"They don't just report the news, they create it": on Meghan, Harry and the Press

[MrsMaxDeWinter]

The much trumpeted story of the Dior deal is such a classic tabloid creation, isn't it.

I enjoyed this Grazia article that lays bare the utter nuttiness.

First the tabloids report the rumours as though they are true.

"Meghan to sign with Dior!"

No sources, just speculation based on Meghan and Harry wearing clothes by Dior a handful of times.

Then when both the Sussexes and Dior report that the rumours are not true, (Dior spokesperson said they are "nonplussed" about where the rumours came from) they spin it into "Meghan Rebuffed by Dior!"

This has also happened with Meghan's much rumoured run for the presidency: Robert Jobson actually wrote, with a straight face, in his book published in April 2023, that she was absolutely, certainly and most definitely going to run for president in 2024.

I mean any critical person would realise that the timelines don't make sense, she would have needed a fundraising Super PAC by the time the book was published, and in any event, Democrats don't normally challenge a sitting president ... but hey ho, Meghan is running for president in 2024 because a "Royal Correspondent" said so (and they are so knowledgeable about the American presidency) and a tabloid published it.

And it's the same with The Tig. She is going to launch it any day now. She wants to rival Gwyneth Paltrow! Story after story, based on nothing but speculation.

Rumour after rumour, speculation published as "news" to create media stories about a woman whose plans are not known to the tabloids because she and her husband made it crystal clear even when they were in the UK that they don't engage with the tabloid press.

And there are no "palace sources" who can speak with any kind of plausibility about the Sussexes, so the tabloids make it up as they go along, whipping up headline after headline, driving their readers into a frenzy over things they create ...

While ignoring the important news, like the damning questions by the judge in the Mirror Group case, who asked why the journalists, among them Piers Morgan, have not come to court to testify in the phone hacking trial ...

Oh no, that's not as important to report on as Meghan's fictitious Dior deal, completely implausible rumours of her presidential ambitions, and the speculated upon plans to best Gwyneth Paltrow!

https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/in-the-news/meghan-markle-smear-campaign-dior-spotify-faking-interviews/

Arguing they deserved it, then?

How on earth anyone compares a whole cabal of corrupt government, tax paid, party to one woman who supports charities and gets no tax payer money is beyond me.

It's like asking me why I would name call Wayne Couzens.

And scum is actually mild compared to that article.

Anyway, you do you.

Read my comment again.

I am trying to think of anyone else who has taken a person they don;t like who is in the public eye, and written a violent humiliating sexual fantasy about them.

I was saying I can;t think of another writer/journo. I don't know of all the women you mention. I am aware of JK Rowlings abuse online. I am unaware of a journalist writing a violent humiliating fantasy about her in a prominent media outlet. I would welcome you telling me about that so I can avoid anything written by that person. I am aware of what Frankie Boyle did in a comedy routine, I momentarily forgot about it, Katie Price is on the receiving end of a lot of horrible online and media mistreatment. I think Clarkson's article is another level because of the reach/audience. I cannot think of another article like that, as I say its writing it and getting in published that is next level disturbing for me.

Once again, its these comparisons that are also part of the problem. A political party being referred to as scum, is not the same as Clarkson;s article.

Clarkson’s Shame article was legitimised. His editor approved it. It was published in a mainstream conservative newspaper. It was not just a nasty opinion.

Its been delegitimised now.

But Clarkson opened up his mind to us and his nasty little brain fell out. He’s shown us who he is. We should believe him.

id like to note that I don’t agree with any of the abuse aimed at JK Rowling. I don’t know the others but people shouldn’t be threatening women / if that’s what had been happening.

I agree with this, it's a really different thing to have a mainstream journalist in a mainstream newspaper (even the Sun) be allowed to publish a weird, sexualised and degrading fantasy about someone to any of the other examples, as wrong as they are too.

Roussette · Today 13:20
I apologise for being passive aggressive, I didn't mean to be.

That's o.k Rousette.

Should point out that I haven't read Clerkson's article, nor do I intend to. My opinion him is such that I wouldn't read/listen to him. I've had the misfortune of meeting him.
However, like all of us, he is allowed to express his opinion. And take the consequences

As far as I'm concerned, JC should have no audience at all and the fact he can be defended for thatarticle is gobsmacking.

