Month: August 2015

How Princess Diana’s death shook the media landscape

Monday marks the 18th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, who was killed at age 37 in a Paris tunnel along with then-beau Dodi Fayed and their driver on Aug. 30, 1997.

Online news sites were still in their infancy when news of the horrific crash (and Diana’s death a few hours later) broke on America’s East Coast around 10 p.m. on a Saturday evening, making the incident one of the first big news stories to break on the Web. (Twitter, the source of many of today’s breaking stories, wouldn’t be around for another nine years.)

Ultimately, an 18-month-long French inquiry ruled that Henri Paul, the security chief at the couple’s hotel, was drunk when he lost control of their Mercedes at high speed in the Pont D’Alma tunnel and slammed into a pylon while trying to outrun paparazzi. Investigators also discovered that Diana and Fayed were not wearing their seatbelts.

But in the days and weeks after the crash, the public and celebrities placed the blame squarely on photographers and the media outlets who buy their work.

French prosecutors pursued charges against the photographers who stood at the scene and continued shooting rather than help the injured. Paul and Fayed were pronounced dead at the scene; Diana would die of major pulmonary injuries a few hours later at a nearby hospital. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived.

Days after Diana’s burial, George Clooney held a news conference in which he lambasted the mainstream media, telling them: “You’ve deflected responsibility. Yet I wonder how you sleep at night. You should be ashamed! I watch as you scramble for high ground, take your position on CNN saying there is a market for this and you are just supplying the goods.” He begged those present, “Do not purchase your news. Do not use tabloids as a source. You define the difference between tabloid and legitimate news.“

What, if anything, has changed in the nearly two decades since Diana died? It certainly informed the way Buckingham Palace handled press demand for her sons afterward, especially for William’s own growing family in recent years. But the tabloid business has continued with little in the way of effective legal restrictions. California passed the nation’s first anti-paparazzi law in 1998, but it applied only to photographers trespassing on private property and did little to protect celebrities out in public. Sites such as TMZ still break stories and are used as sources by mainstream outlets. Zoom lenses got only more powerful, allowing photo agencies to sell better shots. Celebrities learned that their most effective weapon was the pre-emptive photo release or a boycott of news outlets who buy paparazzi photos.

But one look at your supermarket checkout aisle provides the real score.

Wes Craven, ‘Scream’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ Director, Dies at 76

Legendary horror director Wes Craven, known for the “Scream” films and the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series, died Sunday in his Los Angeles home of brain cancer. He was 76.

Known for creating the iconic Freddy Krueger character from “Nightmare on Elm Street” and Ghostface in “Scream,” the versatile filmmaker also wrote and produced features, directed for television and wrote novels.

Craven’s first feature was the controversial shocker “The Last House on the Left,” which he wrote, directed and edited in 1972. He followed with the blackly comic “The Hills Have Eyes” and “Swamp Thing,” an early entry in the comic book genre.

He wrote and directed “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” with Robert Englund as Krueger and Johnny Depp, in 1984. The surreal slasher pic is credited with having started the “rubber reality” style of 1980s horror filmmakers and helped launch independent film studio New Line Cinema, which is sometimes referred to as “the house that Freddy built.”

“Serpent and the Rainbow,” in 1988, was based on a non-fiction book about voodoo. Craven tried his hand at non-horror fare between “Scream 2” and “Scream 3” with “Music of the Heart” in 1999, for which Meryl Streep was Oscar-nommed for best actress. He also wrote a novel, “The Fountain Society,” that year.

In the 1990s he pioneered the meta horror movie with film-within-a-film “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare,” then followed with “Scream” in 1996. The film sparked three more installments and grossed more than $100 million domestically. Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, it became a cultural phenomenon and inspired the “Scary Movie” spoof series.

He mixed it up again with 2005 psychological thriller “Red Eye” and with a romantic comedy segment in “Paris Je t’aime,” then produced remakes of his earlier films “The Hills Have Eyes” and “The Last House on the Left.”

Craven was still actively developing projects, having recently signed an overall television deal with Universal Cable Productions. He had television projects in development including “The People Under the Stairs” with Syfy Networks, “Disciples” with UCP, “We Are All Completely Fine” with Syfy/UCP, and “Sleepers” with Federation Entertainment. He was also executive producing the new “Scream” series for MTV. His most recent films were 2010’s “My Soul to Take” and “Scream 4” in 2011.

Craven had recently written and was to direct the “Thou Shalt Not Kill” segment for the Weinstein Company/WGN’s “Ten Commandments” television miniseries. He had also been working on a graphic novel series based on his original idea “Coming of Rage” for Liquid Comics, in collaboration with Steve Niles. He was exec producer of “The Girl in the Photographs” which will premiere in Toronto.

Born August 2, 1939, in Cleveland, Ohio, the longtime bird lover served as a longtime member of the Audubon California Board of Directors.

“I am heartbroken at the news of Wes Craven’s passing,” Bob Weinstein, co-chairman of the Weinstein Company and Dimension Films, said in a statement. “We enjoyed a 20 year professional relationship and more importantly a warm and close friendship. He was a consummate filmmaker and his body of work will live on forever. My brother and I are eternally grateful for all his collaborations with us.”

Craven is survived by his wife, producer and former Disney Studios VP Iya Labunka; sister Carol Buhrow; son Jonathan Craven; daughter Jessica Craven; stepdaughter Nina Tarnawksy and three grandchildren.

Chris Hyndman death prompts end to Steven and Chris show

Steven Sabados says “it’s impossible for me to even imagine” continuing the CBC-TV lifestyles show Steven and Chris without Chris Hyndman, his co-host and real-life partner who died suddenly earlier this month.

Ottawa-born, Newfoundland-raised Hyndman was found without vital signs in a laneway near the home he shared with partner Sabados on Aug. 3. Hyndman was 49 years old.

Sabados confirmed he would not continue with the popular program, marking its end, when he wrote a Facebook post Friday.

“Some of the best times in my life have been at the CBC — creating an incredible show with Christopher by my side and a fantastic team behind the scenes. That being said, it’s impossible for me to even imagine continuing the show without him. The CBC understands and supports my decision 100 per cent and I hope you can as well.”

Sabados and Hyndman met in 1988 in Toronto. The longtime couple’s personal relationship provided a magical mix of humour and banter that endeared audiences around the world to their onscreen collaborations, including HGTV shows Chic with Steven and Chris, Design Rivals and Designer Guys as well as Steven and Chris, which launched on CBC-TV in 2008.

CBC had temporarily pulled Steven and Chris, which was running in repeats for the summer, from the schedule after Hyndman’s death.

The public broadcaster will air episodes of Murdoch Mysteries in the Steven and Chris afternoon slot “while we explore new options for our daytime schedule,” CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson said Friday.

Hyndman is survived by Sabados, his mother Glenda Hyndman, his father Ted Purnell and a large extended family of relatives and friends.

Following Hyndman’s death, the family requested people make donations to two charities offering emergency shelter: The Red Door and The Tommy Sexton Shelter.

Fans and colleagues descended on the CBC headquarters in Toronto to leave messages, mementoes and flowers at a memorial set up in the building’s atrium earlier this month.