Death of Erika Ortiz, Princess Letizia's Sister: February 7, 2007 - Page 36

Duncan · #**701** 02-12-2007, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeatrixFan

I mean, what kind of a world is this where a woman who has just lost her sister has to be photographed 3,000 times?

Yes, but the royal house advisers didn't care so much over considerations like privacy or discretion when they chose to generate those images. They knew that by staging both events in a certain way and arranging the presence of hundreds of reporters the resulting images would be endlessly showed and commented on by all the media in Spain and other parts of the world. They also knew that, out of sheer compassion or other reasons, all comments would express sympathy at the least, even exaggerated admiration in most cases.

Time will tell if all this was worth it for them and their intentions.

*SofiaM* · #**702** 02-12-2007, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duncan

Yes, but the royal house advisers didn't care so much over considerations like privacy or discretion when they chose to generate those images. They knew that by staging both events in a certain way and arranging the presence of hundreds of reporters the resulting images would be endlessly showed and commented on by all the media in Spain and other parts of the world. They also knew that, out of sheer compassion or other reasons, all comments would express sympathy at the least, even exaggerated admiration in most cases.

Time will tell if all this was worth it for them and their intentions.

Do you honestly think this? I personally don't believe that Casa Real have such a tight leash over the media as people think. Also, The King and especially The Queen have more compassion than to put Erika's family, foremost her mother , through such agony as the photographers at the funeral etc, simply for a bit of 'exaggerated admiration'.

Duncan · #**703** 02-12-2007, 02:28 PM

You don't believe it was the royal house that organized the media coverage? It was said by the journalists themselves many times: the royal house security service won't allow us to step beyond that line, it's nice they put us in this place since we got a good perspective, etc.

The only stealthy images were that one picture of Paloma returning to the apartment and, possibly, those of Telma getting home. I'm not sure about those of Carla and her father walking on the street.

nokklav · #**704** 02-12-2007, 03:14 PM

i personally think that no matter how said this tragic event is, the royal family showed how much they love and care for letizia. they acted like a normal family, who were conforting a most loved sister and daughter in law. i appreciate them for being there for her and her family in a humble way. letizia and her family need people who really care around them at this most tragic time. it is now that you really understand who's there cause he/she cares and not for the appearences.

lula · #**705** 02-12-2007, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duncan

You don't believe it was the royal house that organized the media coverage? It was said by the journalists themselves many times: the royal house security service won't allow us to step beyond that line, it's nice they put us in this place since we got a good perspective, etc.

The only stealthy images were that one picture of Paloma returning to the apartment and, possibly, those of Telma getting home. I'm not sure about those of Carla and her father walking on the street.

You confuse the things. First, the press does not need that the Royal House warned to them to be there. Surely that the Royal House does not warn to them when systematically they are placed almost every day in the door of the work of Paloma. Evidently, if an act takes place in which they are the members of the Royal Family, and in whom it is known that it is going to have press, the services of the Royal House are there for controlling the situation.

What they are not going to allow is that 100 journalists and photographers throw themselves upon Letizia. A thing is that they allow them to make their work, because the journalists have freedom to do it, and other than lets to them exceed limits.

The Royal Family went the week last to funeral n of a cousin of the King, and the images were not very different (evidently there was enough less sense of expectancy on the part of the press).

The improvisation in the case of appearances of the Royal Family where it knows that it is going to have much people, much sense of expectancy… never is unexpected. Almost no movement of the Royal Family outside the Zarzuela is unexpected. Anyone of its members where it goes has the bodyguards there.

Rebafan81 · #**706** 02-12-2007, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeatrixFan

That video shows 2 things. 1) That we live in a sick world where the suffering of others makes good news coverage and 2) That Queen Sofia is astounding in her compassion for others. I mean, what kind of a world is this where a woman who has just lost her sister has to be photographed 3,000 times? For all the respect the press showed Letizia, they might as well have danced on Erika's grave. It's just sickening. And all this arguing about the Catholic Church - does it matter? Letizia has lost her sister and bereavement comes without denomination.

Bravo!!! I just started to watch the video and couldn't finish it. When are we, as a human society, going to go back to when there were lines you didn't cross. This family just lost a member of their family but to the rest of the outside world it is just good news coverage. They should be allowed to grieve in private. I really love the SRF, they seem like such a down to earth caring people. Queen Sophia is a great LADY. God Bless Princess Letizia and her family. Please remember, during this time she is not a member of the Spanish royal family, she is a family member who deserves all the respect every one of us would want if we lost a family member.

eireann · #**707** 02-12-2007, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rebafan81

Bravo!!! I just started to watch the video and couldn't finish it. When are we, as a human society, going to go back to when there were lines you didn't cross. This family just lost a member of their family but to the rest of the outside world it is just good news coverage. They should be allowed to grieve in private. I really love the SRF, they seem like such a down to earth caring people. Queen Sophia is a great LADY. God Bless Princess Letizia and her family. Please remember, during this time she is not a member of the Spanish royal family, she is a family member who deserves all the respect every one of us would want if we lost a family member.

