Prince Harry’s settlement of his long-running suit with Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids was on the front pages of a handful of London papers on Thursday, though, obviously, none of those owned by Mr. Murdoch.
The Sun, which acknowledged the illegal activities of the private investigators it hired more than a decade ago to dig up personal information about Harry, didn’t get the story until page six. Bottom of page 12, next to a report about actress Judi Dench’s failing eyesight.
The Daily Mail, whose publisher, Associated Newspapers, has also been sued by Harry for hacking his cell phone and invading his privacy, reported the news on an inside page, as did the Daily Mirror, which K’s publisher, Mirror Group Newspapers, lost to phone hacking. Case against Harry in 2023.
Such are the harsh realities of going to war with Britain’s tabloids, as Harry essentially did in 2019, when he took on three powerful publishers: Associated Newspapers, the Mirror Group and Mr Murdoch’s newsgroup News. Several lawsuits were filed against the papers. The Daily Mail trial is expected next year.
Even papers not involved in the lawsuit with Harry, such as the right-wing Daily Telegraph, rejected the deal. “Harry climbs down after eight-figure payout,” The Telegraph said in a front-page article, adding, “His quest to bring down part of the Murdoch empire is more of a bang than a bang.” Ended up in a frenzy.”
Critics of the press coverage said it downplayed the importance of what Harry had uncovered. Crucially, it included the first admission by the Newsgroup’s newspapers that illegal activity had taken place, not only at The News of the World, a tabloid Mr Murdoch closed in 2011, but at its flagship Also in the British tabloid The Sun.
The newsgroup emphasized that its admissions applied to private investigators, not The Sun’s editors or reporters. But the paper was edited during many of those years by Rebecca Brooks, now chief executive of News UK (News Group Newspapers, a subsidiary of News UK, publishes The Sun.)
Harry’s co-prosecutor, Tom Watson, a former deputy leader of the Labor Party, said he would give police a document outlining evidence of criminal conduct. Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, urged police and parliament to investigate not only illegal activity at The Sun, but also evidence of perjury and cover-ups by current and former news executives.
Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, said, “If you’re interested in responsible media, Harry was actually an act done in the public interest, at considerable cost to himself. ” “It has forced them to accept something they have refused to accept for years.”
“The frustrating thing for him is that the public don’t appreciate him,” added Mr Hunt. “A lot of their understanding of Harry is through the lens of a media that is incredibly hostile to him.”
After announcing plans to leave the UK in 2020, press coverage of Harry and his wife Meghan has become increasingly negative. This had a huge impact on his popularity: in a polling firm YouGov in Britain late last year, Harry’s approval rating was 32 percent, compared to 74 percent for his brother William. Meghan’s rating was 19 percent, rock bottom for a prominent royal.
“It was really scary to have Prince Harry and his wife’s name blacked out with big pieces of Fleet Street,” former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told Channel 4 on Wednesday, referring to the traditional London route for the newspaper’s publication. said “It seems to destroy the reputation of someone who is a threat to them.”
In this case, Harry has deepened his anxiety by insisting on the need for a trial. Speaking at The New York Times’ Deal Book Summit last month, he explained that under English law, plaintiffs who reject large settlements from court judgments are on the hook for both sides’ legal costs. are on Newsgroup Newspapers has already spent more than a billion dollars settling 1,300 phone hacking claims, with Harry and Mr Watson alone determined to take their claims to court.
“They’ve settled because they had to,” Harry said. “So, one of the main reasons to see it through is accountability, because I’m the last person who can actually get it.”
Yet just moments before the trial began, Harry agreed to a settlement of at least 10 million pounds ($12.3 million). As Piers Morgan, a broadcaster and vocal critic of Prince, Posted on social media“So ‘moral crusader’ Prince Harry took the cash.”
Harry has not said what he plans to do with the money. His legal bills would be huge, although Daniel Taylor, a lawyer for the media, said it was usually a settlement offered by the party in a separate payment. He made no comment beyond the statement Mr Sherborne read to him.
However, in a sense, Harry’s decision to settle may ease the tension with his family. She said last year that her campaign against the tabloids was the main reason for her differences with her brother William and her father, King Charles III.
Harry claimed that he had a “confidential agreement” with the newsgroup to avoid testifying about potentially embarrassing details from his intercepted voicemail messages upon withholding or settling legal claims. Agreed. William, his brother noted in a legal filing, settled with the news group in 2020 for a “substantial sum.”
Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace, where William has an office, declined to comment on the settlement.
By joining his brother in the deal, Harry would avoid another embarrassing spectacle for the royal family. But Mr Hunt and other royal watchers cautioned against concluding that this alone would heal a rift over Meghan’s treatment of the family and the airing of dirty laundry in her memoir “Spear”. There are many problems involved.
“The damage is so profound that a court case is not enough to address it,” Mr Hunt said. “The cracks widen.”
