Wednesday 2 October 2019

Media Tightrope For Harry & Meghan

While i am no fan of the Royals, i do have some sympathy with Prince Harry and his wife regarding the press and the Daily Mail in particular.
The Daily Mail has always seemed to have it in for Meghan Markle which plays very well with the Daily Mail right wing audience, her being non-British, outspoken and not as white as the usual stock of British Royals which ticks all the boxes for hate figure for the readership.
Over the past few months we have been treated to the Mail's headlines concerning multiple embarrassing stories involving the duchess’s father, their use of private jets, the refusal to allow media coverage of the christening of their son and the cost of renovations at their home but the straw that seems to have broken the camels back is the publication of a personal letter Meghan sent to her father.
With Harry tying the treatment of his wife to that of his mother is where my sympathy starts to wane because Princess Diana, whilst complaining about press intrusion, would go out of her way to make sure that journalists just happened to be present when she 'secretly' visited a hospital or, as in that famous photo of her checking to make sure the press was outside, before making her exit from a gym.  
Harry's slandering of 'parts of the media' is squarely aimed at the Tabloid Press as he took his complaint initially to the Associated Press which rules over acceptable practise for newspapers but as it is self-regulating, unlike the Broadcast media, found the Mail's actions acceptable.
I am right behind Harry and Meghan's court action against The Mail newspaper over the publishing of the handwritten letter she had sent to her father, the tabloid press is a stain on journalism and needs to be bought to heel and regulated, but it is a very taut tightrope they are treading because the media is a very sharp double edged sword and if they want the good publicity, they had better not throw too much mud too widely because when it comes to the publicity they crave, they need the media including the 'gutter press' like the Mail.  

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