The Press & The Royals: a discussion

[Whaeanui]

As we were just having a great discussion on this topic I’m going to try again to continue it on a thread of its own. A previous thread highlighted two particularly prolific ‘royal reporters’, but the same is true for all. They often manufacture stories to create divisions between the women in the family, more often than the men. The public seem to feed off this and none of the family get treated very well except the monarch. So do we think it is possible for the royal family to stay relevant and in the publics mind without their unhealthy relationship with the media? Can social media replace this? What do you think they can do to make positive changes that would reflect an understanding of the mental health challenges the media intrusion results in? Also their role in charities that deal with mental health and misogyny, mistreatment of women etc could be impacted by this too. Thoughts?
Please do not derail this thread by discussing your personal dislike of particular members or if they deserve it. I would like a discussion on how the royal family could change the relationship with the press.

*bit not big!

that photo is horrifying. really shows how sensible H&M were in not doing it.

In more Royals and the Press news: William apparently received a payout over phone hacking. Harry submitted this in his legal case against The Sun. The Guardian reports it here.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/25/prince-william-murdoch-phone-hacking-claims-court-filings-prince-harry

@MrsMaxDeWinter thank you for sharing that here. I do see why William took a settlement, lots of hacking victims have but not all really by choice. The costs involved of going to trial are enormous even for reasonably wealthy people. For William, it would have been a case of him being heir and appearing in the stand at trial. I don’t have judgement for anyone taking a settlement because going to trial is exhausting and financially prohibitive. But at the same time, I think I prefer transparency and knowing which large corporations and their wealthy owners are behaving in illegal or morally reprehensible ways. For that, I commend all of those now involved in civil trials about hacking, tapping, or any other illegal and intrusive acts like this. They’re doing something at great personal cost, that I believe will benefit everyone.

Indeed. Harry explains well why the settlement was reached.

From the article:

The royal claims there was a secret agreement struck between royal family and “senior executives” at Murdoch’s company at some point before 2012. As part of this supposed deal the princes would delay legal proceedings against the newspaper group in return for receiving an apology at a later date.

Harry said the royal family did this after being scarred by the “Tampongate” incident when the Sun obtained a recorded phone call between Prince Charles and Camilla while the couple were having an affair in the 1980s.

Harry said the royal family was desperate to avoid a repeat of this coverage. The filings state: “The reason for this was to avoid the situation where a member of the royal family would have to sit in the witness box and recount the specific details of the private and highly sensitive voicemails that had been intercepted by [the News of the World royal reporter] Clive Goodman.

“The institution was incredibly nervous about this and wanted to avoid at all costs the sort of reputational damage that it had suffered in 1993 when the Sun and another tabloid had unlawfully obtained and published details of an intimate telephone conversation that took place between my father and stepmother in 1989, while he was still married to my mother.”

Harry says News UK failed to uphold its side of the secret agreement when he sought this apology in 2017. He claims meetings were arranged involving Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of Murdoch’s News UK, and Robert Thomson, the global head of Murdoch’s global News Corp business, but they went nowhere.

Harry has now submitted to court that he knew about News UK's hacking allegations in 2012, and that he sought to uphold the promise for an apology in 2017.

That's basically it for his case, News UK will surely be successful in arguing that he should have brought the claim earlier, and there is no reason to waive the limitation period for claims. The case won't go any further than this hearing.

I suspect that Harry knows this. He was never expecting to get over the limitation of claims bar, he was bringing this case as a way of making noise rather than intending to win. Which is fair enough, if you've got the cash to burn on legal fees.

But it also means that he has been free to include all this stuff about "secret agreements" in his submissions, knowing full well that it will never get as far as court, will never be tested under cross examination, he will never have to produce evidence, and no one else will ever have a right of reply. It's a load of conspiracy theory stuff.

As part of this supposed deal the princes would delay legal proceedings against the newspaper group in return for receiving an apology at a later date.

If they had an agreement to delay proceedings then it’ll depend on if that is legally binding. They have to prove they had this agreement.

Prince Harry says that he first became aware of the alleged deal in around 2012.
At that time, he learnt that royal staff were starting legal action for phone hacking - and he believed he and his brother had been personally targeted too.
When the brothers consulted officials or the Royal Family's top solicitor, he says they were told that they could not begin their own legal action.
"The rationale behind this was that a secret agreement had been reached between the institution and senior executives at News Group Newspapers, whereby members of the Royal Family would bring phone hacking claims only at the conclusion of [all other cases] and at that stage the claims would be admitted or settled with an apology," the statement said.

Relevant part as to why there’s a delay in bringing the case

That's not sufficient to warrant an extension of the limitation period. It's a high threshold to reach, "I thought that they would admit it without legal action" isn't going to do it.

