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.

Ah that’s different from what this article suggests.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/25/charles-undermined-late-queens-plan-to-sue-news-uk-murdoch-sun-prince-harry-tells-court?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Is the court submission available to the public?

Robert Thomson, CEO of Murdoch global operation, NewsCorp, met Sir Christopher Geidt, private secretary to Queen Elizabeth, to discuss the deal. Rebekah Brooks, CEO of Murdoch’s News UK, was also involved in exchanges, while according to Prince Harry

@Whaeanui No idea what you are on about- the title is the royals and the press - that’s what I have been talking about.

In 2018, Sally Osman, Queen Elizabeth II’s communications secretary, wrote an email to Harry explaining that she was willing to threaten legal action in the name of the monarch.
The email read: “The queen has given her consent to send a further note, by email, to Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corporation and Rebekah Brooks, CEO of News UK.
Her Majesty has approved the wording, which essentially says there is increasing frustration at their lack of response and engagement and, while we’ve tried to settle without involving lawyers, we will need to reconsider our stance unless we receive a viable proposal.”

The fact that the Queen has been happy to threaten legal action does not mean that come the time she’d be happy to go all the way. I wonder if she was just trying to keep Harry happy while being relieved that William chose to settle.

The fact that the Queen has been happy to threaten legal action does not mean that come the time she’d be happy to go all the way.

Absolutely. The fact that they needed to get consent from the queen to threaten litigation tells you how just how seriously the Palace and the family take launching litigation. Based on this, they would clearly have also needed her consent to actually issue litigation (which is common - where the litigation is significant and will involve hundreds of thousands worth of costs, many organisations require board approval to issue proceedings).

@Serenster do you know if the court submissions can be accessed by the public? Apologies if this is a dumb question, I’m just so lost in the reporting of it

I’m also confused about the timeline.

According to these reports, Harrys statement is that he requested to the Queen to take legal action, and that his father was against it, as they wanted to play the ‘long game’

But then the reports are that he and William entered into joint legal action, with Harry becoming ‘impatient’ and dropping out of that, and getting his own counsel.

Which indicates to me the initial request (which Charles was against) was for the action he and William took jointly. Which kind of goes against the ‘I was up against my whole family’ when William was doing it with him?
Am I missing something?

I also can’t see how Williams settlement is ‘proof’ of the secret pact, when Harry was initially being represented in the case, with the same legal team?

Sounds to me like they both initiated legal action jointly, Harry dropped out and perused his own case, which went to court, while William settled.

Or if the secret pact was that they wouldn’t sue until a later date, Harry was also part of that pact as he didn’t initiate proceedings until William did? In which case if he wasn’t allowed to, William wasn’t either? Is that the point?

Im sure it’ll all come out in the wash, but I don’t understand why the fact William settled has any bearing on Harrys case, or what proof it offers, and about what?

@PicturesOfDogs does it say somewhere they were involved in joint litigation? I’m reading but I don’t see it, just that the Queen had an agreement and then Harry asked to move forward but his initial filing was on his own, wasn’t it? So I don’t think it’s clear yet.

Fighting off claims by Prince Harry and the actor Hugh Grant that the Sun hacked their phones just as the News of the Worldhad done, the paper went to court in London today to argue, among other things, that the two men’s claims have been made too late and are legally ‘out of time’.
As a result, his lawyers say, Prince Harry had no choice but to open a can of worms relating to the royal family and the Murdoch corporation – of which his brother William’s 2020 settlement represents just one worm, albeit a fat one.
Prince Harry’s lawyers had previously referred in court documents to a ‘secret arrangement’ between the Palace and the Murdoch management, but today’s revelations went further, describing a deal under which the royals agreed to delay making claims in exchange for being spared embarrassment. The documents also cited years of meetings and correspondence between very senior figures on both sides.
Robert Thomson, CEO of Murdoch global operation, NewsCorp, met Sir Christopher Geidt, private secretary to Queen Elizabeth, to discuss the deal. Rebekah Brooks, CEO of Murdoch’s News UK, was also involved in exchanges, while according to Prince Harry’s case documents the whole arrangement was ‘authorised’ by the late Queen herself.
This relationship between the Palace and a news organisation that had admitted large-scale phone hacking appears to have been one that both sides preferred to keep confidential.

https://bylineinvestigates.com/2023/04/25/news-of-williams-hacking-payout-reminds-us-what-kind-of-operation-rupert-murdoch-runs/

I definitely saw it earlier, in one of the reports that it started with a joint claim, which Harry dropped out of to go it alone. That’s when I posted that I hadn’t realised that.

