Harry v. NGN

[Atlasvue]

Starting a thread for Tuesday.
This BBC article covers the basics. This is the last line ….
’Tuesday really is the beginning of the end. And someone is going to lose - and lose big.’

I have a feeling, that Harry won’t win but he just wants to use the public setting to air his grievances. A therapy session would have worked out much cheaper.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2l00xkgwnyo

I can't decide if you are taking the stance you are as part of your obvious ongoing hatred of Harry, or if you work for NGN and are posting in defence of them to muddy the waters

Totally your choice, @JoyousGreyOrca, though you'd be mistaken on both counts; though media trained I don't work for any of them, and while I certainly hate some of Harry's behaviour I can't actually do the same about someone I don't know

It's a rather lazy and tired trope used when someone points out inconvenient facts though, so probably best disregarded

Given NGN vehemently denied they did that today, and said Harry dropped that allegation, can we see this admission you refer to, please?

Just read that Harrys settlement was eight figures. So very substantial.

William did not bring about the Leveson enquiry!!
What an attempt to rewrite history.

Have you read the NGN second statement, I'm sure they did and much worse but there is no new admission of this just accusations

Well, the actual settlement will be confidential, so this is just speculation from the same despised 'British media'.

I'm sure it is a substantial sum, but Harry could have that months or even years ago, without wasting taxpayer funded resources.

I thought it wasn't about money but 'accountability'?

How do you know Harry got a much bigger settlement?
Has it been worth it ? All those years of angst? Flights back and forward ? Posturing about slaying dragons, holding people to account and proving that BP was in cahoots with the media to his detriment?
Apparently it wasn’t about money . Until it was .

Where did they do that?

Because according to their statement they haven't.

The previous NGN apology was made about phone hacking into voicemails. This apology is far more wide ranging.

He wanted the public apology.

Sure you should just let people walk all over you instead.

Of course Harry got a much bigger settlement. It was reported yesterday that he was offered at the last minute a massive settlement.

I’m not being pedantic. It’s not a win but a settlement whatever some may think. I’m sure the apology and no doubt large settlement figure will help but it’s not a win!

I hope now Harry has settled he finds some peace.

While Harry has been grandstanding about it not being about money, but about accountability. Until today, when he took the money.
But there’s a difference between taking the settlement to win money (making it about winning money), and taking the money to avoid bankruptcy (making it about not losing money). I think that’s an important distinction.

He’s got small children and a wife who’s unlikely to be employed again. He may have still wanted to slay dragons but NGN made an offer that rendered him unable to do so without ruining himself. Settling under those circumstances doesn’t mean he suddenly doesn’t give af about accountability or they finally named a price that made him go “Fuck the dragons, it’s all about the benjamins”; it means he has very little choice.

I didn’t say he did but his actions led to an investigation which resulted in the enquiry.

There’s an article here that explains it for you.,,,

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2240273/Prince-Williams-niggly-knee-Milly-Dowler-phone-hacking-7-years-led-Leveson-Inquiry.html

How much did William receive ? How many years did he have to wait ? How many long haul flights did he have to take ? How many millions did he spend on legal fees ?

Agreed - and I suspect that was one of his terms for settling.

I was just listening to The Media Show on Radio 4 and the first half of the programme were talking about the case. Quite a lot of admiration for Harry in bringing the case and shedding light on The Sun, which has never before admitted to using nefarious means to procure stories, but one witness, who was due to be called next Mon, was really disappointed that the case has been settled. He said that it's a massive shame that all the info will now not come out and be reported on unless there is an investigation (which he called for).

You are being totally pedantic. Being pedantic nobody won or lost at the case was not ruled as a win or loss by a judge in court.
Being non pedantic, NGN lost and Harry won a public apology and a very large settlement.

How do you know a public apology wasn't available months or even years ago?

In any case, you're rewriting history here.

From the article quoted by the OP.

This will be the first time that News Group Newspapers has had to defend itself against allegations that its journalists and executives across the whole organisation were involved in or knew about unlawful newsgathering techniques.

If it were to lose, and lose badly, a finding from the court of corporate-level wrongdoing would be in stark contrast to a longstanding defence that phone hacking was limited to bad apples in one now-closed title.

Also

All these years on, the Duke of Sussex seems in no mood to give up on what has become a crusade against tabloid journalism. And so his case is going ahead - and what happens over the next two months may define both the prince's legacy and the future of a British journalism institution.

And

While the celebrity focus will inevitably be on the prince when he goes into the witness box, that third allegation of a cover up is the most important element of this trial.

While the hit to Prince Harry's wallet will be big, the damage to NGN's reputation - and that of its executives - would be greater still if the court finds they were involved.

Harry clearly had greater ambitions than an apology about the activities of freelance investigators, which is old news. He chose to forego pursuing all of the above in favour of taking the cash. Which is fine and is what almost everyone would do in his situation, but let's not pretend this isn't a major U turn on his part, and not at all the same thing as a victory in the courts of law.

Well I'm sure everyone is very happy that poor old Harry now has lots more money to fund his Montecito life.

And that he made a stand for everyone by holding out for more money than them and getting a better apology than they did.

What a hero.

Some more interesting coverage (with some spot-on words!) in the not normally Harry-friendly Standard:

Prince Harry's stunning victory has humiliated The Sun and exposed a fatal flaw in Britain's justice system

"Wherever you stand, it is unarguable that today is Harry’s day. A stunning victory in the High Court over Rupert Murdoch, a grovelling apology, and the first ever admission of unlawful wrongdoing at The Sun.
The apology itself is a remarkable piece of writing — a single page which tore apart years of denials from News Group Newspapers (NGN) that The Sun had done anything wrong.
Private investigators hired to dig up dirt on the paper’s targets used unlawful means to gather the information.

Harry secured a degree of justice for his mother, Princess Diana, with an apology for the media intrusions into her privacy in the final years of her life.
And there was also a shocking admission that the News of the World breached Lord Tom Watson’s privacy when he was a government minister and actually investigating wrongdoing at the tabloid between 2009 and 2011.

There are some people who will feel robbed of a full High Court trial, to put the activities at The Sun in the full public glare. Senior Murdoch figures like Rebekah Brooks and Will Lewis would have faced intense scrutiny.

Bosses at NGN will likely be relieved at this outcome, in spite of the humiliation, as it avoids ten weeks of courtroom drama and relevations that would surely have inflicted lasting damage on the company. Murdoch himself was set to face claims he “turned a blind eye” to phone hacking.

For Harry himself, his critics will surely attempt to pick apart the victory, claim he failed to truly hold his tabloid enemies to account, and then return to lambasting every aspect of his life in California.

[read the article, if you're interested in views other than your own!]

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/prince-harry-trial-sun-settlement-news-group-b1206424.html

@MummyJ12 please do not patronise me, I followed the Leveson Enquiry closely at the time. The journalist accessing Millies voicemail led to such public outrage, and weeks of newspaper stories, that an enquiry became inevitable.
Of course everyone else calling for the enquiry led weight that helped it to happen. But if William had not been involved at all, the enquiry would still have happened.

I don’t think we will agree so I’ll leave it there. And as I said earlier ‘that’s some apology’ or words to that effect. I can’t be bothered to scroll back!

Harry also seems to be selective over who he’s upset with on his mother’s behalf. He wanted an apology for her from NGN, but the American news network that ran footage of his mother’s fatal car crash scene, he gave an exclusive to.

@IcedPurple why are you quoting a journalists opinion as if it is fact? Strange thing to do.

You seem certain of a lot of things you can’t be certain of.