OVERWHELMED by the reaction to Diana's death and tarred with some of the blame - so forcibly conveyed by her brother Earl Spencer's attack on newspapers - editors of the national press today responded by pledging to spare her sons, Princes William and Harry, the media pressure she suffered.

This is a welcome departure, even if it is probably brought about as much by fear of strict new privacy laws as by any new sense of responsibility.

So we have the Sun vowing not to carry photographs which invade the privacy of William and Harry and the Independent going even further by promising it will never again use pictures of the young princes in private situations.

The Daily Mail announces that no "paparazzi" pictures are to be purchased without the knowledge and consent of its chairman while the Mirror agrees with Earl Spencer's demand that William and Harry be spared the same constant attention as their mother. Thus, provoked by the Diana tragedy, a voluntary line is drawn. It will, of course, be up to the press to adhere to this code and, in the continual battle for readers and revenue, there are sure to be times when it is put to the test.

Yet if, as the tabloid press in particular has done in the past, newspapers find the business of selling newspapers is assisted by going beyond the norms of common decency in order to feed the prurient curiosity of their readers, then, surely, the public, too, must accept some of the blame that now hangs over the contrite national press.

For if they have sold newspapers on the strength of the now-condemned paparazzi's' prying, the public has also eagerly bought them. Without that demand, there would not be single paparazzo photographer earning a living.

It is well, then, that this new code may consign them and their intrusion to the scrapheap, not just so that celebrities may have the privacy to which they are entitled , but also that common decency may become much more of a public standard, too.

The onus, of course, lies with the press to now help to forge that standard by keeping to the code.

Failure to do so will invite the dangerous alternative of severe privacy laws which, while they may spare the famous from being fodder for the public's titillation, will allow the rogues in public life to escape the expose and censure they deserve from a free press.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.