I´m not Spanish, but I remember the SRF after the Madrid bombings and how they went and comforted families of the victims and shared their grief and I found that very touching. Perhaps in the SRF time of need Spanish people want to be there to support their Princess and her family. All of Spain can´t go to Madrid, so the media is allowing others to connect and share their grief. I know this is probably a rose-tinted view, but maybe some Spaniards here can give their perspective.

Donna B. · #**708** 02-12-2007, 04:05 PM

Well, my goodness, the video isn't that bad....I've seen worse. I wasn't gonna watch it till I read the comments. I thought there must be something really horrible on it, I must watch it and see. It was kinda like all the pictures that have been posted in this thread, no difference at all imo. It's not like the video showed the autopsy or cremation. Now that would be horrible.

The media did not seem to be unwelcome, as accommodations were made for them to be there.

RIP E.O.R

Donna B.

lula · #**709** 02-12-2007, 04:06 PM

Funeral by Erika Ortiz Rocasolano at Church Anunciacion de Nuestra Señora de Prado de Somosaguas, in Pozuelo, near Madrid.

Deadline Press Photo - Latest Stories

*SofiaM* · #**710** 02-12-2007, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eireann

I´m not Spanish, but I remember the SRF after the Madrid bombings and how they went and comforted families of the victims and shared their grief and I found that very touching. Perhaps in the SRF time of need Spanish people want to be there to support their Princess and her family. All of Spain can´t go to Madrid, so the media is allowing others to connect and share their grief. I know this is probably a rose-tinted view, but maybe some Spaniards here can give their perspective.

You are quite right eireaan. One of the reasons we admire our royal family is because they are very in touch with their people and when it comes to tragedies, Madrid bombings for example, we know that if we grieve, our King and Queen grieve with us.

Duncan · #**711** 02-12-2007, 04:40 PM

I want to make clear I never questioned the sincere pain and solidarity of the royal family. Even most of us here at the forum were deeply saddened, so how can we doubt they were too.

I completely agree with you, lula: you expressed the very idea I was trying to convey, only with other words. That is, the pictures and footage of the royal family members are strictly controlled by the royal house press and security services. Therefore, it's unfair to blame the media if they were photographed up to exhaustion in those sad circumstances: in any case, one should blame the royal house organization for staging the events this way.

Well, at least they had the good taste not to show us footage on the spreading of the ashes on that meadow in Asturias.

To put a kind of closure to this matter, I would like to point out to a statement we heard many times these days, that "Letizia showed through these events that she is a real princess". A lot of people repeated this but so far I heard nobody explaining in which way she revealed herself as a real princess. Maybe we could elaborate on that here at the forum, since many members know a lot about what a real princess is.

I don't know myself much about it, but I would say that yes, she showed that she is fit for this princess job. Not because she cried or not, nor because she took such or such person's arm, neither because she spoke or shut up, but because she was able to do all those things in front of the cameras and the eyes of millions of people.

I, for one, wouldn't be up to this kind of job. I think she deserves admiration for this.

lula · #**712** 02-12-2007, 05:03 PM

Duncan, in this case the Royal House cannot do anything, the street is public, and the press was in the street ... another thing had been if they had been in an interior or private place. With a journalist or with 100 the images had been the same, and had crossed equally all the televisions and magazines.

On another topic, I believe that there is enough hypocrisy. Letizia has been the same Princess of Asturias who has been always. Probably if instead of devoting itself to criticize everything, because it is necessary to criticize it, certain press was devoting itself to know indeed the work and the acts that the Princes realize, the things would be different. Sure that one of that journalist, of political type not of gossip, which has been with the Princes in meetings of work, this attitude has not surprised. Anyone that follows often the information about the Princes of a serious form, it does not have because to be surprised.

Letizia cried for her sister, the normal thing. Like in its moment she cried for her grandfather, being also pregnant, and besides she was capable of going to an official act to the following day of burying him.

Erika's death has been tragic and very painful, and sure very difficultly to go for the family with everything what they had around. Letizia has been the same Letizia, the same Princess of Asturias who has been always ... but probably some of them only are capable of valuing when a person is it was leading to the limit ... when a person, in the worst moment of her life, is capable of behave with dignity, to be been grateful and not to forget the one who is.

