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.

I don’t know if this has been brought up already but I thought making the link to tampongate was a bit… mischievous? It made it sound like William had hushed up some really salacious bit of gossip and maybe that was the point. The actual story that William realised could only have been sourced from his voicemails was something like a knee injury! That said, I very much doubt William would ever sue Harry.

I think for all of them in the royal family the media relationship puts them all in a no win situation - some play the game and some buck against the system but no course of action they try is without negative consequence. I understand William’s approach - just as I understand Harry’s. I just think it’s awful that they have to either break bread with the metaphorical devil (as William appears to have) or go scorched earth (as Harry is).

Totally agree!!

CNN has published a list of some (just some!) of the victims of phone hacking who made claims against the media companies and agreed to an out of court settlement. Obviously, these are just the ones that are known about - there will be many who never broadcast either that they had made a claim, or settled it.

I wonder if they’ll also be accused of doing “secret deals” with the press for nefarious purposes? There’s other people there who were funded by the State too, you’ll note…

Also deals with the press made by 'royals' are very different than for any other individual

The 'royals' rely on the press to maintain their facade

The 'royals' have unelected positions and many other secret and not so secret exceptions . Exceptions that they claim precisely because they are 'royal' - secret wills, no tax on inheritance etc

As usual - the old ' we are just private individuals' when it suits them and ' we are royals' when it suits them

As usual - the old ' we are just private individuals' when it suits them and ' we are royals' when it suits them

Yes, this is the issue isn’t it.

Agree. There’s no good outcome for any of them.
I suppose each person has to deal with their own personal ‘least bad’ outcome.

Look, I feel bad for Harry.

It can’t be easy to be the subject of such intense media scrutiny/interest just by virtue of the family you were born into.

But I find it bizarre that his case is about media hacking, and private information being put into the public sphere, and then he puts private information of his brother into the public sphere.

I just imagine if I were William I would feel doubly victimised. And it would bad enough for it to be dragged up again, by some sort of journalist, but by his own brother must make it particularly hard.

Yes that's the issue that the royalists never address

The guardian series has been an education but no royalist ever addresses it

There is thread on the panorama monarchy episode.
Seemingly royalists don't want to know

The ' royals' used shell companies to hide their wealth - guardian just published details today

amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/26/prince-andrew-held-investments-in-shell-company-set-up-to-keep-holdings-secret

The 'royals' rely on the press to maintain their facade

And celebrities don’t, I suppose?

As usual - the old ' we are just private individuals' when it suits them and ' we are royals' when it suits them

So do you not agree that publishing topless photos of the Princess of Wales and hacking phones is not an invasion of privacy? It’s somehow different if you are royal and you should handle it differently and not like every other human being?

The poster isn’t suggesting those acts aren’t totally unacceptable. They’re referencing the settlement part of things.

@Whaeanui You know I don't engage with you so please stop attempting to shut me down.

@polkadotdalmation but you do engage, you’re on my thread. You’re tagging me, as you have done before to get my attention and then say you don’t want it. I can’t work out whether you want engagement or not. Try and figure it out and if you come back to my thread then I know you don’t mean it and I’ll ignore those kinds of requests.

Irrelevant

Celebrities aren't head of state

Though many of them would do a better job

Here it is :

The spokesperson said that their private financial arrangements “remain private as they would for any other individual

So will the royals also pay inheritance tax , publish wills , be subject to the law - just like 'any other individual'

You don't seem to be very familiar with the English court process (and that is an observation, not a criticism). The Civil Procedure Rules strongly promote settlement at the earliest possible stage. Settlement is the norm. 90% of cases settle before reaching court.

It's not a case of claimants needing to show enough moxie to see the case through to trial. If a claimant resists settlement efforts from the defendant then they can be very m, very heavily penalised.

Do you know what a Part 36 offer is? It's the tool that News UK use to force settlements (they are absolutely committed to not having any cases get to a final hearing). If News UK make a settlement offer and make clear that it is a Part 36 offer, and the claimant decides to continue to court, then if the final court award is less than what was offered the claimant has to pay News UK's costs. I really can't stress enough how important an issue costs are in litigation. It can run to millions of pounds. This is why Sienna Miller get forced to settle her phone hacking claim. It's why they all have! As long as News UK goes in at the high end with its Part 36 offers, it is all but guaranteed that everyone will settle and it can keep everything out of the courts.

