How Prince Harry’s war against ‘powerful forces’ in the media could backfire
Harry blew up the Royal family’s arrangement with the British Press this week, with a scathing statement during the tail end of his African tour with wife Meghan.
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Britain’s iconic clock Big Ben kept time in central London for more than 150 years before it was covered in scaffolding for major repair work.
The bongs were a constant, much like the stable rule of democracy in the Westminster Houses of Parliament and the benevolent Royal Family, who had an unwritten accord with the British Press.
There was a tacit deal that in exchange for access to the family, the British Press would promote them and their causes.
However, freedom of the Press, a cornerstone of British democracy that was exported to billions of people across the world through the Commonwealth, was respected.
The Royal Family grudgingly accepted they had to take the good coverage with the bad, within limits.
Times have changed.
Prince Harry film ‘explains a lot’
Prince Harry blew up the arrangement with the British Press this week after almost 10 days of positive coverage about his worthy causes, including women’s rights and conservation, on his tour of Africa with wife Meghan Markle and baby son Archie.
His statement that accompanied news of the couple’s lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday for publishing a story about a letter Meghan sent to her father Thomas Markle was unprecedented.
“Unfortunately, my wife has become one of the latest victims of a British tabloid press that wages campaigns against individuals with no thought to the consequences — a ruthless campaign that has escalated over the past year, throughout her pregnancy and while raising our newborn son,” he wrote.
“There is a human cost to this relentless propaganda, specifically when it is knowingly false and malicious, and though we have continued to put on a brave face — as so many of you can relate to — I cannot begin to describe how painful it has been.”
And then he linked Meghan’s treatment with the Press’ pursuit of his mother, the late Princess Diana.
“I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces,” he said.
Harry has copped his own share of negative headlines over the years.
He was outed for smoking marijuana in 2002, and was forced to apologise when photographs of him wearing a Nazi uniform were published in 2005.
Harry probably regretted his game of strip billiards in Las Vegas, exposed in 2012, when the photographs went viral online.
The British Press did do a deal to keep his tour of Afghanistan secret in 2008, until it was broken by Australia’s New Idea magazine.
Harry also spoke out in 2016 when “racist” reports surfaced about Meghan when it became public that they were dating.
There have been legal battles between the Press and the Royal Family before, but Harry’s machine gun approach had collateral damage.
Harry and the Press have now officially split.
It echoes the bitter divide between the Remain and Leave camps on the question of the UK’s departure from the European Union.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson this week said UK politics was broken.
“If parliament were a laptop, then the screen would be showing the pizza wheel of doom,” he said.
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Today, what was once a certainty in Britain, is on shaky ground.
Harry’s comparison of Meghan’s treatment to his mother’s relationship with the Press has raised questions.
Diana made her enemies her friends.
She would often leak stories to the Press, and she was revealed after her death as the secret source of a biography detailing her unhappy marriage to Prince Charles.
There was also the iconic 1992 photograph of Diana, that she posed for alone, at the Taj Mahal while her marriage to Charles was falling apart.
And she spoke of her eating disorders and her infidelities in an interview on the BBC’s Panorama program.
However, walking in Harry’s shoes, it can been seen that the Press killed her, as her brother Charles Spencer had claimed at the time.
Diana died in a car crash when drunk driver Henri Paul, driving at 190kmh to avoid pursuing paparazzi, lost control in a Paris tunnel.
“Diana’s death had a tremendous impact on both of them, William was 15 and Harry was 12,” Dickie Arbiter, a former spokesman for the Queen who has met Harry several times, said.
“You’re speaking to your mother on the phone one day and the next day she is dead in a car accident. I don’t think it will ever leave him.
“He has said he has suffered mental illness, it’s one of those things that’s never going to go away.”
Mr Arbiter said he was not surprised that Harry attacked all of the British Press, rather than just the Mail on Sunday.
“To the Royal Family it’s all press, it doesn’t matter if it's a staff reporter, a freelancer or the paparazzi,” he said.
The stories about Meghan have gathered pace in the past nine months, as Harry pointed out.
The honeymoon of positive coverage was over soon after their royal wedding, which was watched by almost two billion people.
There were reports, using “royal sources” that she had made Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, cry over Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaids dress.
And the Queen reportedly put her foot down about which tiara Meghan would wear on her wedding day.
Mr Arbiter said there was no such thing as “royal sources” and the stories were made up.
There were other more detailed stories though.
Meghan and Harry did take four private jet trips in 11 days. Their summer jaunts were ill timed. Meghan had just edited an edition of British Vogue, where Harry had given an interview saying they would only have two children because they were worried about climate change and the environment.
The couple also spent $5 million on a taxpayer-funded renovation of Frogmore Cottage on the grounds of Windsor Castle after moving out of Kensington Palace, which they had shared with William and Kate.
But does Harry have a point? Has the Press been unfair?
Harry has spoken out about mental illness, and campaigned for more care and understanding.
On his royal tour of Africa, he met with vulnerable young people on a windy Monwabisi beach foreshore, 38km outside Cape Town, and they meditated and discussed their emotions while holding hands.
After visiting the Auwal Mosque, the oldest in Cape Town, Harry told Peter, a University of Cape Town student, about his feelings.
“Harry said that he often woke up and felt overwhelmed by too many problems in the world,” according to Peter.
“That sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed in the mornings because of all the issues.
“But he wanted to use their platform to enable grassroots change and to try and create a better society.”
Harry would argue that his line in the sand statement was a part of trying to change the world, and to stop the “bullying Press”.
When in Sydney at the opening ceremony of the Invictus Games last year, Harry also spoke of how brave it was to be vulnerable, as he saluted the determination of the wounded former soldiers competing.
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“To girls and boys who see you speaking openly about anxiety, stress, and depression, you are showing it’s OK not to be OK. And most importantly, you are showing us all that it’s OK to ask for help,” he told the injured veterans.
“Asking for help is courageous. It will improve your life and the lives of those around you immeasurably.
“I’ve been there, you’ve been there, and we now need to reach out to those who can never even imagine themselves in that place.”
However, Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty Magazine, said Harry made a mistake. “Diana made her enemies her friends, she manipulated the media, she was brilliant at it,” she said.
“She didn’t get angry the way Harry does.”
Regular royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams, a former editor of The International Who’s Who, said Harry’s lawsuit could backfire as the Mail on Sunday had indicated it would fight the case.
“If for any reason Meghan made an appearance in court it would be a global sensation,” he said.
Penny Junor, who wrote a biography about Harry, said he had made a mistake with his statement, which was “full of emotion and anger”.
“Harry has a siege mentality, everybody is out there to get him and his wife.”
Ms Junor said there was a chance to come back from this.
Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, was once hated in the Press.
“She knows the media, she would say hello and know everyone’s name and would stand in the right place so people could get a picture,” Ms Junor said.
“Camilla was incredibly friendly and as a result she totally turned around public perception.”
Harry does not appear to share the same desire to court the media.
He and Meghan were happy to post some of their engagements solely on the couple’s Instagram page despite more than 300 journalists being registered to follow them around Africa.
Big Ben’s renovations are due to be finished in 2021.
Time will tell if Harry and the British Press are back on speaking terms by then.
stephen.drill@news.co.uk
Originally published as How Prince Harry’s war against ‘powerful forces’ in the media could backfire
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