Clik here to view.
A royal pundit vacuum in the US means I'm a go-to expert in a country gorging itself on Kate 'n' Wills trivia
'Are y'all ready for the wedding?" Whenever I speak in Philadelphia, where I have been living for the last few months, they ask this same question. Apparently I have a quaint accent. And because of this quaint British accent I am obviously intimate with the royal family and their preparations for the wedding of William and Kate that is obsessing America.
I also happen to have written a book about Princess Diana, and this makes me appealing not only to the general public but the Philly media. No, not appealing; valuable – because there's a pundit vacuum here. The American media is moving out wholesale, heading for London. CNN is sending at least 125 staffers and NBC more than 500. Top anchors are going from all stations: ABC's Barbara Walters is already there. Rival companies promote their coverage by the numbers of reporters they will have in situ. Wedding coverage, which started back in January, is reaching fever pitch.
Carpet-bombing an inherently thin subject inevitably means details are arcane. Even so, I've been surprised at just how trivial are the pursuits. I've been asked about the cake (fruit cake, with icing, I hazarded); how American celebs should speak to the queen (I'm sure they'll be briefed); and, of course, who is designing the dress. Perhaps this is all harmless fun, an aberration in a nation that otherwise genuflects to the notion of "patriot", a term in the US that originated in the rejection of the Brits.
There's certainly fun to be had with it, and no one has noticed yet that I don't actually know how the cutlery will be arranged on the day. I have tried to inject analysis about whether the royal family is modernising, or if Kate will be subject to the same ruthless press scrutiny as Diana. I've speculated on whether this genuine outsider is less of a psychological outsider than Diana, and if the Middletons will be the focus of the next big issue for the royals: how those on the margins make their money without exploiting their connection.
Applying the procedure in reverse, I can speculate on America's obsession: is this a nostalgia for aristocratic life indulged, guilt-free, through somebody else's aristocrats; or is it because the "real-life fairytale" has genuine traction in the land of beauty pageants and proms? But while smuggling in the odd idea is consoling, it is impossible not to be appalled by the sheer scale of attention devoted to something of such little significance, especially given the wider context of news coverage in America.
Television news verges on the unwatchable. It suffers from commercial interruptions, shallowness, repetition and, as with the royal wedding, a herd mentality in its choice of stories. There's no regular mid-evening bulletin, and when something big happens the coverage is hyped up, often focused on how it affects the US. When the Japanese tsumani occurred it was genuinely difficult to find thorough and informative reports, beyond the semi-hysteria about radiation reaching America's shores.
The coverage of royal wedding has suddenly brought to life what the cliche "media feeding frenzy" really means: a horde feeding on one very small item, with none of the independence of agenda-setting that the British have have had, at least until the BSkyB threat, from a diverse national press in competition with a non-commercial BBC. If people succeed in dismantling our public service broadcasting and exposing it to the pressures of commercialism, look at America's news and weep.
On the bright side, however, without a newsperson in town, this surely represents a chance for Barack Obama to slip through unpopular legislation. As for myself, I shall continue to offer my views on the royal guests' millinery. Who knows, maybe a new career beckons.