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.

No William has not

He took the money and said not a word about how tabloids have damaged discourse in this society

He has left the battle to others

What else do the papers have on William ?

Certainly I think the case is important (as are the other people in the case) and I understand that in your role you would recommend that Harry settle. I am interested in hearing what he will say under cross examination - it would be good for the public record.

I think William’s achieved more to strike blows at the tabloid press than Harry has. Ironic

We didn't even know about it until today and Harry is being blamed for that. Not sure how that means more of a strike from W at all

He took the money and said not a word about how tabloids have damaged discourse in this society

Exactly this. He hardly has drawn attention to it or spoken out has he?

The NOTW is closed down and several people were jailed as a direct result of William putting two and two together and going to Scotland Yard. I think that’s a far more effective blow to the tabloids than railing at the press to be honest.

(and if railing is what you’re looking for, William did that in response to the BBC investigation into Martin Badhir, but gets criticised for that here too….🤣).

Also, if I was the Sun, it would be so very tempting to sue both William and Harry right now for breaching the confidentiality terms of the settlement agreement. You can bet someone in their legal team has floated the idea. I suspect they are not quite so committed to creating an utter shitstorm to do that, though!

(and once again we see what an utter hypocrite Harry is - completely relies on confidentiality agreements to gag his former staff, but breaches other people’s obligations without concern when he thinks it benefits him).

Harry is miffed William got a big pay out and he wants the same. Hope the judge throws it out. Follow the money Harry.,

Harry has drawn far far more attention to this case, along with Baroness Lawrence, Elton John et al, than William has done.

And no Harry is not miffed he hadin't got a big payout, he hasn't taken the money and run.

The thing is though, the courts are not there to be used as a means of getting a message out to the press or the public. They are there (and publicly funded) to resolve genuine disputes, not to further private vendettas. The judges, quite properly, have little time for grandstanding when it‘a not furthering the case.

Harry definitely knows this - he got criticised by a judge in a previous case when his team couldn’t produce a draft of a statement that wasn’t over the top argumentative. He got his costs claim docked because if it, even though he won the case.

Are you saying that Harry and the other people in the suit should not have raised the case about their phones being hacked?

I just think it’s terrible that the media are able to get away with this time and time again with no redress.

Without William going to the police in the first place there would have been no case. Sometimes you are more effective with a scalpel than a hammer. Harry has made a lot of noise but actually achieved very little.

Well, it would seem that Murdoch owned media is not. News media just paid out over a billion dollars to Dominion. It's being sued for a further 2.7 billion dollars by Smartmatic (the other voter machine company). I read that Lachlan Murdoch has just dropped a libel case against a small independent Australian media outlet called Crikey. (When you read why Lachlan was suing, it has me wondering why he dropped it?) The Sun: 'Sun losses hit £127m due to legal costs while Times titles double profits. Much of the losses at Sun publisher News Group Newspapers were down to provisions made for legal cases.' (Future of Media, April 6, 2023)

Murdoch's News of the World closed down about a decade ago. His American Fox News was fast losing viewers in 2020 it was reported, and to my mind will probably lose more now following the settlement. A news anchor from a rival network started laughing while reading the statement put out by Fox News following the settlement to Dominion. Vanity Fair has just written a rather amusing/critical article about rupert and his children. That's off the top of my head. But it feels like everyone has had a go, except for Murdoch's own media.

I posted the above in regard to media generally being held to account. Not, in this instance, in regard to phone hacking - (I went off topic a bit). It just seems that perhaps the tide is turning, and people, individually as well as in groups, also companies, being willing to hold the media to account, and being successful at it hopefully, may be the way of the future.

Really disappointing that once again certain posters just come to the thread to deliberately start another argument about Harry v whoever, this time William. Can you please just not? You’ve got other threads to bash Harry. This is about the press and how the royal family can change that relationship. Which whatever William did about hacking, he hasn’t changed the way the royals interact with the press, the toxic relationship is still the same. Not interested in stupid affair rumours.

@Morestrangerthings yes maybe if other people take the main tabloid players to court and get them exposed for their methods, maybe they’ll have to change their culture. I think it’s important the public know the details. We should know if we can trust our media or not and exactly what they get up to. They have too much power to influence all of us. Keeping it all behind closed doors is something that benefits the individual, but keeps the public in the dark.

More on this ‘agreement’ and the delay to file:
*Explaining the 2012 “agreement”, the Duke of Sussex said: “My brother and I were also told by either the institution’s solicitor, Gerrard Tyrrell of Harbottle & Lewis, or someone else from the institution that there was no possibility of either of us bringing a claim against NGN for phone hacking at that time.
“The rationale behind this was that a secret agreement had been reached between the institution and senior executives at NGN whereby members of the Royal Family would bring phone hacking claims only at the conclusion of the Mobile Telephone Voicemail Interception Litigation (MTVIL) [a so-far 12-year series of phone hacking lawsuits that has cost NGN more than estimated £1.5bn] and at that stage the claims would be admitted or settled with an apology.”

The Duke’s lawyers added: “In 2017, the Claimant and the Institution began to push for the outstanding claim to be resolved. However, News filibustered in relation to this until, in 2019, the Claimant had enough and issued his claim.*

Maybe tell that to Baronness Lawrence, Elton John, Sadie Frost and others too. I am sure they'll be pleased that they haven't achieved anything. The case is ongoing.

@Morestrangerthings Yes and Murdoch sacked Tucker Carlson in US. That is big news*. He has been with the channel for a long time, he spreads lies and conspiracies, and was involved in the Domininion story. He left immediately. A lot of happy people about that.

Yes the Tucker Carlson firing is big news. Brooks being fired would be way bigger and overdue.

Not only this but we have an unelected future head of state keeping quiet re his deal with the media !

This is of national interest

Yes it obviously is.

and if railing is what you’re looking for, William did that in response to the BBC investigation into Martin Badhir, but gets criticised for that here too….🤣).

From what you have timelined here I agree that the NOTW closure was due to William in part. He seems to have started the ball rolling.

But I haven't seen him being criticised for his imput into the investigation of Martin Bashir on here. I have seen William criticised for saying his mother was paranoid, as the word has long been used by men to denigrate and disempower women.

Not only this but we have an unelected future head of state keeping quiet re his deal with the media !

Keeping quiet about the (perfectly normal) settlement agreement he entered into with a media company that had breached his privacy and knew that they had a civil liability to him, you mean.

People setting this up as a secret and underhand deal are just exposing their ignorance here. People who are positioning this as William being paid a large sum of money by one media empire to ensure they won’t in future publish negative stories about him are beyond hope!

People setting this up as a secret and underhand deal are just exposing their ignorance here.

Quite!