22 FEBRUARY 1952, Page 5

The daily papers are supposed to be well informed about

everything, and in the main they are, but I wonder whether even yet they fully realise the depth and extent of the anger the publication of some of the pictures of royal grief caused. The correspondence in the Manchester Guardian (even the Guardian itself was not quite impeccable in this matter) has been revealing, even though writers to that paper do not represent the mass of readers of the polar Press. Intrusion by reporters into private grief has very considerably diminished since the protests that were made about it a few years ago.' The action of the papers in changing their ways here should be recognised, but for some obscure reason quite different stan- dards seem to be applied to photographs. Nothing is sacred to the intrusive camera. It is hardly too much to say that in most newspaper offices when a photograph comes in at the door taste-flies out of the window. But here, too, it seems reasonable to hope for some improvement after the experiences and the protestsof the last ten days.