I think that we who are on the RF board are obsessed with talking about the RF. The general public aren't. That's why I come on here because no one I know is really that interested. Yes, they laugh at and roll their eyes at the car chase, and Harry's court appearance and the grifters comment but they don't get more involved than that. It's just a snigger but not something they could give a conversation to. They just don't care or think about Harry and Meghan.
So whilst I don't doubt that people thought that Clarksons comments, whether a play in GoT or not, were over the top, most won't have read them or will have read them and rolled their eyes. People who like him and Top Gear and his anarchic ways won't not watch a programme because he wrote something nasty about Meghan Markle. We move on very quickly in this country. And probably more people like him than Meghan.
And with regards to it being different to attacking a political party with horrible language and an individual, I agree its very different. But the core of the issue is the same. We have reached a point where people feel comfortable saying horrible things because there's no censure for it. Indeed, they get applause for it. So, calling people you don't agree with 'scum' is just part of the downward cycle of society where people feel no necessity to act with propriety and respect. Anyone can say anything because it's what they feel. And that's how we get to Clarkson saying what he feels about Markle. Quite rightly there's kickback. But eventually there won't be. Because we'll be so inured to the nastiness of SM, it will just seem like normal everyday conversation.

People shouldn't be threatening anybody.

Thanks 😊

You honestly would have to read it to understand the massive outrage about it, and bottom line is...it wasn't an opinion piece, it was a mysogynistic, sexist, sex filled rant about someone he doesn't know, encouraging degrading violence on her by all the nation

I wish it ended his career because the consequences are really nothing and as I have said before the only reason he apologised, I feel, is because his daughter went publicly ballistic criticising him. The apology then followed

Nightlystroll · Today 16:21

I very much agree with what you've written in this post.

And yet two MPs have been casually murdered just for doing their jobs in the last decades. But somehow that’s unconnected to the dehumanising of them on partisan grounds being normalised and minimised, and even celebrated? They are the same. Los of people don’t like the comparison though.

Yes, there is a line between disagreeing with someone, and saying why, and dehumanising them. It is sad that some posters on these threads make assumptions about the motivations of others, rather than addressing their points. Accusations of misogyny, racism etc

Or, as pointed out on another thread, use a round up of unpleasant posts to try to deligitimise the comments of different posters (often on another thread completely)

Could you explain your last paragraph?

Quite!

No they shouldn’t. Obviously.

However media and social media have continued in, and added to, the long long history of bashing women, indeed they’ve amplified it. I’m wondering when we are going to reach peak Meghan bashing, as well as peak woman bashing?

Accusations of misogyny, racism etc

I frequent other boards and to be honest - this board is now well known as an area rife with bigotry. The are a few who actively push back against it but sometimes it’s relentless.

Yes absolutely.

Anyone read Hadley Freeman's latest column in The Times?

She appears from Twitter tit bits to have written the opposite about Meghan that she wrote when she was with the Guardian. See link below.

I like Hadley a lot, and I was gutted she left the Guardian, while understanding the reasons for her departure, and it is of course every woman's prerogative to change her mind, but I wonder if writing for a Murdoch outlet has anything to do with her change of mind about Meghan.

Don't go to the dark side Hadley!

If anyone has a share token, please share.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/09/no-wonder-harry-and-meghan-are-quitting-the-rightwing-press-and-their-families-left-them-no-choice

I haven't heard much about this writer, but I rarely feel the need to read The Times and shan't be giving Murdoch any clicks for her latest there.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/meghan-had-an-ocean-of-goodwill-and-drained-it-cqhc6s9zg

How weird that she slated 'the right wing press', in the first article, including this damning paragraph

Anyone who has been lucky enough to avoid being in an abusive relationship can, excitingly, experience that dynamic for themselves via the media’s reaction to Harry and Meghan. Thursday’s front pages were the newspaper equivalent of an abusive husband expressing shock that his wife has finally left him.

But now works at a right wing outlet and has the polar opposite view?

Do people not have the right to change their opinion? What’s the point of any political campaign, debate or even voting if you have to stay in your lane?

I changed my mind. I was very supportive of M&H, even when they announced they were stepping back. Then came SussexRoyal and the scales fell from eyes…