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

Photo shopping is fine to give a few touch-ups, nobody is saying otherwise.

Comments I have hard infer that the whole photo is fabricated. It isn’t real.

Nobody was touching up a few rough edges to make it look nicer…..the suspicion is that the whole photo is a lie.

Just four separate photos (1 of each of the children and one of Kate) mashed together to portray a happy family but it’s not real.

I don’t particularly believe that and there are so many rumours going around that it’s hard to keep on top of them or make sense of them.

I do believe that something is amiss though and I just hope that Kate is okay.

@Grosshesselohe Harry's head looks massive on that photo!

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

I did but on another thread. 😆

All this absolute bollocks over a child's cuff.

But the OP's newfound love and respect for the Murdoch press should be enough for us all.

Well said, Cheeseball.

Here's some more detail from NBC News, which further illustrates the extent to which this is KP's PR gone bad:

"Before Kensington Palace’s explanatory social media post, NBC News had requested comment from the household without reply.

An NBC News analysis of the photo suggests at least two inconsistencies where manipulation of the image appears to have occurred.

The first is a misalignment between Charlotte’s cardigan and left wrist, which bears the hallmarks of the “clone stamp” tool featured on many types of photo editing software.
This allows photo editors to take part of an image and copy it over to another area, and is often used to clean up an unwanted detail.
The second apparent inconsistency is behind Louis’ right knee, where there is a break in the line of the wall.
Here it appears the same clone stamp tool might have been used, perhaps an attempt to clean up the young prince’s trouser line. In using this method, the editor might not have noticed the impact it appears to have had on another part of the image.
The photo’s metadata — code embedded within the picture that gives details of how it was taken — shows that it was captured using an “EFS50mm” lens. This shows that this was not a smartphone photo, but instead one taken with a single-lens reflex camera, or SLR, made by the manufacturer Canon.
It also shows the aperture, which is the amount of light let through by the lens, which in this instance would have given the photo a very narrow field of focus.
This would explain why some aspects of the image appear soft and even slightly blurry.
Far from any nefarious plot, photography experts said the photo may simply have been edited to circumvent the challenge of getting three kids to sit still and smile all at the same time.
But the kill notice put out by the photo agencies is nonetheless a rare and serious step.
"When this picture initially dropped in hit all our social media channels, everyone just breathed a sigh of relief because here was Catherine looking beautiful and healthy and happy and clearly recovering well," said NBC News royal contributor Katie Nicholl.
"But within hours of that image coming out, four international press picture agencies decided to kill that image," she told NBC's "TODAY." "I certainly can't remember this ever happening in my career as a royal correspondent."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/princess-kate-photo-manipulated-conspiracy-theories-rcna142714

I get no fangirl stuff haha, quite the opposite in fact!
I am amused at prefect like manner though!

My feeling is that if the photo was substantially faked due to some dire reason, it would be an extreme measure and thus have been produced/artificed with considerably more care than the one we're talking about.

No room for cock up when some will be satisfied with nothing less than conspiracy, though.

Have we all seen the statement ‘C’ has posted explaining she experimented with editing?

Well quite.

Im tempted to have a shot at editing too.

All this absolute bollocks over a child's cuff

Thats about the size of it 😁

@TallerSally An NBC news photo analysis🤣🤣. We have travelled so far into ‘over-reactionville’ now that I don’t know whether to laugh or be seriously concerned about those that walk among us.

I think we could all have some fun ‘editing’ that photo. She had kind of asked for it…

Oh I won’t be editing that photo….

FFS. So a bit of a cuff of a child, and a bit behind the leg of a child. It's not exactly some sort of major scandal is it? Not exactly saying that the woman in the picture is William's new squeeze, and he's photoshopped his dead wife's head onto the picture, is it? Fucking hell, the swivel eyed loons must think it's Christmas come early that the press is issuing "kill" notices and foaming at the mouth about a family snapshot. I'm looking forward to their full review of their back catalogue of Kim Kardashian's arse and Prince Harry's full head of hair. And please, I don't ever want to hear about the royals having control of the press after this lunacy. The press are a law unto themselves, and clearly fucked off that all they have to report on at the moment is some second grade self publicity from the Sussexes. Clearly word salad isn't a very filling meal. Seems they can't live without a full diet of Catherine. Pathetic.

The best thing I've read in the past few days!👏

Extraordinary that the POW's getting the blame.....

Incidentally, @StickyWickets, you don't seem to understand about how the picture agencies work.

@AlbertoDilemma ‘And please, I don't ever want to hear about the royals having control of the press after this lunacy.’

Agree.

And also no more bs that Kate doesn't get tons of hate on here, she clearly does.

And also, let’s also leave behind the crap that posters are brainwashed by the ‘right wing media’ and ‘daily fail’ if they don’t have the ’acceptable’ opinions about Harry and Meghan, the right wing media has been pedalled out too frequently now, demonstrating they’re acceptable, as long as they can used to bash Kate. Funny how certain posters have lost their disdain and aversion to it. It’s obvious who is really obsessed with the media and what’s being done here.

Oh Christ, ANOTHER conspiracy theory incoming....

That was to @CurlewKate

She released a statement apologising for the confusion caused by her amateur photoshopped image. To some extent it is her fault but only as far as she isn't a professional.

There is nothing they can do to do the rumours and this hasn't helped but I suspect even a perfect image would still have provoked rumours.

I feel really sorry for Kate. She's tidied up a picture of her and her kids to make it look better and it's now being ripped apart and analysed by the world's media. Clearly there are people who are determined to believe there's an underlying story and don't want to believe what they're being told.

I feel sorry for her. I think she's had the abdominal surgery we were told about - probably a hysterectomy - is recovering and we'll see her back at work after Easter, as promised. Imagine her having to go through all this while she's trying to get better.

All this absolute bollocks over a child's cuff.

Couldn't give a shit about photoshopping a child's cuff. The line through Kate's chest is a different matter though...

Maybe William chopped her in half and balanced the top of her body on the bottom hoping nobody would notice?