If anyone doubts that the royal family still rules
in the United Kingdom...just ask the newspaper editors who have been asked not
to go to press with photos of naked Prince Harry in their pages.
Clarence House has specifically requested that British publications
not print or post the pics of the 27-year-old's royal bum online due to the
implied privacy violation that occurred when a visitor to Harry's Las Vegas
hotel suite snapped a couple of cell phone pics.
Wait...can they do that?
Lady Gaga thinks whoever took those pics is a "s--tty
friend"
Not legally, but even the notoriously raunchy London tabloids are
laying off.
"The royal family can ask to deny the right of the photos being
published, but it's more of the British media self-policing and being afraid to
print them," Rory Carroll, U.S. West Coast correspondent for The Guardian,
tells E! News. "In this climate, with the Leveson Inquiry [into press
ethics], there's been so much focus on the media, especially the tabloids and
their excesses, like the hacking scandal—it's made everyone much more
skittish."
The family, which has confirmed that the cheeky pics were indeed of
Harry enjoying a "private holiday" in Vegas, is said to have made the
blackout request to the Press Complaints Commission, citing the third clause of
the PCC Editor's Code of Practice: "It is unacceptable to photograph
individuals in private places without their consent." (The PCC is not a
legal body, but a regulatory agency.)
"I think we're seeing more restraint from the press than we
would have seen a few years ago," Carroll said. "Five or 10 years
ago, there would have been a gleeful rush on the part of many newspapers to
splash these photos on their pages. And the fact that they've been hesitating
reflects the climate of questions and a bit of uncertainty to what they can and
cannot get away with, what the public would or would not accept."
Last year, a hacking scandal brought down the century-old, News
Corp-owned News of the World and led to the arrests of several top staffers.
Though the company denied it, there was also speculation that the controversy
prompted Rupert Murdoch to step down from the boards of the U.K.'s NI Group,
Times Newspaper Holdings and News Corp Investments.
Five other Harry situations
Not that the technically voluntary embargo means that ladies and
gents in the U.K. are out of luck if they want to see Prince Harry's bare
backside—so long as they don't just read newspapers or only peruse British
websites, that is.
The royal ban "has zero impact in terms of keeping a cap on the
news," Carroll confirmed. "There's no way to stop a story like this.
The genie is out of the bottle and Buckingham Palace is aware of that. I don't
see what they can gain by keeping these stories out of the British press. For
the Brits in London or Edinburgh, TMZ is just one click away."
"If the public wants to see them, they've seen them
already," he added. "I think there's two things the papers are
weighing here—one is the effect of publishing them on their reputation.
Secondly, they're weighing how many more copies they would sell by publishing
the photos. I'm sure that's been the question that's dominating."
Lady Gaga must have been inspired—she flashed her breasts!
The bottom line vs. royal anger over exposing Harry's bottom? Hmm...
Because so many people can see the photos online for free, "the
opportunity is lost to publish the photos exclusively," Carroll said.
"If the photos were exclusive, I think [the papers] would have done so.
But now the commission of publishing the photos is minor, so they aren't
willing to taint their reputation."
He noted that the relative amount of restraint the British press has
been showing lately harkens back to the days following the death of Harry's
mum, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash while her driver was fleeing
paparazzi.
Remember when Prince Harry was just hanging out in Vegas with Ryan
Lochte?
"When Diana died," Carroll said, "the tabloid press
was very defensive because paparazzi were blamed for having precipitated the
car crash. There was a lot of hostility towards the media. Tabloid editors were
saying, 'Never again will we dabble our fingers in the stuff of other people's
souls.' It was a kinder, gentler period
of pursuing celebrities and stalking families with paps.
"And I think that period lasted about five minutes."
No comments:
Post a Comment