And the only person who can waive Harry's right to bring a legal claim is Harry. Not possible for the institution to do that on his behalf

This is the argument they’re putting forth:
In return, Harry’s lawyers will try to convince a judge that the prince filed proceedings relatively late only because key evidence had been “deliberately concealed” by Murdoch’s company.

How can it be simultaneously true that there were sufficient facts available about a potential claim that News UK entered into a waiver agreement in respect of the claim, and that deliberate concealment by News UK meant that sufficient facts to bring a claim were not available?

According to this article from Hacking Off, the illegal actions relating to Harry continued in 2016 with private investigator hired to obtain information about Meghan. So wouldn't the statute of limitations run from then? Giving Harry until 2022 to sue?
https://hackinginquiry.org/sun-publisher-ngn-allegedly-tapped-landlines-spied-on-prince-harry-as-a-child-and-princess-diana-and-settled-secret-claim-with-prince-william/

Not to mention that in the ANL hearing in March Harry said that he’d been kept in the dark by the Institution about hacking clams, so he didn’t know anything about them. Yet now suddenly he knows all about a secret agreement made many years ago with the press over hacking claims, and apparently had longstanding permission from QEII to bring a court action himself?

I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes facing cross-examination with all of these contrary statements out there

Could someone explain this in plain terms? as I understand it the Royal household advised the princes not to sue Murdoch buy wait till the other claims (Hugh Grant etc) were settled in court and then they'd get an apology.

Presumably they also had the option to settle out of court which is what William did.

Did Harry disregard the advice and decide to sue anyway? but did it too late I understand?

@LivelyBlake according to the statement, the agreement was to delay any action until the others were done. Not to never take action. I’m not sure but I gather the delay was so The Sun could get through other lawsuits, they had a lot at the time. I think the royal lawyers said not to sue, once he left he decided to get his own advice. It looks like he’s saying he was poorly advised by palace lawyers and when he got his own he became fully aware of more things. I don’t know if I’m remembering correctly, I’m sure he said this somewhere too.

@BelleHathor yes I think so

I gather the delay was so The Sun could get through other lawsuits, they had a lot at the time

This explanation for this secret agreement just sounds ridiculous, in my opinion. The Sun is a large organisation, they would just be expected to deal with a multiplicity of law claims. Everyone else is.

Thank you! It will be interesting to see how the case proceeds if allowed. The alleged methods used to obtain information are deplorable.

This revelation just makes me so sad for all of them (the RF) - just the horrible situation they are put in by the institution and the press.

Popped on here to see if you're talking about William's affair more or less being confirmed by this news that he received a huge pay-off from Murdoch to avoid a tampon-gate type embarrassment. 🍿👀

You think Rupert Murdoch paid William money to prevent his own papers from publishing a news scoop?

That's not how blackmail works!

I don’t think we can confirm the William affair news based on this - feel so terrible for him and the rest of them with their relationship with the media which we can see is complex and multifaceted because of course the media can promote the royal family's causes and achievements, but it can also be invasive and damaging to their privacy and well-being leading to these settlements and agreements.

I'm talking about this part:

“The institution was incredibly nervous about this and wanted to avoid at all costs the sort of reputational damage that it had suffered in 1993 when the Sun and another tabloid had unlawfully obtained and published details of an intimate telephone conversation that took place between my father and stepmother in 1989, while he was still married to my mother.”

All that part meant was that they didn't want to have a senior royal on the stand in the middle of a court case. Has nothing to do with an alleged affair.

And even that part is subjective conjecture based on Harry's vague memories of the time.

William and Kate had their phones hacked like Harry did. The most scandalous thing that came out of that was that William calls Kate Babykins.

Feels like you are being deliberately goady and gossipy - something this particular thread was trying to avoid.

Just to go through some of the key chronology here, as it seems some posters don’t know it.

In November 2005 the News of the World ran a story on William having a knee injury. William worked out this information could only have come from his voicemails being hacked. He and the Palace took the matter to Scotland Yard.

The next year Scotland Yard arrests and charges a NOTW reporter and a private investigator with hacking phones in the Royal family.

Celebrities start suing the NOTW. Sienna Miller and various other celebrities raise the issue publicly, and so the Met also launch an enquiry. Milky Dowling’s family also say publicly they suspect their daughter’s phone was being accessed by tabloid journalists. Huge public outcry leads to the Leveson enquiry, the NOTW being closed, various criminal trials and some convictions.

Later, we are now told, Prince William sues the Sun for their phone hacking, and settled out of court for a large payment.

if we compare Harry’s constant press battles, his shambolic and contradictory evidence and the high chance things will come out in court that he really doesn’t want - I think William’s achieved more to strike blows at the tabloid press than Harry has. Ironic.