Guest Blog: So why is Prince Harry attacking the press again? By Brian Cathcart
Why is Prince Harry attacking the press again? According to Sky News’s royal correspondent Rhiannon Mills, it would appear he’s lost his mind.
An article by Mills on the Sky website carries the headline ‘Is Prince Harry’s decision to come out fighting against newspaper a step too far?’, but her opening lines are not about his judgement but his sanity.
The statement revealed yesterday, we are told, reveals him to be ‘an angry, frustrated and it would appear fragile man’, and he is also ‘scarred’ by the way the press treated his mother, memories of which now haunt him because he has a young family of his own.
There is only one way to read this: Mills wants us to believe the prince’s actions result from a disturbed mental state. That’s quite an allegation, and it comes from a surprising quarter.
When the national newspapers are attacked you expect them to fight very dirty, but you don’t expect Sky to do their dirty fighting for them. After all, even the Daily Mail, the paper being sued by the Duchess of Sussex, has not (yet) stooped to questioning the prince’s sanity.
But Mills is not finished. Having laid the groundwork she goes on to imply, while offering no evidence, that the prince acted without the queen’s support: ‘We understand the Queen and Prince Charles had been informed about it, but you have to wonder what they think about Harry’s decision to come out fighting in this way.’
‘You have to wonder’? What kind of journalism is that? It’s not even informed speculation. It’s just pulling ideas out of the air. And she’s still not done.
Observing that ‘Harry’ is ‘fed up of’’ (really?) ’continual misrepresentations’, Mills strides back into Wonderland: ‘Some may wonder’, she writes, ‘if he has been wise to go so far, especially after 10 days of hugely positive coverage about the duke and duchess and their African tour.’
That punchline, as it happens, is addressed explicitly and clearly in the royal statement, where he refers to ‘the positive coverage of the past week’ and says it reveals the double standards of the press. Mills must have missed that.
It would appear that she also missed the facts about the genuinely relentless campaign against the duchess, which has included, to take just one example, the Daily Mail’s ‘How Meghan’s favourite avocado snack … is fuelling human rights abuses, drought and murder.’ You might think, in the context, that a royal correspondent would find space to discuss such evidence and its justification and impact. You might think, too, that she might relate it to the recent experiences of Gareth Thomas and Ben Stokes – surely relevant to any consideration of whether the prince has gone ‘too far’.
But no, the best she can do to support a headline asking whether the prince has gone a step too far is to state, airily, that some people may wonder whether he has gone too far.
Every week we speak to victims bullied and harassed by parts of the press.
Enough is enough.
Most members of the public cannot afford to sue newspapers, they too deserve justice.
9 Comments
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It’s insidious how the same press who previously lauded Prince Harry (and Prince William) for speaking candidly about his mental health issues, to then turn around and use that candidness to minimize his statement. It’s shameful. Mind you, Ms Mills is more than likely still smarting because Harry told her off after she asked a really ignorant question when he was in Malawi two days ago.
We do not allow any copy of the Daily Mail to cross the threshold of our home. Interesting that it is still referred to as a ‘News Paper’. All attempts at intimidation or bullying should be fought by us all. An independent press watchdog is essential to achieving justice for those who suffer unwarranted abuse.
All I personally would need to respond to the DAILY MAIL dishonest and disprovable mispresentation of me as a “conveyor belt” of “evil”, chiefly because I had been acquainted over 50 years ago with their Leveson-2 opponent Max Mosley, would be an opportunity briefly to correct their falsehoods and distortions in their own pages, but this was totally and permanently prevented, and their denial of right of reply was backed by Sir Alan Moses. As an impecunious pensioner who has fortunately not suffered much damage from their repeated print and online defamation, I could not afford the risk of an expensive legal action; and other “ordinary individuals” are no doubt helplessly in the “same boat”. There was in addition doorstep harassment of my wife with a totally fabricated “list” including me untruthfully as a delegate to a neo-Nazi gathering in Venice which I have never visited in my life.
Hear hear!
Let’s not forget that for all intents and purposes sky is now in murdoch’s stable, so we should not be surprised.
We have to assume there must be some ‘decent’ journalists some where out there, but they must be in very short supply, and certainly not working for either of these organisations. We can only hope Harry’s very justifiable actions are successful, and help with getting things drastically changed.
Harry is not attacking the press he is defending his family from the destructive force of fake news. The world groan and begs the so call FIRM to stand up and say something, after all it’s not like the duchess is out there like Camilla and Sarah disgracing themselves. It not like she is out there seeking the attention of the press like some claims DIANA did, she actually wants to be left alone and do her work. Even while she was an actress she was never associated with any scandal. And of course paint the husband as off.. rather it to strength to do what he is doing he could have easily run and hide. The British press is what Trump right called.. FAKE news.
The BBC has joined it as well, A comment by someone who was an editor of the Daily Mirror and now works for the BBC has said it’s like taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut. As far as I’m concerned I would use a 20 tonne road roller to crack that particular nut.
Good old Harry. He’s gone up in my estimation. This needs to be done. Hope he wins.