The royals and Dan Wootton: Byline Times part 1 of 3-year investigation into how Wootton got information about the royal family

[queentim]

Following their series about the Crisis in British Journalism and MediaToo movement, Byline Times reporters have recently released the first report of the 3 year investigation into the link between the royals and (disgraced) TV presenter Dan Wootton.

The first report reveals how Charles and William were angered that Harry refused to remove the name of an aide (William's aide in Kensington) who was paid cash to leak stories about his wife Meghan, and son Archie. This included investigations by the Met.

As a result, Charles removed the $700,000 granted to support them, which would have seen Harry and Meghan living in Canada and representing the Queen, in an effort to bring them back to the UK by exposing their location in Canada and removing their security. This was the collapse of the 'Sandringham Agreement', which resulted in the signing of the Sussexes media deals.

Some highlights, but can be bought for £3.6:

▪ It followed news that a partner of a key aide to Prince William received £4,000 from The Sun allegedly for stories about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex when Wootton was executive editor.

▪ The Metropolitan Police looked into the alleged leaking but could not go to a judge for a warrant to search royal staff property without knowing the identity of the whistle-blowers.

▪ Two internal royal investigations followed – one involving Simon Case, who is today the embattled head of the civil service facing questions over the Government’s response to the pandemic.

▪ Byline Times has uncovered new photographic evidence of Wootton, the aide and the aide’s partner at a lavish private birthday party Wootton threw for his close friends in a £1,675-a-night hotel suite.

▪ Prince Harry sent formal ‘letters before action’ detailing the claims about Wootton and the palace to News UK.

▪ When the aide’s name was not removed from the legal letters, the Sussexes were cut adrift financially and left unable to protect themselves despite having a security threat level equal to the monarch.

▪ The royal household had thought the threat of exposure would force Harry and Meghan to return to the UK, where their profile could be controlled preventing them from eclipsing the future King

Exploding ‘Megxit’: How Dan Wootton and a Cash-for-Leaks Scandal Split the Monarchy

Hmm.
Is anyone else familiar with the well known ‘ accurate but misleading ‘ concept ?
Its used a lot in PR .

So for example , you state something that is true and hope it allows you to skate over the rest of the relevant detail that you have omitted .

So any thoughts on Tom Latchem the other journalist who has CO-AUTHOURED the report ?

If anyone is interested in ‘accurate but misleading ‘ there is an example earlier in this thread where some v relevant detail is again , omitted

I think all these arguments will become redundant anyway. Harry and Meghan will get less interesting to the general public as the weeks and months go by. People that love or hate them will still be interested but everyone else no.
even now their antics are lower down the daily mail page and they will just be on the side bar in a year or two.
which is apparently what they want so in that respect their strategy has worked and they’ll get to lead their quiet lives.
the children as they become young adults will be interesting to the public and I think Harry has to watch for this but the general public do not even know what they look like so will not be invested in them as much.
Harry has also been successful in this so for that he is to be commended imo.

Dirty deals done with the tabloids to boost ‘royals ‘ will never be irrelevant

Is anyone else familiar with the well known ‘ accurate but misleading ‘ concept ?
Its used a lot in PR .

Maybe. Is that like when Meghan’s lawyers, having combed through The Times’ story on her bullying staff for several days before it was published, released a statement decrying it as a nasty smear, but didn’t actually deny it?

its strange how media stories that paint H&M in a bad light are seen as true. media stories that paint W or KC in a bad light are misleading/or worse.

@serenster
So you are saying the bullying staff story is true ?
Have we seen that report ?

I suspect that if there was no truth in the bullying report , it would have been leaked by the Sussex camp .

I was just asking if the statement was an example of a PR “accurate but misleading” statement, Novella.

There was no report at the time of the statement made by Meghan’s lawyers, just the reported allegations from former employees in The Times, plus of course the fact that a formal complaint about it had been made at the time by one of her senior staff. Those are the allegations that weren’t denied - but plenty of readers did not pick that up from the carefully worded stately of course.

(And of course I haven’t seen the report. Have you?)

Then no @Serenster the example you gave was not an example of ‘accurate but misleading ‘

Im surprised to see you defending whistblowers.
You stated baldly and repeated that in your opinion ‘many whistleblowers are motivated by malice and revenge ‘
Is that the case with the Meghan bullied me’ reports ?

If you state that a committee approves ‘royal’ security but decline to detail that said commitee is stuffed with ‘royal’ household members and more importantly that decisions are all based on a report drawn up by a secretive ‘royal’ committee - that is an example of ‘accurate but misleading ‘

You stated baldly and repeated that in your opinion ‘many whistleblowers are motivated by malice and revenge ‘

”Many whistleblowers are motivated by malice and revenge” is absolutely true. It is also true that many whistleblowers are completely accurate and raise valid concerns. There is no inconsistency whatsoever here.

