The spat that never ends: Harry and Meghan vs The Media

By Wisley Lau

If there is one cultural story that has generated more controversy and debate over the recent months, it has to be in connection with Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, and Meghan Markle, his wife. 

In December 2022, Harry and Meghan released a documentary about themselves, raising numerous allegations against the media for how they treated the couple and the royal family for their complicity in the abuse. Following that, Netflix released another documentary produced by the couple on world leaders like Jacinda Ardern and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And in January 2023, Harry’s memoir Spare was released after revealing the book title months before. All of which happened without any fierce criticism or debate.

That is clearly a joke. In reaction to these events, the British press has leaped on these stories like a leopard targeting its prey. You probably have seen the appalling comments by journalist Jeremy Clarkson, which he wrote in The Sun newspaper that he is “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.” In other, less misogynistic articles, tabloids like The Daily Mail have had their slice of the cake in insulting, attacking, or downright projecting bigoted remarks against Harry and Meghan. And don’t get anybody started about Piers Morgan’s obsessive dives into Meghan Markle and her controversies. 

For a perspective on how the more intellectual sectors of the British press review the couple, take the example of the article “When will Harry and Meghan leave us alone?” The author Brendan O’Neill wrote in the first sentence, “Is anyone else starting to feel harassed by Harry and Meghan? There’s no escaping them.” (Author’s Note: You could just tune it out, it works for the author very well!) For readers unfamiliar with the text, that article counts as one of the more moderate ones on the website. Go to The Spectator, a right-leaning magazine critical of the couple in most of their articles, and enjoy a feast of performative outrage, baffling comments, and twitter rants but with more text involved. While on the left, The Economist called Harry’s memoir “an ill-advised romp” and the title of the article on the magazine was dubbed “Spare us.”

Vicious media attacks on dissenters within the royal family are not exclusive to Harry and Meghan–for decades, it's been a veritable hobby for tabloids and media brands, who have always held a soft spot towards the royal family in the UK. And from the beginning, people have spotted a double standard in how the press treats Meghan Markle. Meghan likes eating avocado; as a response the Daily Mail started demonising Markle’s favourite food for fueling drought and murder. But when Prince William’s wife eats avocados, the tabloids praise her for her likeability and closeness to the British people.

If you are up to scratch on your history knowledge, you'll know this is not the first time the British press has conjured up a collective smear campaign against a member or former member of the royal family. One woman was constantly dogged by the tabloids on her reactions to her husband cheating on another woman and eventually their divorce. And in one tragic night in 1997, the woman was killed after the car she was in crashed into a tunnel during an attempt to avoid photographers. That woman was Princess Diana, Harry’s mother. 

Harry has decades of experience facing the press and the tabloids, having been forced to do it as a member of the royal family, and seeing how that affected his mother. Now try to put yourself in Harry's shoes, after the same thing that had happened to your mother and impacted your childhood is now happening to your wife, and as the mental health toll starts to build more and more with your family acting with negligence over what is going on, you decide to leave the royal family with your wife. In any other case, the action taken is a responsible thing for a husband, a father, and a person to do, so why is there still a persistent backlash to Harry and Meghan leaving the royal family?

The author acknowledges and accepts there can and should be criticism of the couple. They are public figures and there are aspects of them worth criticising. But the accusations thrown at them are laughable, if not downright delusional or cruel towards the couple, with no sympathetic thoughts conceived. It is also interesting the same groups that attack Meghan and the “woke” left for being outrageous, judgemental, and divisive (a very mild articulation of their actual feelings) has no problem projecting the same outrageous, judgemental, and divisive attitudes towards Harry and Meghan: some non-hypocritical truth-tellers they are! Plus the amount of misogyny, racism, and self-projection is rife in their commentary, as tabloid readers might well know.

After enjoying the recording of an episode of his podcast with the author’s friends, one thought still lingers. To those in the media who obsessively attack Harry and Meghan, the author only has one question to ask, “What do you actually want them to do?” They are humans and need to do something for a living. Meghan Markle was an actor before being a princess, and Harry is a veteran who served in Afghanistan. Do you really think their career options after Buckingham Palace include being investment advisors or nuclear physicists? What is all the fuss about them making and starring in their own Netflix documentaries? They are performers and entertainers, that’s what they do!

Hence, it all ends up into a cynical and never-ending spiral. First, Harry and Meghan do something. Then, the press covers it, and the tabloids, pundits, and royal family experts (which are apparently a thing) get on the news and give their takes criticising whatever they have done for whatever reason, whether coherent or incoherent. In response, Harry and Meghan make statements about it, and the cycle continues on and on and on. There are no winners on the side of Harry and Meghan, however it benefits the royal family. Being alleged by Prince Harry to have a close connection with the tabloids, the royal family can maintain a shaky status and reputation after criticism by some in the public and the international press for cases like Prince Andrew’s allegations of sexual abuse and his close relationship with the notorious pedophile Jeffery Epstein, or King Charles arranging an expensive coronation amidst a cost of living crisis in the nation.

At the same time, it is a godsend for conservative media, which composes a majority of the tabloids. Meghan and Harry are represented as the icons of the “woke'' left and the outrage generated by conservatives against wokeism in western media, especially in this case the British press, gets people riled up and news sites like The Daily Mail that chase clicks over quality will get a boost in profits, making sure they will continue to generate more content on the couple. In addition, conservatism centres its ideology on social structures and hierarchies, and they will attack and criticise anyone who dares to challenge the system. In this case, Harry and Meghan’s challenge against the perceptions the public has against the royal family makes it ripe for the media to pile up on them. And to boost clicks and views, extreme language involving sexism and racism are used by the press to serve their profit margins. 

In a way, Harry and Meghan are trapped. In another perspective, the media and the royal family are trapped in this web of controversy as well. It is a situation where all sides perpetuate and enable this chaos to continue, and there is no end in sight.

Culture & ArtsRenaissance CollegeComment