The Prince and the Press: Continuing the Discussion on Prince Harry and the UK Media

[MrsMaxDeWinter]

A few weeks ago, there were three really great long running threads about Prince Harry and his battles against the UK "popular press."

I thought I would do one that looks at Harry's current court action.

For those interested in the kind of balanced view you won't get from the tabloids, all of whom face conflicts of interest, here is the Guardian take, which is the springboard for this discussion.

It is not possible to take any of the tabloids seriously when they report on Harry's legal cases. Former editor Alan Rusbridger, now of Prospect, has observed that all tabloids covering this story are acting unethically as they have not declared their conflicts of interest: Harry is suing all of their media houses.

The only papers with no conflict of interest are the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Financial Times.

So I will be following this from the Guardian live page.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/04/diana-meghan-and-the-tabloid-press-harry-finally-gets-his-day-in-court

Or was it the hotel revelations that sent you all off ? Not such a happy ending in Montecito?

You have to stay, you have a RESPONSIBILITY to ME. 😁

Haha .. is involved?! If so... I'm in!

So I don't understand the hacking comments. I know people got sidetracked a bit about the op, but who's hijacked the thread?

There are several posters on this thread who you may notice are not posting on the other thread but a few from that thread have made their way over on about page 3 - that is the point the thread started to turn. Anyway - I agree we should keep the case in our sights.

But the outcome of this will have impact on how they work no matter the subject or political affiliation.

They are all watching as they will all be impacted.

So I don't understand the hacking comments. I know people got sidetracked a bit about the op, but who's hijacked the thread?

only hijacking I saw: the op posting under another name which isn’t allowed. And apparently communicating they had been banned. But then how could they post if they had been banned? Unless they have more than one account/device - which again, is v weird and questionable.

It will also affect MGN credibility and readership numbers depending on the outcome of the case. All journalists are invested in knowing the outcome of a case concerning media tactics.

Plus journalists move from one title to another all the time. I know some people confuse an editorial position with a journalist's own politics but, on the whole, most journalists are left-leaning politically.

the op posting under another name which isn’t allowed. And apparently communicating they had been banned. But then how could they post if they had been banned? Unless they have more than one account/device - which again, is v weird and questionable

very shady behaviour

Wow. That's pretty naughty and def against talk guidelines.

Hi folks

This thread is getting derailed with personal remarks about posters.
Please can we ask that it stays on track? If not, then we may need to take it down.

-"A book was written with the cooperation of James Hewitt in 1994, outlining the timeline. " Harry was 10
James Hewitt wrote a book in 1999, saying the affair happened,after Harry's birth. He was 15
His own mother wrote a book in 1992 saying that the, affair started after Harry's birth. He was 8
Hewitt did an interview with the Sunday Mirror saying the affair started after Harry was born.
It's been recounted in articles and tv programmes numerous times.
How could he not have known til he was 30?-"

As a child, he would have been protected where possible and wouldn't have read those things. Perhaps for a while later he followed the family line not to read anything written about them? Perhaps nobody actually sat him down properly and said, in so many words, "they hadn't even met? Perhaps he thought it was true up till then?

Despite the books/articles you mentioned, many people in this country STILL express the belief Hewitt is his father. How could they miss all of them?

Please do not take it down, that's probably what some are hoping for.

It will definitely affect all of their credibility - interesting all round.

Is Harry back on again tomorrow? Or will they be calling other witnesses?

I’m not sure how this will go well for Harry. As pp said, how do you get evidence about murky sources from 20 years ago? I can’t see there being enough evidence for things to go in his favour. The government need the tabloids so it’s not in their interest to come down hard on them with regulation even if they behave immorally. I just don’t see what good this will do and hope Harry can cope with the fallout if it doesn’t go his way

I'm posting on both. Because each point out interesting facts not on the other. I don't agree with everything on either thread. I hope people don't feel I've hijacked or subverted anything.
At the moment, I think he has a fair chance of winning based on the previous history of hacking.

I know you are on both threads but you certainly not subverting nor hijacking. We'll see how it goes - we have 7 weeks of this!

I mean, will Mirror readers be turning away from the paper in their thousands if it's found guilty of hacking Harrys phone? It sounds unlikely to me.

But he hasn't said it was Bolland has he? If he did concede that that story may not have come from phone hacking it is just left in the air isn't it, it might be phone hacking or it might be the Palace but presumably other people knew he was using drugs. Doing it at parties or with friends, who knows if someone took a backhander and sold their story. What about the drug dealer, hardly a pillar of the community and he could have sold the story if he was offered enough.

It is all very vague.

Thank you for that. 🙂 I'll have finished with this case long before 7 weeks. Lol. It's not particularly riveting stuff, is it?
I'll probably return when the result is in and people are being horribly smug or frothing at the mouth! Hehe.
Actually it's very nice to have two threads where people can post without getting into people's faces. It just feels nice and calm. A bit like early versions of Big Brother before the producers had to spice it up with putting in people to deliberately clash.

Someone up post made the point that once the celebrities stop testifying the media will stop reporting the trial. I think most people would agree that the tabloids hound people, are intrusive and play an endless games of heroes/villains to sell papers. Reading these threads has made me wonder how we can bring change to the tabloid culture? Leveson did change it a bit but so much more is needed, the list or ordinary people who were hacked is dreadful (not in anyway saying the famous should be hacked just that I think it is even more devastating to people outside celebrity culture)

Anyone got any ideas?

I think the most obvious but least likely to happen is that the public changes their behaviour and stops buying or clicking on the tabloids and other media we know are too intrusive, both legally and illegally.

Tbh I suspect it will make absolutely no difference… if MGN lose they can say it all happened years ago and people will continue to buy the papers. If they win… well nobody here is suddenly going to switch and say “oh I see MGN have done nothing wrong, I am sorry to have besmirched their reputation, Harry was not as persecuted as I thought” - people will just say they won on a technicality or something.

Despite the claims of a few people trying to justify past posts that were deleted, I don't thing the two threads differ much.

Both agree Harry has been targeted all his life by the tabloids. For some of that time it was both unethical and illegal, at other 'just' (not acceptably) unethical. And some of the time ethical as someone in the public eye, as an adult putting information out into the public domain.

His current court case seeks to prove that specific articles were illegal, and so far the 'evidence' is circumstantial and questionable.