Further, I don’t argue that Meghan is perfect, no one is. However, in my opinion none of us could stand up the vitriol and accusations, aimed at Meghan and emerge with an unblemished reputation, and this despite so many of the accusations being false. There just seemed to be a very limited attempt by the media to present her in a decent light. For every positive article there was a slew of negative ones: There were complimentary articles but, on balance, it was critical of Meghan.
There are so many examples of the unfair criticisms, but one that comes strongly to mind is Meghan’s championing of the Hubb Community Kitchen. I know both Kate and William did good things there too. Meghan chose to dig in a bit deeper on this one. She really seemed to do some good and effective work there. However, journalist Camilla Tominey had the need to cast that work in a negative life, and associate that kitchen with the mosque itself, and then write a whole article about terrorists who had previously attended the mosque. As it stands, there were no accusations made against the mosque itself that I can find.
The kitchen is separate to the mosque itself -separate entrances. It was a separate kitchen full of women trying to do something for their devastated community. I can’t remember the headline but I know it had both Jihadi and Meghan’s name in it. This was a shitty thing to do, and a shitty thing to write about. In her article, Tominey’s ‘research’ seems to be quite heavily dependent on the ‘research’ done by the HJS - a far right think British think tank. It was a disgraceful bit of journalism imo, and the people who suffered it most were the women of the Hubb Community Kitchen who were trying to create a sense of community as well as feed the Grenfell fire survivors. But that didn’t matter to the newspapers. It’s all about discrediting Meghan and Harry and anyone, and everyone, they associate with.
The British tabloid media (and not always only the tabloid media)and Murdoch media in three countries, has been responsible for very many repeated and unfair attacks on Meghan and Harry. And used their power as a cudgel to beat them with. Quite a few on social media take the bait and run with it.
Harry is suing 3 major media companies. He’s just won against the first. I hope he has the strength (and the money) to keep fighting because in fact, it’s more than gossip which destroys peoples lives - which is bad enough. It’s about having a good honest media who can be relied upon to do their job as the fourth estate without fear or favor. Currently that is not what is happening. We need to be able to rely on the 4th estate to hold governments and billionaires and big business to account, not to use their power to benefit their power to benefit their owners and their mates. I don’t pretend Harry’s actions alone will affect much change, but it hopefully starts to get the ball rolling.