The PR Whodunnit?

[StormzyinaTCup]

So what is this all about then?
Who did it and why?
And whoever's PR team is responsible needs tearing off a strip, it's going to backfire.
I know there was a thread about this earlier today but it was deleted due to questions over how genuine the OP was. As this story is everywhere at the moment I thought I would have a try myself and see how we go. Just a couple of preemptive points:

1. My MN credentials are rock solid so don't anyone even go there😁
2. Lets also keep some perspective, at the end of the day we are talking about a bunch of privileged and entitled millionaires who likely wouldn't even pee on us if we were on fire and that goes for both 'sides'.

https://news.sky.com/story/meghan-wrote-to-king-charles-expressing-concern-about-unconscious-bias-in-the-royal-family-reports-12863044

🤞🤞🤞🤞

^^ This

It can now be put to bed

Meghan denied contributing to Finding Freedom too.

It's a very strange story because no one seems to benefit. But Victoria Ward seems quite balanced normally, at least in comparison to Camilla Tominey, so she must have had a source. Perhaps it's someone from the sidelines/ a RF courtier or Sussex staff members acting independently.

Yes it's strange and yes what was the point.

For the RF this article was raking up a damaging accusation for them from years back, published on what would have been the Queen's birthday and with just two weeks to go before the Coronation, not a great PR move for either. Both parties deny their involvement so, why would a normally reasonable paper run with this story without checking they had a credible and respected source? one might expect it with a more tabloid type paper just to throw it out there for clicks but unless you subscribe the Telegraph the article is behind a paywall anyway so you have to go elsewhere for it.

I'll be interested to know what (if anything) the Telegraph say on this.

So to be specific, both sides are denying leaking it, but neither are denying that MM wrote to Charles nor the content of the letter, nor that she wasn’t happy with the response?

as in, it was leaked - but without permission and it could be either side still?

i don’t personally feel it does either side much damage or glory. It’s quite interesting but not a hand grenade.

We have now established from this that a conversation did happen about skin colour, Charles was not the person who said it and that Meghan and Charles were cordial after the Oprah interview.

Precisely. lIt seems that they were having discussions that the public are not privy to - Surprise, Surprise.

i’m willing to bet that this was William/Kate’s PR team to have leaked this stuff. A Sun Tzu move if ever. For the racists/ pro white nuclear family fans- they can just make this into another meghan is so bad/evil/headstrong sense of this but look at angel Kate not being controversial… taking photos etc. POC can see this nonsense clearly.

All about race again then is it? There are other issues than race .

I don’t think it makes MM look bad though - why shouldn’t she write to clarify? Believe me, I’ve found plenty of things the Sussexes have said or done quite annoying but how can she be castigated for writing to her FIL to express her feelings on something raised in that interview?

She can also find the response lacking. I suppose if one is only on one “team”, then she’s a saint and he’s the evil king, or he’s Good King and she’s the annoying DIL but on balance (balance being the operative word) I can’t see what the PR point is. They both seem entirely normal and the status quo is maintained.

This 'leak' establishes that it wasnt Charles who made the racist / unconscious bias comment

So the court of king Camilla benefits from a bit of distraction
Camillas PR has been on overdrive recently and the soft soap hasn't worked , in fact it has constantly reminded people of how they both treated Diana
What is next in the PR handbook? If you can't pull yourself up , pull someone else down
Who is it pulling down ? Who ever made the remark .
Who was that ?
William - either he was clueless or he thought he was funny . He can't be nakedly racist can he ?

KP and BP are briefing constantly against each other these days

Meghan's statement seemed less calm and measured than usual . It reeked of 'I'm done with this dysfunctional family , leave me TF out of it '

I'm not sure people have any interest left for this lot but real big brain thinking would leak the name of whoever made the remark closer to the con a nation
Even BP may now see the anointing of Camilla as a difficult moment so forget about glorifying her more - this works to distract

Ugh
Someone on another thread said 'show me where there is propaganda in the UK!'
Where to start

@StormzyinaTCup I agree with you with regard to point 2, never a truer word spoken.

One thing I'm left certain of is that the rf needs an in-house NDA'd up the eyes, sworn to secrecy therapist in house or ''in-palace'' on a permanent basis. The money spent, it'd be small-fry, 100k a year?

My own family dynamics appal me but at least nobody cares. My family has scapegoated me and has reacted defensively to the tiniest bit of feedback. My mother hasn't written a book about how shit I am but she has smeared me to all the relatives. I went to therapy and it helped. Of course, the people causing the pain never go to a therapist, but if they all grew up checking in with a therapist from a young age, it'd do them the world of good. They deserve access to a therapist growing up in that fishbow/marrying in to that fishbow.

This 'leak' establishes that it wasnt Charles who made the racist / unconscious bias comment

^ yes.
Could also be a threat from Meghan to reveal who made the hyperbole comment as a negotiation tactic related to the coronation. It would have been William, Kate or Camilla. Or Prince Philip / QE.

They already said it wasn't Philip or the late Queen.

This 'leak' establishes that it wasnt Charles who made the racist / unconscious bias comment

Not in my link it doesn't.
Was their something more specific in the full article in the Telepgraph?

Indeed @skullbabe The story at least blows apart the falsehood that Meghan and Harry lied.

It is also clear that the leak did not come from the Sussexes.

