting media, the BBC and the independents, must be naive in the extreme to have allowed themselves to be so comprehensively manipulated by the Sun in freely publicising the alleged royal 'bugged' telephone conversation between the Prince and Princess of Wales.

A bona fide advertiser would have had to pay thousands for such coverage, yet the BBC and others obligingly announce, the night before publication, that the revelations were to appear in the Sun rather than merely 'a British tabloid newspaper', thereby ensuring enormously increased sales of that newspaper the following day. If this isn't advertising, what is?

This was a cynical marketing exercise by the Sun, and its success worryingly calls into question the responsibility and judgement of our broadcasting media.

Yours faithfully,

ANN WILLIAMS

London, W4

13 May