Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
The royal family
Original poster

As Prince Harry continues his battle against the British tabloids, a former NOTW reporter helps to expose them

30 replies

queentim · 12/10/2023 16:18

An 5 part exclusive series from Byline Investigates (some clippings from the most related and interesting parts:

"The only thing that mattered was getting the story, and the means always justified the ends. As has been well documented by now, people’s privacy was no obstacle, money was paid to public officials, thinly disguised blackmail was used at every opportunity, contracts were reneged on at the last minute, promises made and broken."

"The News of the World was as much part of popular culture as pop music, football and soap operas in the UK – and it set the story agenda.
After the paper came out on a Sunday, daily tabloids scrambled to follow-up on our stories, to hoover up any crumbs they could.

On a more sinister side, the paper had an extraordinary stranglehold over government and politics – mainly because it exercised a form of storytelling known as ‘blackmail model’ journalism.

The then New Labour administration was often very careful not to cross Murdoch’s interests, and MPs of all denominations feared speaking their mind in case their vices were spread across the pages of his papers.

If you’ve been following the long running ‘phone hacking’ cases at the High Court – including Prince Harry’s specific claim – you will note that my time there is slap bang in the middle of what’s known in legal terms as the ‘relevant period,’ which runs from 1995 to 2011.

This timespan, Prince Harry claims, was when the News of the World was most active in unlawful information gathering.
But more of that later.

As a reporter, I was under constant and extreme pressure from the newsdesk to both generate stories and stand them up.

Or, failing that, to pretty much make them up.

It was relentless and you were only as good as your last story. Bring in a splash on Sunday? Great. But what have you got on Monday?"

"In Part 2 of my series, I reveal how I worked on a dodgy front page story about Prince Harry, in a long-running and desperate attempt to link the teenage Royal to cocaine."

Confessions of a News of the World Reporter : Whistleblowing for Prince Harry

Confessions of a News of the World Reporter : Whistleblowing for Prince Harry – Byline Investigates

https://bylineinvestigates.com/2023/10/12/confessions-of-a-news-of-the-world-reporter-whistleblowing-for-prince-harry/

OP posts:
ALittleTeawithmilk · 19/10/2023 05:19

royalwatchewr · 17/10/2023 13:19

Personally, I take a dim view of any celeb who complains about the media while routinely using it to raise their profile/ promote their projects/ make lots of money. How many copies of Spare would Harry have sold without the media coverage? It's a transactional relationship.

Of course, victims of crime or other private individuals who have never sought press attention have every right to privacy.

Harry has had to deal with media intrusion all his life. Unasked for. Often misleading media. Sometimes outright lies. Plenty of it just made up, ‘with unnamed sources’ and ‘a friend of’ or my personal favourite, ‘unnamed palace source.’

But when Harry uses the media for his own purposes, taking some control, that’s somehow wrong?

(it reminds me of the old erroneous belief: that if you aren’t pure in your suffering, you aren’t really suffering)

Meanwhile the media is still intruding on Harry’s life but somehow that’s ‘fair’?

While they actively hope Harry will fall on his face. Meanwhile they pretend, and publish, that he is regularly falling on his face, fucking things up, blundering etc..

And don’t some people love to read about it.

And the media would still be intruding whether he used it or not.

Myneedycat · 21/10/2023 20:23

FishBowlSwimmer · 16/10/2023 02:05

Harry may well have some valid points. The press have behaved abominably and although they're not quite as bad as they used to be, the majority are not serious journalists reporting on matters of importance, but are instead gossip monger's looking to exploit anything or anyone they can for profit.

The reason why Harry gets little sympathy though is not because of what's written about him in the press, it's because of the things he has said himself on camera over the last few years. These are interviews he has had control over, no one has misrepresented him in these interviews. His whining about money, his entitlement and expectations are astounding to most people. No one owes him a living, no one owes him anything. If he wants a more private life he could achieve that easily by being less controversial. For all his complaints about the press he still hasn't figured out that he is feeding the interest in the personal aspects of his life by talking about his private relationships. Of course the press will exploit that, as wrong as it is, here we all are talking about him. It's a shame because he was once so popular, had so much good will from the public and sadly that's pretty much all gone. Bitterness isn't a good look on anyone, particularly when the story he tells changes all the time.

I started to dislike him when he betrayed his family on TV while his grandfather was dying. The accusation of racism (which he later backtracked on) didn't help either. He can't seem to understand that others have feelings too and that he has hurt his family at the worst possible times. It's all very sad.

When the people you purport to love are sick and dying you put your differences aside to support each other, you don't go telling tails to the press however valid your complaints are.

So very true.

PerkingFaintly · 21/10/2023 20:27

Just getting on this thread, as I followed the Leveson inquiry and am very interested in this.

JadeandGreen · 15/11/2023 22:51

EnoughIsay · 16/10/2023 05:19

The reason why Harry gets little sympathy from me - this is what you mean here I think. Because he gets a lot of sympathy from me and a lot of people I know.

I started to dislike him when he betrayed his family on TV while his grandfather was dying. I started to dislike his family when they did nothing to help him out. The press was going hell for leather for his new wife. His dad is good friends with the owner of the Daily Mail, his dads step son works there too, an ex editor of the DM is on his dads commms team. So easy enough to have a word no?
I would find that very hard to accept from my dad if DH was in the fire line.

I did watch him on TV. I did not see "betrayal". I saw a man talking about his life, setting his record straight.

He can't seem to understand that others have feelings too - crazy statement.

and that he has hurt his family at the worst possible times. See - in my point of view his family have shown themselves to be nasty, grasping, vindictive and petty.

A massive failure for King Charles. What is the point of him? He cannot even show enough leadership to get one of his two sons back in the family fold.

Show quote history

Excellent post! 👏

JadeandGreen · 15/11/2023 22:56

royalwatchewr · 17/10/2023 13:19

Personally, I take a dim view of any celeb who complains about the media while routinely using it to raise their profile/ promote their projects/ make lots of money. How many copies of Spare would Harry have sold without the media coverage? It's a transactional relationship.

Of course, victims of crime or other private individuals who have never sought press attention have every right to privacy.

Marriage is also a transactional relationship. Doesn't make it acceptable when it becomes abusive though.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread