Why ‘Spare’ Is About a Much-Needed Media Reform
Harry is not trying to take the Monarchy down, but a British Tabloid Press.
I usually write about things that move me immediately after I experience them—strike while the iron is hot, method style. ’Spare’, I wanted to read it at my own pace and observe the surrounding noise before offering my opinion.
It’s unchanged.
Although it amuses us endlessly, a discourse about Prince Harry and his family is ultimately about a much-needed media reform. Given that his family is in cahoots with tabloids, they are inevitably swept along on Harry’s takedown train.
To the superficial eye, the Oprah Interview, Netflix documentary, and the release of ‘Spare’ seems like it’s about Battle Royale between Harry and his family. Many would frame it as an internal conflict marked by issues of racism and misogyny within the British royal court. And for those not critically reflecting, it's easy to label them as royal outlaws simply seeking to profit from their titles.
This is fairly simple to decipher. Harry is not trying to take the monarchy down. Harry is trying to take down the British Tabloid Press, and they are decades overdue for a takedown. And the people who collude with tabloids, in this case, his family, well, he’s taking those too.
Many countries in the world know a clear difference between the regular, ethical press and tabloid press, meaning their citizens mostly know which is which, and tabloids don’t enjoy much of a reputation in most parts of the sane world. They are consumed for entertainment.
In Britain, the story is different; British Tabloid Media rules everything. It influences politics, supports political parties, takes down political figures, and sways elections. And it’s one of the most dangerous media in the world. Most of them are owned by Rupert Murdoch and, draw a parallel - he also owns Fox News in America.
I implore you to step out of the royal gossip mindset and think deeper about this. It’s imperative to evolve here. Instead of thinking if you like or dislike Harry & Meghan, see what’s at stake here.
Many people already did. I read a tweet by @rapieress the other day, saying:
“We don't talk enough about Murdoch's corrupt influence on the world, which is why I support Harry & Meghan. Murdoch is a political opportunist who had traded newspaper support to governments in return for regulatory favors. Then there are his connections with Putin.”
This is much more important than Meghan’s mug irritating you for no viable reason.
What’s at stake here?
Media shapes the reputation of the people they write about. Opinions are formed by reading the media and its residue: discourse on social networks. People who are not in the public eye usually shake their heads when they’re warned about the dangers of tabloid reporting, not noticing they are being radicalized by it. If you think you've come to your own conclusion of not liking Harry and Meghan in this scenario, you're wrong.
All of you that hate her came to that conclusion with the help of the tabloids, with the assistance of the Royal Family, who assigned Meghan the role of exactly what you’re thinking about her right now, reading this.
They succeeded.
People who are not in the public eye and have no experience with tabloid media can be very careless about the damage it can do to a person. Those people usually see the negatives of the press as a punishment someone deserves for being rich and famous.
If you’re one of those people but you think you are a good person, think again. You reading these lies and believing them, you are complicit. Tabloid media and any unethical media are nothing but another form of abuse.
For all of you commenting Harry is talking too much, he should be quiet, you are wrong yet again. And asking someone to be quiet about unfair treatment is a form of abuse. An abuser always wants to silence his/hers victim and does not want the victim to shine the light on the abuse, so the abuse can continue.
The relationship between the tabloid media and the subject they lie about is one of an abuser and a victim.
The tabloid media NEEDS Harry to be quiet, so they can continue making money inventing stories about him. Harry speaking out in ‘Spare’ and in interviews just interferes with their business model.
And if you wonder why his memoir was a bit tabloidy in some parts, that was clearly done on purpose. The story about the frosted penis is a tabloidy story. He is giving you the type of bullshit stories they write about, so they can’t. HE wants to be a source of his own dumb stories. Also, mocking them a bit so you - the reader understand the silliness of it all.
I once phoned a tabloid “journalist” after another barrage of dumb invented stories he wrote about me and told him: “If you need stupid shit being written, can you please call me? If you need drama, I’ll give you a far better drama than the one you invent, just let it at least be true.”
He said no.
They want the freedom to invent the stories THEY want to invent, about you.
Harry is doing THE ONLY thing you should do when tabloid media uses your life to create stories that make no sense, in his case stories that jeopardize the safety of his family, and finally, invented stories that the tabloids get rich on.
If you’re bothered a man is making bank on HIS OWN LIFE, yet you aren’t bothered that the tabloid media is making bank on HIS life with invented stories, you are why this is happening, and why these tabloids persist to exist.
You are radicalized by them.
And all of you who find an offense with a man being annoyed with almost 40 years of lies; the first meeting where you got radicalized by these tabloids was when you got a chip installed with - “But he/they said they want privacy, and why are they all over the place now?”
They never said that, there are documented interviews; in print, or on video - they gave since they left the Monarchy and there is none that contains that sentence. The tabloids served you that premise because they are the abuser who needs to silence their victim, they need the victim to be quiet so they can keep the abuse, aka running the untruthful, misleading stories about him/them.
Tabloids actually want Harry & Meghan to want privacy and to be silent so they can run the show, like they run it with “no complain no explain” folks at Buckingham Palace.
It’s what they did to Diana too. Diana started to talk after her divorce, telling her story, revealing the inside works of the palace; an act that directly interferes with the tabloid business model. In return, they tried to discredit her and punish her for it by writing about her insanity and paranoia, in hopes of silencing her.
Harry is his mother’s son, and he, like Diana - understands how to ruin their business model.
By TALKING.
If she lived, I doubt the Monarchy would still have the form they have today.
Enter the Royal Family part in the tabloid abuse of their own family members. How did that happen? How did it happen that the grandiose British Empire ended up in bed with the British Tabloids?
It must have started somewhere.
I did the research on that.
When Diana died, the British Tabloids could no longer follow the Royals, after receiving the bad press (the irony) that they were to blame for her death. Not having any way out of this, and William being 15 years old, at Eton, with an extreme public interest in his life after his mother’s death, they stroked a deal with the Royal Family to give them controlled access to William, and in return to not excessively follow them around or write bad things about them.
But when did the competitiveness between the Royals start actually start? Long before the press deals. The problems arose with the popularity of Diana, and her overshadowing Charles. It’s a difficult task, not to overshadow Charles, even someone with a fifth of Diana’s charm.
What confuses me here is why would popularity matter among the Royals? The Monarch is not a voted position, the next King or Queen is not elected, but born. So the futile popularity games, why are they actually needed?
Do these people serve their subjects, or themselves?
Charles’ ego to Diana’s popularity doesn’t really phase me, as I’m convinced by the logic invested in me that that was the reason the marriage actually failed, and not loving someone else; after all princes and kings are known to have side pieces since the beginning of time, and there’s no reason he couldn’t keep both.
I can understand the bitterness between spouses. But towards your children or siblings, I would dismantle them on just an account of that. It literally medieval how cruel it is what they’re doing to their own.
The early example of this brutality stunned me. As written by Zeynep Tufekci:
“Sandy Henney, a former press secretary, said of Charles: “When I joined his office in ’93 he was going through some pretty virulent criticism — ‘Bad father; unloving husband.’ I think he was pretty hurt.” She said Mark Bolland (Charles’s deputy private secretary and public relations adviser) worked to change Charles’s image. Leaking to the media was reportedly one way to curry favor. “Brilliant manipulator,” Henney said of Bolland. “He got the result that he wanted.” (Bolland denied these accusations.)
Bolland was also accused of approving a News of the World article claiming a 16-year-old Harry had taken drugs, in exchange for praise for Charles for taking Harry to a rehab center, illustrated with what the tabloid said were photos of the visit. Harry writes that the seven-page tabloid spread left him sickened and horrified, and the photos were from an earlier official visit he had made to the center. Bolland later admitted the sequence of events were distorted to make Charles look better. The coverage, after Diana’s death, spun the portrayal of Charles. “No more the unfaithful husband,” as Harry puts it in his memoir. “Pa would now be presented to the world as the harried single dad.”
Horrifying.
Please tell me how you could possibly read about a father putting his 16-year-old son through such a traumatic public experience to fix his deservedly shitty reputation, and utter the words - Harry said he wants privacy, why is he trashing his family?
