No Buyers Yet For Pictures Of Diana Trapped In Death Car

Color photographs of a trapped and mortally injured Princess Diana, clearly recognizable through the windows of the wrecked Mercedes Benz, have been offered for sale in the United States - and, presumably, around the world.

So far, no one has published them.

But their existence is fueling a bottom-up debate over journalistic ethics that began with news that Diana had died after a high-speed chase with photographers in pursuit. The news that her driver was intoxicated and driving fast hasn't cooled the controversy over the role of the press in her death.

"To my mind, there's blood on those photographs," Phil Buncon, editor in chief of the tabloid Star Magazine, said yesterday, explaining his refusal to buy the pictures.

"The person that took those photographs contributed to the accident," he said. "It was beyond the pale."

Buncon said he expects the photographs will make it into public view - if only on the Internet.

It may be only fear of public outrage that has - so far - kept the pictures of a fatally injured Princess Diana out of circulation:

Only one publication, the mass-circulation German tabloid Bild, has published any photographs of the crash scene while occupants of the car were still in the wreckage.

Bild used one photograph from the tunnel - a fairly typical highway-accident shot taken from behind the car at some distance. It shows rescue workers leaning into the Mercedes. None of the four occupants of the car can be seen clearly.

In a posting on its Internet site yesterday, Bild said the published photograph wasn't taken by any of the paparazzi who had pursued Diana.

Diana's death has provoked self-examination by members of the news media who often find themselves intruding into the lives of the famous, infamous and not-famous-at-all.

Lee Wilkins, professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, said the debate over journalistic ethics should encompass the so-called "mainstream news media." Major newspapers, news magazines and network television shows have followed tabloids down the path of voyeurism, she said.

"These are fully functioning adults. These are editors and reporters with educations and spouses and families who have succumbed to the pressures of the bottom line and other competitive pressures," Wilkins said.

The debate comes as leading journalists were about to launch an inquiry to clarify the core purposes and principles of their craft. This new group, the Committee of Concerned Journalists, calls upon its colleagues to sign a statement calling for a "period of national reflection." It is being led by Bill Kovach, director of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, and Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

"The public no longer makes that much of a distinction between so-called paparazzi and the rest of the more serious media," Rosenstiel said yesterday. "There is a distinction between the network news and the European paparazzi, but the network news probably has more in common with the paparazzi than it did 15 years ago," Rosenstiel said.