THE TIMES: Where is Kate? The royal family attracts more speculation by the day

[TallerSally]

On today's front page, the Times' Kate Mansey reports on the contrasting approaches taken by KP and BP's comms teams in their handling of the extraordinary situation the RF's currently in. It kicks off with the current host of the US's Daily Show (formerly hosted by the formidable Jon Stewart) asking some questions:

"While the King hosted friends and met world leaders, the Palace’s reluctance to comment on the Princess of Wales’s condition has created a rising sense of panic
One of America’s most popular TV comedy programmes was asking the question that had captured the nation. It was not about the Super Tuesday primary contests ahead of the US elections, or the State of the Union address, which elicited an exaggerated yawn from the presenter.

Instead, The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng turned to look straight into the camera to ask: “Where is Kate Middleton? Where are you, Kate?”

There was no rush to provide reassurance this week from the Prince of Wales, who appeared to begin his working week on Friday with a visit to the Oval cricket ground for his Earthshot environmental campaign. Aides said that William had been busy all week, just not in a way that was visible to the public.

The King was doing the opposite. Away from public duties on doctors’ orders while he undergoes cancer treatment, the monarch had been expected to take this week as scheduled time off. Despite being told to “slow down” by the Queen, who took her own advice and flew to sunnier climes for a few days of relaxation, the King was ramping up.

He was photographed meeting world leaders and ambassadors from his living room at Buckingham Palace. Away from the cameras, he hosted friends who rallied round for afternoon tea and dinner dates. He insisted on the “more public” option of travelling between Buckingham Palace and his more comfortable private quarters at Clarence House in the State Bentley, so that he could “be seen”. Quite what the Queen made of it all from her sun lounger is anyone’s guess, but there are those in the palace who have an idea."

A tongue-in-cheek piece, but raises some interesting questions: have KP messed up the comms around Kate? and William? What is really going on with them? Why is the Royal family-funding public kept in the dark for so long, when usually not a couple of days go by without us having some nicely staged photo of some kind from Kensington Palace?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/where-is-kate-prince-william-king-charles-cancer-khktpx9bm

Indeed. From The Independent:

"Sixth major picture agency pulls Mother’s Day photo of Kate

PA has become the sixth major picture agency to pull the first official photo of the Princess of Wales since she underwent abdominal surgery.

In an advisory, it said the image is being removed “in the absence of clarification from Kensington Palace on the veracity of the image”.

The BBC has at least confessed that it simply lifted the image from the Wales’ instagram page to use. If the other agencies did that too - everyone wants it NOW to run their stories etc - and they then discover it was edited by Kate prior to it being put on their insta, well that’s entirely their cock up and nothing to do with the Palace.

The really sad thing is that those who want to believe the worst will just move onto another conspiracy theory.

Press have decades of poor behavior behind them they exist to sell their ware to the public - none on that is new. Press and public interest in Royals is nothing new - though social media is an added complication.

But all this is why people employ PR people to protect themselves manage the press and get ahead of stories or control them - which frankly clearly isn't happened here.

It was clear before photo it would be heavily scrutinised - so in event discrepancies were found and blown up there should have been a PR response in place ready to go or to for once avoid heavy editing and avoid any issues this once and kill the existing stories.

So while I initially thought TallerSally didn't have much of a point - and it was all desperate press and social media blow up - today's events do show the Wales being let down by their own PR team.

X-posts - I think they should have issued that with photo or immediate the agencies with drew photo.

I think PR should have stopped them walking into this issue entirely - I don't think the Wales have done anything wrong but do think their PR team isn't as good as you'd expect.

The agencies aren't shit stirring or making the news. If they had evidence that the picture was not news-is that it wasn't taken when it was supposed to be then they would lose all credibility.

It does show, if there are all these glaring obvious issues with the photo, that the media were more interested in the race to be first to grab it from the wales’ instagram and get it on their platform than doing any checks in the first place given none of them originally picked up any problems

The photo was issued by Kensington Palace, not grabbed by news agencies from Kate's instagram.

I must say throwing Kate under the proverbial bus is a new and unusual strategy for KP...

Given the bbc have admitted taking it from Instagram I highly doubt they were alone

Apparently some agencies took the photo from Instagram others waited for the official release of the same photo.

@MaturingCheeseball It's strictly against TG to copy and paste or screenshot bits of another MNers post (@TallerSally) from one thread onto another.

I've had it done to me even once from a post 5 years old. It's unpleasant

Yet more theories about the Princess of Wales? She is in a coma as her Brazilian butt lift went wrong so the Palace are issuing statements on her behalf now?

Ah, but that’s just saying that the act of copying a post is “unpleasant” - not addressing the fact that this poster is wading in to attack Kate on a frequent basis whilst applauding Meghan speaking out against hate on social media !

Exactly who is unpleasant here?

I blame Anne Boleyn as she started it all with editing her sixth finger off.

I am not talking about the content. I am not getting into personal attacks on posters.

I am saying what you have done is against TG. I did explain it thoroughly in my post

What is TG? Is it like FAQs?

Oh wait I see it down below. Apologies.

As @arcanewireless has pointed out elsewhere: since when was photoshopping such an issue?

I've had a look at TG and can't see this rule - am I being dense?

It appears to me that the media are huffing because they didn't do the editing and photoshop themselves! 🤣

There used to be something called Mumsnet Royalty - frequent posters who ruled the roost and inspired some silly fangirl stuff.

Please, Roussette, do not address me in this high-handed prefect-like manner. I pointed out that a poster was a hypocrite. A quite nasty hypocrite. I very much doubt whether you would have reprimanded anyone who copied a post supporting your chosen “side”.

It's not just photoshop, it is about adding a person that wasn't there.

I am all for people appearing exactly how they are in every image @Grosshesselohe

But if images must be fichered with? Criticise everyone who does it.

Just more (increasingly desperate!) attempts to derail away from the topic of this thread, copied again below:

"On today's front page, the Times' Kate Mansey reports on the contrasting approaches taken by KP and BP's comms teams in their handling of the extraordinary situation the RF's currently in. "

The topic is of sufficient interest to have generated close to 800 posts in a few days on this thread alone (and there are others). The discussion has remained relatively controlled, as these threads go. Would be great to keep it that way.

Back on topic: I'm haven't heard many people congratulating KP on their clever PR strategy this morning...