On September 20, 2026, BBC News highlighted Earl Spencer’s criticism of press scrutiny surrounding Harry and Meghan. He described the press as having a "cancerous influence" on their lives and said he saw echoes of the treatment of Princess Diana.
The particulars belong to that family and to the news organizations covering it. But the story also raises a wider question for ordinary readers: What do we ask the press to do, and what do we reward it for doing?
Celebrity reporting is often treated as a harmless diversion from consequential news. Sometimes it is. A profile, wedding, disagreement, or public appearance can provide entertainment without pretending to be a matter of state. The trouble begins when constant attention becomes its own justification. A person is covered because the person is famous, and the coverage makes the person more famous, producing still more coverage.
This cycle does not require a conspiracy. It requires an audience.
Attention is a form of payment
Most readers do not personally commission stories. Yet every click, share, subscription, television minute, and social media comment sends a signal about demand. Outrage can be especially valuable because people often circulate material they dislike. A furious response may feel like resistance while functioning as promotion.
That does not mean the public is solely responsible for intrusive or disproportionate coverage. Editors, publishers, broadcasters, platforms, photographers, and advertisers make choices of their own. Public figures also use media attention when it serves their purposes. Responsibility is distributed, but it does not disappear.
A useful distinction is the difference between public interest and public curiosity. Public interest concerns information citizens reasonably need to judge power, public spending, official conduct, or risks to the community. Public curiosity concerns what people would like to know, even when knowing it changes nothing about their civic responsibilities.
The two categories can overlap. Fame does not grant immunity from legitimate scrutiny. A celebrity who seeks public authority, raises money, promotes a commercial product, or makes factual claims may deserve careful examination. But prominence alone does not make every private conflict a public concern.
The headline should not set the moral scale
Digital publishing places unlike events beside one another. A personal dispute, an armed conflict, a public health warning, and a government decision can appear in the same feed with similar visual weight. The arrangement can flatten the reader’s sense of proportion.
Citizens can restore some of that proportion by asking three questions before engaging. Does this information affect the exercise of public power? Is there a documented claim that can be tested? Would wider circulation help anyone understand the matter, or merely intensify attention around it?
These questions do not require readers to avoid culture, entertainment, or human interest stories. A healthy news diet can include all three. The point is to recognize that not every emotionally compelling headline deserves equal time, and not every invitation to choose a side deserves acceptance.
There is also value in withholding instant judgment. Coverage of personal relationships often arrives in fragments, shaped by competing accounts and incentives. Readers rarely possess enough information to settle the underlying dispute. Certainty can therefore become a performance, one that adds heat without adding knowledge.
A small act of civic discipline
The press is essential to self-government because citizens cannot monitor institutions they cannot see. That role is strengthened when reporting is persistent, fair, and proportionate. It is weakened when attention is treated as proof of importance.
Readers cannot redesign the media economy by themselves. They can, however, practice a modest form of civic discipline. They can subscribe to reporting that explains public decisions. They can pause before sharing personal allegations. They can distinguish verified facts from interpretation. They can leave some provocations unopened.
Famous people will remain objects of fascination, and criticism of their coverage will remain part of the story. The larger lesson is less glamorous. A free press depends not only on the freedom to publish, but also on a public capable of directing its attention with judgment. What citizens choose to notice helps determine what the press chooses to pursue.