Prince Harry claims court victories. But is he winning the larger war with the British media?
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The mission of Prince Harry to tame the British media has produced results in court. But the jury is out on whether it will have a broader impact or be just another chapter — or headline — in the long history of tabloids behaving badly. Harry received an unprecedented apology from Rupert Murdoch’s flagship U.K. tabloid on Wednesday, and previously won in a court judgment that condemned the publishers of the Daily Mirror for “widespread and habitual” phone hacking.
In settling his case against the publisher of The Sun on the eve of a trial at the High Court, the Duke of Sussex claimed a “monumental victory” that included an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, a substantial payment and an apology for intruding on his life and that of his late mother, Princess Diana.
But it didn’t provide the public reckoning he had sought over allegations that Murdoch’s top lieutenants, including his son, James Murdoch, and Will Lewis, now CEO at The Washington Post, were part of a cover-up that included purging 30 million emails.
While News Group continues to vigorously dispute those claims, the settlement has buoyed advocates seeking accountability of the media. With News Group Newspaper's acknowledgement of wrongdoing at The Sun, which it had never admitted, they are pushing for investigations that could include a sequel to the government's 2011 Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking or police investigations into allegations that news executives committed perjury by lying under oath about the scandal during the inquiry.
