Who needs a royal commission into News Corp when we’ve got the Harry & Meghan docuseries on Netflix? Or when we’ve got real-time, mind-shredding responses from News Corp’s commentariat unfolding before us?
In Australia, it’s been all hands on deck: “Awful six-part reality series,” declaimed Sky News host Rita Panahi. “Meghan Markle got her claws into Harry … who I think has mental health issues,” ruminated The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth. “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s new Netflix series shows they’re shameless parasites peddling a dishonest narrative,” tutted Andrew Bolt.
All of it churned through the traditional distribution of print and broadcast and then boosted through the algorithmic maw of Markle-hate on social media.
The company has decided that the best form of defence is attack. The tabloid critics of Harry and Meghan (the show, as much as the couple) want us to think they see the royal family as villains: “Harry the Nasty” headlined the Murdochs’ UK Sun, “Assault on the Queen’s legacy” huffed the Daily Mail.
But the real villains in the show are the tabloid media.
Sure, “the palace” — that metaphor for the secretive workings of the inner royals along with their flunkies and hangers-on — suffers a few hits. But the couple’s core criticism? The press. In their telling, Harry as his brother’s spare and Harry and Meghan as a couple were never protected enough from the media, as journalists sought to shape their story through the lens of misogyny and racism.
Reporters on the celebrity round used to be able to comfort themselves to sleep with the consolation that their reporting was giving the celebrities what they wanted: public attention. It’s a hunt where spare royals (like Harry) were particularly fair game.
It was true for the queen’s spare, Princess Margaret, with her (now quaint-seeming) affair scandal in the 1970s. And true for the more serious scandals of Charles’ spare, Prince Andrew, accused of sexual activities with a minor, which he denies.
Unfortunately for the UK tabloids (and the palace), Markle came pre-packaged as a celebrity with her own professional contacts and skills. And now new digital platforms have ended the traditional media’s monopoly over the titillating gossipy revelation of personal secrets dressed up as celebrity journalism.
That was the trap The Sydney Morning Herald fell into when it whinged about Rebel Wilson preferring to tell her own story about her same-sex relationship on Instagram, rather than leaving it to the masthead’s gossip column. The paper even copped a rare rap over the knuckles from the Australian Press Council.
The Sussexes have taken the Wilson strategy up a couple of notches with their Netflix series. And the tabloid commentariat has taken their obsolescence about as well as could be expected. It was left to Jeremy Clarkson in the UK Sun to offer up his creepily sexualised image of what men his age thought about when lying in bed: “I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”
After protests, it was quickly taken down by News Corp. Too late: The Guardian reports 12,000 complaints to the UK’s Independent Press Standards Organisation — almost as many complaints received for all stories across all mastheads in 2021. Score that as a win for the Sussexes in the war for public opinion.
The tabloid strike at the couple — and at Markle in particular — will come as no surprise to Australians. We’ve long watched it on high rotation as the company’s go-to battle plan, developed and refined in News Corp’s Australian mastheads since the 1990s.
Here it’s even earned a cautionary name, “getting Yassmined”, after the pile-on of Yassmin Abdel-Magied for being seen as insufficiently Australian to comment on our imperial tradition of Anzac Day.
It’s a battle plan that works fine for News Corp (and its ageing audience, at least) when it turns a previously little-known target into a celebrity. Not so much when the target is already a celebrity in their own right with the resources and social capital to strike back.
Has News Corp finally met its match in Meghan Markle? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
It’s not so much clever strategy by the Sussexes but Clarkson scored a remarkable own goal with his plagiarised bile. Never having watched ‘Game of Thrones’ I was unaware of the reference hence was not in on his ‘joke’.
That he was stunned by the public’s reaction indicates Clarkson is out of touch & has achieved the dinosaur status he richly deserves. Some older blokes like him (eg: Rupert?) but he’s reliant on a fast diminishing demographic.
Clarkson’s seeming popularity is a complete enigma to me. I was an AusAID volunteer working in Viet Nam when Top Gear made a program there. Quite a few friends and relatives told me I needed to watch it so I did the next time I was home and could do so. It was truly terrible. I could not believe that such an insulting, demeaning program could go to air – though I had been watching the BBC world news and knew how far that had fallen from any attempt at impartial reporting.
Nothing I have seen (admittedly not much) or read of Clarkson since that time has done anything to raise his reputation from rock bottom.
I remember that episode, the only one I ever watched.
I was disgusted that they took a meticulously handcrafted model galleon souvenir and put it on the back of a motorbike to be gradually torn apart by wind. I thought it showed a lack of respect for the local’s skilled work, even though they presumably paid for it.
It was the only complete episode I ever watched, too.
The galleon was torn apart on the leg of their motor bike journey that took them to the town I was living in. It was all they could talk about – and it underlined their total stupidity.
Never mind the fascinating history of that town (or the fact that the more recent Tet Offensive occurred there), no exploration of the sights/sites or the local cuisine, no references to Ho Chi Minh having lived and been educated there, no visits to tombs of the emperors (much more fascinating than the word tomb suggests), etc,etc.
Typical western European disdain for the Orient.
They were the ageing lads on a jag. The coolest prats from the UK.
