Why does the press hate
Meghan? Why does it give her such a hard time and Prince Andrew such an easy
ride? It must be because of her colour, her nationality, her gender, her
wokeness. Or so at least one planet in the Twittersphere would have us
believe. But is it true?
It certainly seems so from the
current festival of outrage, from the stripping of royal patronages to the
pregnancy picture, the bullying allegations to the wearing of certain earrings
– culminating in the “bombshell” interview with Oprah Winfrey. Indeed, our
newspapers have printed almost six times as many (mostly negative) stories
about Meghan since she met Harry five years ago as they have about Andrew since
the Epstein allegations surfaced in 2007.
“It’s a side show,” Palace
aides told the Mail on Sunday of the Oprah gig. People were more
interested in schools going back, being vaccinated and the Duke of
Edinburgh getting out of hospital. “Most of what is said will be lost in the
mists of time.”
A side show worth
12 pages in that paper before the event and 27 pages in its daily sister
the day after? An interview that will be lost in the mists of time? Just as
that one with Diana 25 years ago was?
One page of the
coverage said there were “fears” Prince Andrew would be “dragged into” an
investigation into bullying allegations against Meghan, that Palace aides were
“bracing themselves” for complaints against him to surface. Last week, with
astonishingly serendipitous timing, the Times had reported that two
people had left Kensington Palace, citing Meghan’s behaviour towards them.
Within 24 hours, the Palace had announced an inquiry. Over the years, various
papers have reported on staff members accusing Andrew of shouting and abusive
behaviour that left people “trembling” and “in tears”. But there has been no
Palace inquiry.
The Palace does a lot of
no-commenting, while the people who work there do a lot of briefing and
leaking. When it comes to Meghan, they may be telling it how it is – she may be
an attention-seeking diva, a knowing actress playing the ingénue in asserting
that she didn’t even know who Harry was (in spite of reportedly being friendly
with Princess Eugenie) before she found herself incarcerated in her castle. Or
she may have been left to flounder in choppy waters with no one offering so
much as a rubber ring to help her float. It’s not as though that’s an
unfamiliar story. Remember Diana?
Virtually all we know – or
think we know – comes through the press and virtually all the press prints
come from anonymous “insiders”. What is without doubt is that the press is
always, but always, on the side of “the Royal Family”. The bottom line is
‘royals sell’, hence the paradox of “nobody cares about the Sussexes” while
printing page upon page about their antics. They may be attention-seeking, but
it is possible to look away if you choose. Just as there’s no law that papers
must print a picture every time Boris Johnson dons a hi-vis jacket and hard hat
to jump on a JCB, there’s no requirement to put M&H on the front page every
time they open their mouths. But they do. And because they do, they have to go
absolutely bananas when the PM troubles to do something important or the
Sussexes threaten to destroy the monarchy.
It isn’t about news values. It
isn’t about loving Boris or hating Meghan. It’s about business and trying to
hang on to readers by echoing and reinforcing their opinions. Opinions that can
change. As they did with Tony Blair, David Cameron, Theresa May and Johnson in
politics and with Sarah Ferguson, Camilla, Kate and now Meghan in the Royal
Family.
Ask journalists why the press
is so cruel to Meghan and they’ll point to the way Fergie was mocked for her
weight and denounced as “vulgar, vulgar, vulgar” by courtiers, long before the
toe-curling toe-sucking photos emerged. They’ll point to the “waity Katie”
jibes, the “doors to manual” allusions to Carole Middleton’s air stewardess
background. They’ll remind us of the years of hostility endured by the Duchess
of Cornwall – to the extent of being pelted with bread rolls in Waitrose – before
her adulterous past and her present husband’s tampon fantasies were put aside
to allow her to metamorphose into the “good old girl” she is today.
Which is all a bit like Matt
Hancock telling nurses that they should be happy with a tiny bit more money because
others are getting nothing. “We’re horrible to everyone – and we were even
nastier to someone else” isn’t the greatest defence.
Those defenders of the way
Meghan is treated in print insist that neither they nor their papers hate
anyone. And they are probably right. They have their political and
philosophical agendas and the stories they carry and the prominence they give
them reflect those agendas. They don’t hate Meghan any more than they hated
migrants: they are there to be used to further their business interests –
whether by attracting readers or by helping to create the political environment
most likely to allow their enterprise to flourish.
Of course they’re more likely
to put a beautiful young Duchess on the front than a portly 60-year-old Duke.
But there has to be a reason, however flimsy, to put either of them there.
Meghan has supplied plenty of reasons of late; the press didn’t need to go
looking. And by any measure, the Oprah interview was news dynamite. The Duke,
on the other hand, has wisely kept quiet for a while – and now fans of the
Duchess want to know why the papers aren’t digging.
Anyone can see that
involvement – however tangentially – with sex trafficking is more important
than which of two duchesses made the other cry (though racism and suicidal
thoughts are pretty big issues). But what more, exactly, do we expect the
press to uncover at this particular moment with regard to Andrew’s friendship
with Jeffrey Epstein? The FBI is still waiting to talk to him. Epstein’s
victims have repeatedly had their say. Ghislaine Maxwell is on remand awaiting
a trial this summer. The story just isn’t moving right now.
Which isn’t to say that our
papers haven’t been on his case since the first questions were asked about his
friendship with Epstein and Maxwell 14 years ago. That “anti-Meghan rag”
the Mail on Sunday was the first to report claims – strenuously
denied – that the Duke “groped” a teenager who said she had been
groomed by Epstein in 2007, and both Mail titles have returned to the
subject year after year after year. And not just to those dodgy friendships.
They have also highlighted allegations of his “boorish” behaviour and
freeloading, his questionable trade deals, his reported links with shady
businessmen, despotic rulers and corrupt regimes.
And all the while, the Palace
has protected him as far as it can. He “stepped back” from royal duties not out
of remorse or after Palace censure, but because he was toxic and no one wanted
him to cut their ribbons. He is so disgraced that he couldn’t even appear in
the public photographs of his daughter’s wedding. Yet, a week after that Newsnight interview
(to which the Mail devoted 12 pages as dismissive and contemptuous of
Andrew as this week’s assault on Meghan), the Queen gave him a mother’s vote of
confidence by taking him on her morning ride.
