The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's messengers

2021-03-19T04:51:47.392Z


The Duke and Duchess of Sussex use friends and allies to respond to criticism sparked by their interview with Oprah Winfrey


What if the crisis unleashed in the British monarchy by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had been a communication problem?

It's a trick question, obviously.

Because at this point there are hardly any people who have not taken sides in the conflict caused by an interview that left nothing to improvisation.

The Stone and Creeper Conversation with host Oprah Winfrey was the most rehearsed and measured communication exercise in recent times.

The trail of unknowns, inconsistencies or unsupported accusations left by the Dukes of Sussex, however, has aroused the voracity of the British tabloids, who are not willing to let go of the prey.

Meghan and Enrique have given up on feeding that channel of hatred and mutual benefit that connects the royal family with the yellow press for decades.

The "invisible contract" referred to by the Duke of Sussex.

"If you are willing to share a wine or a dinner, and offer full access to all these reporters, you will get much better press," Enrique denounced.

It is not a secret lodge or an unspeakable pact, but a reality much simpler, and at the same time more complex to handle.

Journalists covering the affairs of the British royal house use a form of rotation imitated by other European monarchies.

In each official act, access is allowed to a reporter, a photographer and a cameraman who will then share their material - images, information and jokes - with the rest of the media attached to the system.

The problem comes later, because the speeches or the photographs are fixed, but the interpretations of the gestures and the context, malleable.

And to counter that threat, allies are necessary.

Either in the form of friends who, from anonymity, present the version of the parties, or under the authority of alleged "royal experts" whom the tabloids never tire of using.

Or through complicit journalists who are given wide access to privacy in exchange for a favorable version.

  • Indictments by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex damage the image of the British royal family in Canada

  • Prince William responds to Harry and Meghan: "This family is not racist by any means"

  • The Windsors' stormy relationship with television interviews

The last attempt to test this variety resulted in the book

Finding Freedom

, by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, “an attempt to create an intimate and rigorous portrait of a truly modern royal couple who, although their decisions have involved criticism or praise, he has always known how to remain faithful to his beliefs ”, according to the authors.

This kind of authorized manifesto emerged in the midst of the pandemic, and it failed to calm the spirits of those who continued to present the couple as a pair of spoiled teenagers who had run away from their obligations, or to get the attention of those media that would have been more prone to understanding and supporting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in a battle that then appeared banal, dwarfed by the tragedy that the country was experiencing.

There are few occasions in which a member of the British royal family stands before the cameras to tell "his truth."

And most have been explosive.

None have served to settle the debate, because it is in its very nature that it never ends.

The show must go on.

So the Sussexes have returned to the traditional technique to continue sending errands and answering the reproaches.

It was the American journalist, Gayle King, a friend of the couple, who was in charge of revealing that Enrique has finally spoken with his brother Guillermo and his father Carlos from England: “According to what I have been told, the conversations were not very productive.

But they are happy that the dialogue has resumed ”, related King.

It has also been she who has justified that the interview was broadcast just when Prince Philip of Edinburgh, 99, lay convalescent in hospital after undergoing a delicate heart operation.

"It was programmed and recorded before they hospitalized him," he justified, "If something, God forbid, had happened to him, the programming would have been suspended."

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have not renounced the game of intertwined messages, through intermediaries, that the British royal family has practiced for decades.

They have only decided to stay in friendly territory thousands of miles away from London.

Another victim of tabloid viciousness, Camilla Parker Bowles, chose the opposite path.

Defined at the time as the "most hated woman in the United Kingdom", at the height of her affair with the Prince of Wales and the break with Lady Di, the Duchess of Cornwall used the patience, sense of humor and intuition of that nothing is more fickle than public opinion to turn the situation around.

He learned the name of each of the journalists who covered his actions, he showered them with complicit gestures, he understood the precise moment to smile at the camera or make a precise comment.

Unlike Meghan, the future queen consort - and the acceptance among the British of that fact is growing - understood that nothing tames the media more than cultivating their vanity and paying a little attention to them.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-03-19

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.