T A B L E__T A L K How much do corporations chill news coverage? Join the discussion in Social Issues - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Cult of personality, without the personality By Tom McNichol Follow the Maximum Leader! N. Korea's new spin doctors off to shaky start (01/14/97) The People are always wrong By David Futrelle Ed Koch jazzes up and dumbs down democracy on the new, improved "People's Court" (01/13/97) How I learned to stop worrying and love Gloria Allred By Frank Sanello She may be the Queen of Overexposure, but hard-charging feminist attorney Gloria Allred is on the side of the (loudmouthed) angels (01/12/97) Uncle Sam to Unabomber By Bruce Shapiro Crazy or not, we're coming to kill you (01/09/97) Sleaze, smears and spleen: A Novak way of knowing By Eric Alterman Robert Novak has exhumed a slanderous lie that I.F. Stone was a Communist spy (01/08/97) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE MEDIA CIRCUS ARCHIVES

>> magazine won't let princess Rest in peace_________ DID ELLE PUBLISH A FAKE CONVERSATION WITH DI AND DODI? BY DEBORAH MITCHELL "I just want the media to shut up!" So said Diana, Princess of Wales' mother, Frances Shand-Kydd, in response to questions about an "exclusive final interview" with Di and Dodi. Fat chance, Mrs. Shand-Kydd. The "final interview," portions of which were published with no byline in Paris-Match last month, now resurfaces more than three months after Di's death in the February Elle, smelling every bit as fishy as it did when it first appeared in France. The absence of a byline on the interview raises questions. Why exactly would the reporter who scored a final interview with the world's most marketable celebrity wish to remain anonymous? "He's a non-tabloid, non-this-kind-of-journalism journalist," explains Elle editor Elaina Richardson. Really. Then why was he asking Dodi and Di about "youth, fortune, love and the future"? Richardson explains that the "non-this-kind-of-journalism journalist" might have shielded his identity because "he didn't want suddenly to be embroiled and be the point person on every question on Diana for the rest of his life." Those who knew Diana doubt the interview actually took place. Diana's former private secretary, Michael Gibbins, for example, pronounced himself "skeptical" and speculated that perhaps the interview is a patchwork of "snippets of private conversations over a period (of time)." Richard Kay of England's Daily Mail, who covers the royal family, said the language was "too flowery" for Diana. "Wonderful, romantic stuff, but surely a fantasy," wrote the Mirror's James Whitaker. Richardson maintains that Elle published the real thing: "The cadences sound like her and the things that she's saying in it seem to me to be exactly in line with all of her other published comments." The editor had already put the February Elle to bed when Hachette Filipachi -- the French company that owns both Paris-Match and Elle -- offered her the full text of the interview excerpted in Paris-Match. Richardson says Hachette simply offered the interview. "It was totally, 'Are you interested in buying this piece?'" Richardson insists it would have been "very simple" to say no. Instead she rejiggered the February issue, yanking a piece about New Orleans titled "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" -- somewhere, Diana looked down and smiled at that one -- to make room for the six-page interview. Now why exactly did Paris-Match -- and Elle -- wait so long to publish the exclusive Final Interview? When England's Daily Telegraph telephoned Paris-Match to find out, it was told that the magazine held on to the interview for almost four months "as a mark of respect." Beware of journalists who use politeness as an explanation for what they do and don't do. Despite her faith in the authenticity of the interview, Elle's Richardson nonetheless wrote an introduction that included a kind of warning: "Some royal watchers and a Kensington Palace spokesman have raised doubts about the authenticity of the interview (could it be related to the unflattering things Diana has to say about life in 'a cold palace?')" What Diana said exactly in the final interview was: "You definitely learn more about yourself while visiting a shantytown than while feeling futile in a cold palace." The interview divides neatly between Diana as media victim and Diana as a princess in love. In it, the People's Princess talks about overly aggressive photographers and takes a dig at Charles: "Do you really need to ask why someone prefers spending their time on humanitarian causes rather than wasting it on the lawn, watching a polo match?" "I have very deep feelings for Dodi," Diana tells her mysterious interlocutor, "and I believe in the sincerity of his feelings for me." "I have never felt this kind of harmony before," interjects Dodi. "My dream ... why not finally get married for love?" The happy family picture is complete when Diana calls Dodi's father, Mohamed, "a great uncle ... I am rediscovering a truly warm family atmosphere here, so why should I hide my happiness?" Full of florid, lovey-dovey exchanges, the final interview favors Fayed in the ongoing public relations battle between Di's admirers -- who say the princess would never marry a sleazeball playboy like Dodi -- and those in the Fayed camp, who believe the doomed lovers would have lived happily ever after had the concrete tunnel not intervened. The piece could serve an important public relations purpose should Diana's estate sue the Fayeds' Ritz Hotel, as it threatened to do just days after Di's friends denounced the Paris-Match interview. So, is the final interview authentic? Or did Hachette publish propaganda for the Fayeds? Or is Elle's exclusive simply a final effort to get a little extra ink and profit from last year's biggest story. "If it isn't legitimate," says Richardson, "it's a better parody than 'Primary Colors.'" SALON | Jan. 15, 1998 Deborah Mitchell writes the Intelligencer column for New York magazine.