In this case, given the details that were made public and the corroborative evidence that is also public, some direct and some circumstantial, I think these allegations are more likely than not true. Others will doubtless disagree.

Do you think that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as Harry and Meghan like to refer to themselves, should be provided with security then? Because it is only due to the fact that they are “royal”. as you like to put it, that they had security on the first place 🤷‍♀️

I’m interested inthe truth @smilesy
And as I’m sure you are well aware - in my opinion NO-ONE is ‘royal’
Its a lie .
And it’s time the ‘royal’ blight was lifted .
The UK need a fresh start
Nothing to stop individuals supporting them financially of course .
There are plenty of deluded souls who would

That’s not misleading though. The whole point of a decision-making Committee is that they make collective decisions. No-one feels the need to specify the individual members of, say, COBR or Cabinet or the board of a company when reporting on decisions made by them. In all those cases it is obviously also clear that the committees are made up of various individuals acting as members. So the references are both accurate and in line with standrad practice.

Your point I suppose is that you think all references to the decisions made by Ravec should make it clear that, in your option, its decisions must be biased because of its composition. That’s a completely different issue (and is of course a wholly subjective viewpoint).

Precisely

Interesting peice from opendemocracy about what they refer to as two dying institutions:

"“The relationship of the institution to the tabloid media,” he said “is of public interest”.

It’s more than that. It’s at the very core of Britain.

[...]

Without Lord Rothermere and Rupert Murdoch regularly giving them front-page news, who would care about the exploits of Charles, Camilla, William and Catherine? Some people, sure. But many fewer. Like Dutch or Danish monarchs, they would be a curiosity rather than an obsession.

But the print media is in the midst of its own crisis. With advertising revenue collapsing towards the social media giants over the last decades, and fewer and fewer people buying physical papers, they, too, are desperate for relevance, desperate to squeeze ever more stories out of the dysfunctional family at the centre of the community they imagine into being every morning.

[...]

We can’t understand the central question of British politics – why does England vote Tory perhaps more consistently than any other nation on earth votes for a party? – without starting to think about the conjoined mass of monarchy, class, empire, and the British press. We won’t really change Britain until we get serious about abolition."

The monarchy and media are trapped in a mutually dependent relationship

That doesn’t explain the non-British press interest in the Royal family though. Nor the engagement through other means - Kate’s piano playing in the opening montage of Eurovision having more than 10m views on the BBCs Eurovision Instagram, the Prince and Princess of Wales’ instagram having 14.9m followers, The Good the Bad and the Rugby podcast featuring the Waleses having 2.5m views on YouTube, for example. Or the sales of Spare and viewing figures for Meghan and Harry’s Netflix documentary.

Or just the huge amount of content out there about them that the Royals themselves have nothing to do with - creators using blogs/instagram/tik tok etc to discuss what they are doing/wearing/involved in etc.

Yes. There was focus on the boots Camilla was wearing when she fed a baby elephant yesterday on the Lorraine show today. It’s because they’re the royal ‘family’. We feel we know them and some people love this sort of trivial detail. Of course republicans love to say it’s a dying institution because they wish it would bloody die. 🤣

But they aren't paying for them they don't have to be concerned about holding them to account for their actions, all they have to do is stare at them like they are watching a real life Disney film. No other country actually wants them.

‘No other country wants them’. What does this mean? Charles had a great reception in recent visits to France and Germany.

This is why I'd like to see a really comprehensive breakdown of the budget and how much is used for crown estate and archive building maintenance and staff costs associated with that compared to how much facilitates the working royal's engagements and separately what covers the core royal living expenses.

I'm what I'd call monarchist-lite - I like having a constitutional monarchy for various reasons but I'd be open to an alternative head of state option.

What's important to me is the preservation and stewardship of the crown estate lands, historical buildings, archives and art collections, and that that would continue to be protected in the event of a republic. So I'd be interested in the being able to identify what the current and future budget needs are for that.

Spot on. Very well said.

No other country actually wants them.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand and another 11 or countries still have them as Head of State, despite this being entirely up to those nations to decide. And yes, in those countries there are, like here, republican movements, but in many of the realms they have not yet garnered the necessary popular support to change their constitutions (I fully expect they will in time, but for now the majority is happy with the status quo).

A lot of non-British interest is also surely down to the fact that we’ve had a relatively stable monarchy for such a long time (apart from the Interregnum of course). That they are still trundling in the 21st century is both impressive and something of a curiosity. And they are inextricably intertwined into our history.