I’ll try to find where I first saw it, and post a link

Thank you!

“The debate in court over the next three days before Mr Justice Fancourt is more general and requires the Sun’s lawyers to engage in an exercise many would consider perverse. They have begun arguing that it should have been obvious years ago to both claimants – the prince and Grant – that they might have had a hackikng case against the Sun, and to make that point they are trying to pile up evidence against their own client going back to 2006.”

It makes my head spin. To prove Harry and Hugh don’t have a case, Murdoch’s lawyers have to pile up evidence against Murdochs’s company?

If this is right, I kind of love it.

I found this 🤷‍♀️

Was it the Telegraph? They had about four stories on this earlier, and three have now disappeared

I’m sure one of them described a joint process, with Harry dropping out, impatient at the slow progress. That’s what I recall, anyway

It might have been, but I have a feeling it was in the guardian?

It was literally a one liner buried in the middle, that there was a joint claim with the same solicitors.

I can’t seem to find it now, but I definitely read it earlier. I wish I’d taken a screen shot

And yes, that Harry had dropped out due to ‘impatience’.
hmm 🤔

I don’t think it was an actual claim, in that proceeding had been issued. Sounded to me like the period after a pre action letter, when the parties attempt to settle

Isn't it clear that Harry is only talking about this to address the argument that he is out of time? In other words, he is showing just what it was that prevented him from bringing the legal action before? In that context, of course the William settlement is relevant because it shows that he was under undue influence to dissuade him from continuing.

This has nothing to do with William's privacy.

The next unelected head of state of the UK entered into an agreement with the proprietor of newspapers that were effectively involved in criminal activities, and that settlement was not disclosed. Not only does it raise issues, if, for instance, William and his court have been leaking about other embers of the family to the Sun, it also suggests that William may not be a completely independent actor when it comes to his brother's press complaints. Same with the allegation that Charles did not want action to go ahead because he was more concerned about the reputation building of Camilla.

The conflicts of interest are so glaring I am astonished those castigating Harry cannot see them.

I keep saying that these people operate opaquely, with no transparency at all. I guess they really can't afford to be transparent.

Thank goodness for Harry. He is shining a light on the murky dealings between an unaccountable press and an unaccountable royal family.

Also, pay attention to what has been happening with Murdoch over in the US, where Fox has had to pay a settlement ion hundreds of millions in heat case against Dominion for dishonest and defamatory reporting.

Can't really believe that people here have no problem with Murdoch who has poisoned public discourse in three major western countries. Jacinda Arden once said the reason New Zealand is relatively free of the kind of divisive right wing politics of the US, UK and Australia is that Murdoch has not been allowed to spread his malign influence there.

Would be interested @Whaeanui to hear your assessment of that as a NewZealandress :)

Again, the Telegraph did have a link to the various submissions but that has gone too

I may have mis-understood the content of that link; I think now it is more a list of those making witness statements and their roles, not the docs themselves

The next unelected head of state of the UK entered into an agreement with the proprietor of newspapers that were effectively involved in criminal activities, and that settlement was not disclosed. Not only does it raise issues, if, for instance, William and his court have been leaking about other embers of the family to the Sun, it also suggests that William may not be a completely independent actor when it comes to his brother's press complaints. Same with the allegation that Charles did not want action to go ahead because he was more concerned about the reputation building of Camilla

Or, William also sued, as Harry has done, and settled rather than going through court.

If this is the accusation, he’s going to need do do a hell of a lot better than saying ‘William received money, so it proves they were in cahoots’ when William could just be doing what Harrys doing, which is taking them to task, just less publicly.

Harrys needs to prove what he’s saying is true, not just suppose it, because this is a court of law, and if he can’t prove it the whole thing will thrown out.

If he has the proof, then fair play, as I said, it’ll all come out in the wash, but what is out there right now doesn’t prove anything.

That must have been where I saw it then.

At least I know you recall reading similar, as I definitely read it earlier!

can someone tall me, if someone like William takes a paper to court for hacking and it actually ended up in court. would they then have to discuss the private conversations that were hacked?