Doña Metizia · #**713** 02-12-2007, 05:06 PM

I don't know why people are wondering why Felipe's royal friends did not go to the funeral. It was not the funeral of a royal but of young woman who happened to be the sister of the Princess of Asturias. They may have sent their condolences but going would have been distracting and pointless. Are people just asking because they just want any excuse to see royals? This is just as disrespectful as those paparazzi.

crisiñaki · #**714** 02-12-2007, 05:42 PM

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/3793/thumbli8.jpg

adelaide · #**715** 02-12-2007, 06:05 PM

Lula, I share you excellent analysis, you have said with the just words all that it can to be write about a such tragic subject.

For Duncan, or he/she is a young - and brillant- deabater but quiet immature ( sorry but it's not a critic neither a value judgement it's to understand an excessive thaught), or he/she like push in th open doors. The fact that for such an event people, good or bad mass media are telling monstruous banalities is the proper of the kind of press where the title have to be eye catching, not for high level graduate personn, but for every body, for people who like the sensacional, who read the newspaper with rapidity, who think without great detachement and may the worst, who like the false great ideas regarding the great events of the life, birth life itself, death.

We know that and it's not becessary to go very far away to find a lot of these considerations at square meter. Not every people is abble to analyse and synthesize their thaught.

__________________________

On the field of the banality, I want to reaffirm that the video of Aqui hay tomate about the funeral of Erika Ortiz, in any case for the begining is totally unbearable; It's the use of technic cinematographic means to do the worst bad taste effect as the slowness to detailed the so sadness of a woman with a pseudo dramatic music to make this report totally eye catching.

It's not necessary to have violent death, bombing, physical tortures in a scene to find it totally unbearable, the bad taste is also unbearable!

donnaK · #**716** 02-12-2007, 06:36 PM

The funeral was a strict family event. The press said that Carla had often played with Leonor at the house of the Princes. The relatives of the Prince, best friends of the Princes (such as the Princes of Bulgaria) probably had met Erika multiple times, thus attended her funeral. This just didn't apply to the royals of other European countries.
I also saw Princess Cristina BTS and her hubby, Simoneta and her hubby at the funeral too. Anyone saw Betran and Laura ?

adelaide · #**717** 02-12-2007, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by donnaK

The funeral was a strict family event. The press said that Carla had often played with Leonor at the house of the Princes. The relatives of the Prince, best friends of the Princes (such as the Princes of Bulgaria) probably had met Erika multiple times, thus attended her funeral. This just didn't apply to the royals of other European countries.
I also saw Princess Cristina BTS and her hubby, Simoneta and her hubby at the funeral too. Anyone saw Betran and Laura ?

It didn't seem that they were been here.

adelaide · #**718** 02-12-2007, 08:15 PM

[quote=crisiñaki]http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/3793/thumbli8.jpg

[/quote ]

Tragic pic, Crisiñaki and many thanks to shar this photo with us.

Please have you others pics from Face to Face, generally speaking thy are quite good as those of Getty.

lucys · #**719** 02-12-2007, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crisiñaki

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/3793/thumbli8.jpg

I haven't been around the board in ages. This is so so sad.

This photo is heartbreaking, simply heartbreaking, and somehow, in the saddest manner posible, so beautiful in it's heartbreak...two sisters joined in pain. Very sad.

kartheina · #**720** 02-12-2007, 09:30 PM

I had been too busy and it’s only now that I’m catching-up on the threads, especially on this shocking and tragic news. First and foremost, my deep condolences to the family and friends that Erika Ortiz has left behind. May she rest in peace.

My two cents worth on the media coverage on the past week’s events… I would like to believe that Casa Real is not looking at everything as a big publicity stunt to generate sympathy for the benefit of the Princess of Asturias’ image. If they had a hand on things, I think that it would be in line with what the Ortiz-Rocasolano families are willing to expose themselves into.

Especially for the Ortiz family that has a relatively strong journalistic background (compared to the majority of us), it is a matter of walking the thin line between ‘freedom of the press’ and ‘right to privacy’. If there were a ‘news blackout’ on all the events, I would imagine them being criticized for turning-away from the principles of their profession. I think that Casa Real is helping ensure their privacy but only when there are royals present – I do not think their protection from press harassment has been extended to individual members of the Princess’ family as we hear of accounts of them being chased by media.

Having some experience in events management myself, designating a line where media (and the general public) could not cross is a preventive measure against unwanted events – e.g. the last thing you would want to happen is to see them make an easy run for the people they would like to interview and shove microphones to their faces. If they can actually get photos/footages that they like from the area where they are designated to stand, then good for them; but from the perspective of security, the quality, angle, or what-not of their photos is the least of one's worries.