When the news broke last week that Thomas Markle had been accused of hoarding a stash of child sex abuse material, a certain kind of comment piece went round the, ahem, progressive end of the media almost instantly. The headlines were all variations on the same theme: how long before Meghan’s father allegedly hoarding pedophile material turned out to be "Meghan’s fault?" Not long, was the implication, if the wicked tabloids had anything to do with it. A week on, there is an alternative spin on offer, and it is coming from the Sussexes’ new house magazine, The Telegraph, and what it looks very much like, to my eye, is Meghan’s side trying to lump at least some of the blame for what happened to that letter onto William and Catherine. The same double standard runs through everything. In February 2020 they announced that by giving up public funds they had removed the “supposed ‘public interest’ justification for media intrusion.” In September this year their office issued a media advisory headed “PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX SEPTEMBER PUBLIC ENGAGEMENTS,” and their friends briefed that they are public figures, not private citizens. They are whichever suits the day. And so it is with the letter: private when it protects her, public when it convicts the press, and now, apparently, a matter for the wider royal household when the question turns to who sat on it. I find the choice of vehicle fascinating. This is The Telegraph that last week fired around 100 staff as its new owner, Axel Springer (which bought the paper in June for £575 million), announced its intention to turn it into a “global, AI-powered premium media and intelligence business.” I called that a Slopbait factory in a Substack Note last night, and I stand by the coinage (neologisms are what Substack is for). Any tidbit about Harry and Meghan drives traffic, and what we appear to be watching is a paper abandoning basic journalistic principles and taking what it is fed on trust from a team that has been shown, again and again, to be highly manipulative and to say things that are not true when it suits them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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32 mins
Nov 4 202658 mins