Bullying claims against Meghan Markle – stemming from Buckingham Palace are attracting headlines like “worst Royal crisis since the Abdication” from a certain section of the tabloid press.
A tad OTT – we think. In case you missed it, Meghan Markle stands accused of bullying two Buckingham Palace aides in the aftermath of her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018 and causing a third to “lose her confidence”. It is alleged the Duchess of Sussex’s behaviour forced two royal aides out of the royal household.
Once again, it’s all in the timing. This (allegedly) happened in 2018, nearly three years ago, but is hitting the headlines just three days before Oprah’s eagerly anticipated (in some quarters) interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is aired on CBS television – on Sunday.
A little bit of getting your retaliation in first – as the rugby saying goes. Well, it makes for interesting reading and column inches for the newspaper tabloids.
When to grab the headlines?
One point worth making is that Budget Day was probably not the best day to launch this story – traditionally seen as a good day to bury bad news, while Buckingham Palace probably wanted to make a splash rather than a ripple.
So, should we be running a training course on “Media timing” rather than “Media Training”? Probably not, but we are not sure if this is doing The Royal Family any favours.
Keep calm and carry on
“Keep calm and carry on”, was the order a few days ago, when the Oprah story first broke and our view is that keeping your heads down and letting the Sussexes attract the vitriol of the same tabloid media (because Prince Philip is still in hospital), was probably the wiser choice of PR tactics.
What makes a good headline?
It seems someone in the Royal household is getting fed up with the Sussexes grabbing all the headlines and wants a few of their own. The problem is – are they the right type of headlines?
Yes bullying is extremely serious and sadly still commonplace in many workplaces – including newsrooms. I can recall a tabloid news editor, Kelvin Mackenzie, publishing the home phone number of his Deputy at The Sun, Stuart Higgins, with a headline calling him “Higgy, The Human Sponge” and encouraging his readers to phone him and give him some abuse, or “get it off your chest” as the headline was written. Yes really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Higgins
This happened in 1994, but Higgins stuck it out and went on to succeed Mackenzie as Editor of The Sun, answerable to Rupert Murdoch – perhaps a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.
But back to Meghan Markle and the bullying claims – which she refutes. It all adds to the build-up for this Oprah interview and is probably doing the Sussexes more of a favour than harming their interests.
One newspaper is reporting that it was The Queen who decided to act and “call out” a (former) member of the Royal Family – hence the abdication comparison, which we find hard to even consider.
So, when will we all begin to tire of this protracted Royal saga and the latest royal news?
The answer is probably never, if the tabloid press, ITV and even the BBC have anything to do with it?