She said that as the air time dedicated to news had become greater, a new style of emotive reporting had emerged.

"What you got that week was not entirely the result of Diana," she told colleagues at the International Television Festival in Edinburgh.

Kate Adie: "What you got that week was not entirely the result of Diana"

She added; "It was the result of change coming into televisions news in the last five or six years.

"We now have far more air time to fill and still call it news."

The carpet of flowers that was laid outside Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace in the days following the Princess's death became the focus of TV cameras, said Ms Adie, because the crash site was "too banal".

She continued: "We now have two 24 hour channels - BBC News 24, BBC World, the World Service and Radio 5 Live.

Hundreds of thousands paid their respects with flowers

"But there are not big stories every two hours. As a result, instead of straightforward factual news there is added in a new type of news."

TV news, she said, had followed the example of newspapers in occupying itself more with the "personal, private and confessional".

A culture now existed where reporters were "not even told off" for "wearing their hearts on their sleeves".

"You are expected to show your feelings," she said.

"People are demanding that you show you care as a journalist rather than just report in the traditional way.

Paris crash scene: "Too banal" for TV

"It is a great deal more sentimental than is usually expected in news.

"Many more huge stories are going to become more huge and there is going to be more of it."

Ms Adie was addressing a session at the festival on the topic of whether the media merely covered the mass public grief at the death of the Princess, or created it.