I'm afraid you are barking up the wrong tree with placing the responsibility of press accountability on the shoulders of William, and other victims. If you want press accountability then you need to be screaming for Leveson 2 with all your breath. We all do.

@Whaeanui I'm tagging you purely to reply to you strange request, it's the first time I've done so and it in response to multiple tagging by you despite my lack of response.

You do understand, don't you, you don't get to say who responds to a thread? This seems to have scaled you.

The poster isn’t suggesting those acts aren’t totally unacceptable. They’re referencing the settlement part of things.

But that’s part of handling a breach of your private law rights. The press does something unacceptable to you. Royal, or celebrity, or family of a murdered daughter - they all have the same private law rights they are entitled to rely on to make a claim against the press who has done that. But apparently Royals shouldn’t be allowed to apply the same dispute resolution processes that are available to every other citizen. Why not? Because people think they have a right to know all about their private concerns, it seems.

If William had taken this to trial, the content of all of the hacked voicemail messages of him and Kate (more than 300) would have been disclosed and pored over. And doubtless laughed at and sneered at by the same posters here who love to refer back to Tampongate as if that wasn’t an utterly disgraceful breach of privacy itself.

Ass things stand, the most we learned from what the press reported was that William’s pet name for Kate is “Babykins” . He is absolutely entitled to say that that is enough, and no more.

It’s definitely not the first time you tagged me. Anyway, as you have come to my thread multiple times & tagged me on others I’ll now consider previous requests not to ‘engage’ no longer relevant, I will do so as and when I wish to within guidelines. You do know don’t you, you don’t get to say who responds to you? Yet you do it quite a lot.

@Dolma
If costs are the stumbling block to justice who better than Willy moneybags Windsor to fight the good fight ?

Yet he is silent

How is Harry's case being funded ?

This.

I wish Royalists would read some of this stuff, would comment on the Panorama doc, would read other Guardian articles that I and others have linked before

But they won't. Too scary to realise it's not quite what it seems as far as Monarchy and transparency.

@Dolma I am currently in litigation, and part 36 offers aren't usually applicable in our cases. Previously in an inheritance claim and we issued part 36. Concentrates the mind!

Totally agree with you. There is very little understanding of how the court system works.

It's an entirely reasonable thing to do, to settle as soon as possible and not cost effective to spend around £300,000 on court fees to win £100,000. Civil actions are little understood.

I'm surprised williams anonymity has been breached, but don't know all the details as to why?

Following this logic through to its conclusion though, you can only really end up saying the hacking papers were right, for exposing every aspect of them, as they are not like ‘private individuals’ and therefore should not be afforded the same rights as ‘private individuals’.

I would be interested where you feel the line should be drawn in regards to what is made private/public about them.

I’m not interested in where you feel the ‘public’ line should be drawn, as I’m sure the answer will be ‘they shouldn’t get anything from public, and if they didn’t they could be as private as they like’ but seeing as that isn’t the case, I’m interested in where you feel the private line should be drawn.

Thank you, I’m aware of all of that. It’s not hard to access information is it? As you said, News UK have tried to force settlements and almost nobody has the funds to be able to continue and possibly have to pay both their court costs and News Uk, I’m aware of Sienna Millers statement about this. I have not placed the responsibility of press accountability on William either, did you actually read all my comments? It doesn’t appear so.

If William had taken this to trial, the content of all of the hacked voicemail messages of him and Kate (more than 300) would have been disclosed and pored over. And doubtless laughed at and sneered at by the same posters here who love to refer back to Tampongate as if that wasn’t an utterly disgraceful breach of privacy itself

No no no. The hacking of Charles and Camilla's private conversation was disgusting and I and many have said that before

I know that doesn't fit with your laughing and sneering narrative but it is the truth so stop making stuff up

Imo the royals are in an impossible position where the press are concerned. They need them to be pro the monarchy and report favourably royal events or risk nationwide animosity towards them being stoked.

To go head to head legally and sue the print media risks provoking a media campaign against them and their work. Harry can only do this now because he isn't part of the monarchy and has nothing to lose. He can make this his life's work knowing the media won't destroy his family setup.

Without positive press the monarchy would fall, so the royals' hands are tied and they have to work with the press, because they can't work against them.