There was lots of guff in the story about Harry being homesick
and planning to spend more time in the UK, and about the Sussexes being
offended that their kids were being treated as second class compared to the
Wales kids.

Any discerning reader would question why Meghan would plant a
story that is guaranteed to lead to negative speculation about her marriage.
Intelligent readers would also question why, given her access to friendly US
outlets, she would leak to the Telegraph.

I don't think it came from Buckingham Palace, it is not in
Charles or Camilla's interest to rehash this race wow two weeks from the day
they have been planning and dreaming about.

I think the leak came from Kensington Palace.

The "Meghan is the leaker" allegation was amplified
on Twitter by three pro-KP journalists, Valentine Low, who leaked the bullying
story given to him by Kensington Palace, Emily Andrews who famously wrote the false "Meg Commandments" story, and Richard Palmer of the Express who
can make 20 negative articles in one day out of Meghan blinking once.

All three used strikingly similar wording in their tweets,
suggesting they were responding to the same talking points.

there

It’s interesting to speculate on what was going on behind the scenes. All we really know for sure - the article was published. A series of amendments were then made to the text. The Sussexes released a statement.

How does the speculation fit the parties’ respective positions I wonder. My thoughts on the case for or against.

The Sussexes
We know that despite what their fans say, they have good links into the Telegraph. Harry gave an interview with Bryony Gordon earlier this year, for example, and happily posed for a photo with her outside their house.
The story came out two weeks before the coronation, and revived the “there’s a Royal Racist” narrative which Harry had previously backtracked on in his Spare interviews.
The article gave Meghan another justification for not attending the coronation besides prioritising Archie’s birthday.
The article was published on all platforms with comments disabled (not the norm for the Telegraph).
The article, which will 100% have been cleared by the Telegraph’s legal team, went out with statements of Meghan’s personal views included, without attribution (i.e. it’s not “A close friend says the Duchess still believes…” , it’s “The Duchess believes…”). This obviously made it through the legal checks < this bit is particularly interesting!
Several journalists believe the story came from Team Sussex and say so at the time.
A letter is sent by the Sussexes’ lawyers (we don’t know how many, or to whom)
Some changes are made to the article, but there is no comment as to why the article was changed, or at whose request.
The Sussexes put out a statement.
One of the journalists who said it was Meghan refers to lawyers letters (and such interesting references!) and then says it seems his assumption was wrong.

The Windsors
The Palace is right in the middle of a carefully planned build up to the Coronation and the day the article had come out the focus was on commemorating QEII’s birthday. Hard to see why they wanted to add a story about correspondence with the Sussexes into the mix just now.
They already knew Meghan wasn’t attending the Coronation. Presumably, they also know what, if any, discussions went on behind the scenes, and saw no reason to formally comment on why she wasn’t coming. It’s not clear why they would think they need to explain her reasons further.
I cannot see any reason why the Palace wants to the revive the Royal racist narrative right before the biggest event of the year for them (and particularly given that Harry recently did them a big favour by telling the world the Sussexes weren’t alleging they were racist).
A letter is sent by the Palace’s lawyers, and again, some changes are made to the article but we don’t know why or at whose request.
The Palace have said nothing about the matter.

Also worth noting - we know from Meghan’s court case that both the Sussexes are happy to not tell the truth in order to be able to say that things have nothing to do with them.

The other argument I have seen being made on this thread is that the Telegraph made this whole thing up. We are not talking about the Express here, however. And, given lawyers on both sides have apparently been involved and the story is still up, it’s clear it’s not fictitious. So someone must have given them the details of the correspondence.

So - we have one side that has no clear reasons to want to leak this, and the other that has plenty, and now gets the chance to reframe their “Poor us, so persecuted by the evil British press” narrative right before a big royal event that they won’t be centre stage at.

Baffling, I know to work out what might have happened here… 😀

@MrsMaxDeWinter yes that's what this thread is about, questioning who did it and why.
I'm trying to keep an open mind but I must say I'm finding the leak being from KP a bit of a stretch at the moment.

Also, I don't think it blows anything apart at the moment.

Intelligent readers would also question why, given her access to friendly US
outlets, she would leak to the Telegraph.

Intelligent readers will know about the Bryony Gordon connection and that a UK broadsheet big story will give them a lot more coverage in the UK two weeks out from the Coronation in the UK

👍@Serenster to your posts.
Yes, The Telegraph is the U.K. paper of choice for The Sussexes.

I thought "the royals are racist" had been put to bed? Harry told Tom Bradby in the tv interview that neither he nor Meghan had said that, it was the British press. Meghan says that the skin colour remark was not malicious.

This is well thought out

Honestly it is no wonder the UK is in the state it's in when this is how our head of state behaves

The 'royals ' are a dead hand on growth because they show it does matter how clever you are - it's accident of birth that matters
But all this briefing and back stabbing - such a dysfunctional family writ large over society can only be bad news

And it’s also been said by others that the article makes it extremely unlikely that it was Charles either (unsurprisingly - if the article came from the Sussexes they will want to make sure the person who holds the purse strings isn’t implicated).

So given it also made clear that it was a “Senior Royal” who made the comment, that means for many people the key suspects will now be Camilla, William and Kate. Therefore the person who is willing to bet that it was William/Kate’s PR team to have leaked this stuff is unlikely to be correct. Or, their PR is galactically stupid!

galactically stupid😁I like that.

So sick of M. The divorce will be spectacular.