I’m not so sure this is much of an own goal or that it will do any damage to Clarkson, The Sun or the rest of the News Corp menagerie. All publicity is good publicity, this incendiary effort stokes the culture wars they need, Clarkson will be happy to be getting so much attention no matter what he says to the contrary, and (so far) those media companies that have him under contract are supporting him. He need not fear the UK press regulator that has been buried in complaints about his remarks, it has no teeth and will do nothing significant this time, just as it has done nothing all the many previous times there have been complaints about Clarkson, because there is nothing it can do. He has many millions of followers on social media and none of them can be remotely surprised at his latest outburst because he’s been carrying on like this for decades. They will support him all the more because of the reaction he is getting. Such remarks are basis of his career and he has every reason to regard this as one of his best yet.
Agree, it’s his job to induce outrage and clicks, especially amongst the above median age.
Further, it’s becoming more common that public influencers are being used by right wing media, while MPs are on the nose, to promote talking points, agitprop and themes.
Even the late Shane Warne was co-opted by JOhnson’s campaign to ‘Get Brexit Done’, now UK media are platforming Farage…..again.
How about going easy on the “older bloke” narrative.
I’m older (74) and my opinion of News Corp and their paid lickspittles hasn’t changed one bit since I stood on North Terrace, Adelaide and watched the destruction of the Murdock owned tabloid “The News” and its wholesale dumping of all the workforce, the act that ultimately propelled Murdock to international prominence. To place me in that pantheon is insulting and obnoxious.
Therefore, let us not use the broad brush but be a tad more selective in your descriptions.
Female and 81 here and I fully agree. I am forever commenting negatively on articles that suggest all people my, and your, age vote for the LNP – something I have never done in all sixty years (started at 21 in my day) of my voting eligibility.
I am 69 and are somewhat bemused at those sticking the boot into us oldies who vote green, never read the News corp tabloids and still work pro bono in environmental advocacy. I’ll admit we may be a minority but there are plenty like me.
And took to the streets in the hundred of thousands to end the LP’s Vietnam misadventure, mining uranium for atomic weapons and power and, unsuccessfully, against the LP’s efforts to crush organised labour.
CONServatives must be so insecure in their own lives that they choose to spend their entire waking life as well as sleepless nights apparently, tearing anyone who thinks, looks, behaves differently to their ideology to shreds. It must be exhausting bellowing their bile, misogyny and downright BS from ivory towers 24/7. I know people in AUS, UK and USA are finally waking up to various media stables and motormouth shock jocks and are opting to ignore them, which in turn, makes them bellow louder.
What I find extremely satisfying is, that these loud mouths are slowly losing their voice and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
Agree, one had to ask a relative who started riffing about ‘what is a man and what is a woman’ by asking if it kept him awake at night. His response was of course not, so I suggested we move, followed by a deflated and foolish look from him….
It’s fascinating to watch the vitriolic, hysterical traditional media and social media pile on. Every one of those articles and comments offer further evidence of the main complaints made by Harry and Meghan (and I did watch all six episodes though fell asleep a few times and had to review those sections).
That Tory and Lib Dem MPs are now objecting to the treatment of Harry and Meghan and the head of the British press complaints body can’t sup with Rupe says an awful lot. The Windsors seriously need some new flunkies who are in touch with the real world and the growing concerns ordinary, sane people have about all this hate and violence constantly being shoved down their throats.
I think you hit the nail on the head Elcee. It appears that the communication and media of the royal family have been locked in an old model of media. Far out… Prince Harry’s descriptions of how the royals (or their media flunkies) dealt with the tabloids was disturbing – throwing each other to the wolves as he described. Those side by side comparisons of the way Catherine was treated on exactly the same topics, about the same things as Meaghan – that was startling in its obvious anti-Meaghan bias.
The saddest part of all this isn’t the horror show of an out of control press – it’s the very real people, with very real sadness and grief on both sides of a family conflict that has deep consequences for the future of the monarchy outside of England. You can almost feel the vibrations of an earthquake building.
Yes, it doesn’t matter how rich and powerful you are. If you’re not a psychopath, family dysfunction really hurts.
I wonder if the Windsor’s relationship with the media will be a main factor in an eventual downfall? It’s hard to see how it can extricate itself from such a desperately toxic relationship that more and more people object to. I wonder if it will just end up too tarred with the tabloid brush.
If Charles and William are smart, they’ll start working behind the scenes to get Harry and Meghan back on board.
Watching the British royal family’s treatment of Meghan and Harry and the latter’s invisible contract with British and Murdoch media, has convinced me to abandon support for the monarchy and I now support a republic.
That’s the thing about News Corp, they actually now have the effect of turning the public against the very politics and politicians that they so rabidly support
A perceptive comment.
Amen, brother. Every time they use the word ‘woke’ another swing voter looks elsewhere.
In a small way, the Herald Sun actually helped Labor win the last state election.
Woke is simply another word for acting on the command of Jesus Christ to love your neighbour. Imagine the Mustdoch are actually anti-Christian.
If Jesus existed he was woke and, at minimum, a socialist but more likely a proper communist. If he came back Morrison, Trump and many others wouldn’t know which way to run.
What you know about the royal family’s treatment of M&H comes from the two ninnies themselves. The truth is likely (as ever) to lie somewhere in between.
As for a republic, Crazy King Charlie will accelerate it in a way QE2 was never able to!
Actually, I think QE2 et al were constantly amazed that we never had the will or guts to follow through to become a republic. I’m not sure our pollies do now…
Agree and China must think: those Aussies love being subjects of a foreign monarch, that suits us
Why Crazy