You know what they did to Meghan. You know this very well and you keep ignoring it, or you are a sociopath who feels no sense of humanity or kindness.
How can you be ok with these headlines and not think with your own head that there is an agenda here to paint this woman a certain way? These tabloids don’t write headlines or articles in this tone about literal murderers and child abusers:
Royal wedding: How Meghan Markle’s flowers may have put Princess Charlotte’s life at risk
At the same time they wrote lovingly about Kate “tenderly cradling” her bump, eating avocado, and most mind-blowing of all, Kate and Will’s wedding also featured the flowers they accused Meghan of trying to poison her niece with.
Does this article from the National Enquirer make sense to your logic, kindness, fairness, and humanity:
“Miserable mom to be Meghan Markle is a ticking time bomb who could explode at any moment according to the royal insiders. The Enquirer has learned Buckingham palace officials are concerned about the 37-year-old Duchess of Sussex's tears, tantrums, and mood swings as she feuds with sister-in-law. According to a royal mole, the analysis indicates Meghan’s personality could lead her to:
Fight for custody and smuggle her child out of Britain.
Pursue unsuitable romances with older men as she searches for a father figure
Lash out publicly over the sacrifices she made for Harry and the Royal Family
Slip into drug dependency to numb her pain”
I have never read a more hauntingly horrifying article in my life.
This is blatant racism, the one you are not aware of, it’s an unconscious bias, dehumanizing this girl to be able to write such atrocities about her, only possible if you don’t even see her as a human being.
Read the words they use again: miserable, ticking time bomb, explode, tantrums. mood swings, smuggle, lash out, drug dependency.
People will say, this is just "Royal gossip", and it is not that important. They all have millions, planes and mansions, why should we pity them? You are wrong. The situation surrounding Harry and Meghan is not about Royal gossip, it’s a political agenda.
Why would Fox News, an American News Station, dubious one yes, but a TV Network, have guests come up to discuss Meghan Markle, trash her, spin stories about her, lie, construct this narrative to radicalize you into hating this person; in a country that doesn’t even have Monarchy?
Why would Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens do a piece on Meghan Markle? Candace called Meghan “a leftist-narcissist”.
Gossip, you say?
I can even somewhat understand the hysterics coming from British people that feel this American actress took away their Prince; they grew up in the Monarchy and are emotionally connected to it. But I can’t for the life of me understand why American Networks work so hard at radicalizing you into hating this person.
I see it in Europe too, outside of Britain, where I’m from, so much hate towards this woman. She somehow became a staple of hate for all the radical, right-wingers all around the world.
Why?
This is what I wanted to analyze with this article. What exactly does she threaten in you? Your traditional life? Why is conservative life always based on hating something or someone? How does this woman, and this man for that matter threaten your values that you can uphold any way you please?
And how is it possible that all the people that hate Harry and Meghan are always the same exact types? Mostly Republican, “traditional”, they don’t really like immigrants, they love Trump, Biden is a terrorist, they don’t hate gay people if they “do what they need to do in the privacy of their own home”, they don’t hate trans people but “not in front of my children”, they hate Greta Thunberg, and maybe Zelensky isn’t that innocent in all this.
Always. Exact. Same. People.
Ali Hall gets it right:
“Where someone stands on the Harry and Meghan spectrum is the easiest way to gauge their stance on racism, equality, fairness, justice, and human rights.”
And I read a tweet by @charbrown20 the other day saying:
“Meghan was just the visual pinnacle of the right-wing hate permeating right through UK distilled from a toxic press and media.”
And as I said before, it’s not just right-wingers in the UK. It’s in the US, it’s in Europe it’s everywhere. It’s like the woman owning her agency and how she is perceived in the media insults the people who camouflage their intolerance into a tradition that must be followed. It’s no coincidence that the huge number of “traditional” people who preach their values oftentimes get busted as the ones not following the lifestyle they criticize others for.
As said by Kovie Biakolo:
“Meghan fixation is as predictable as it is dangerous, and a reminder that media outlets anywhere save their most antagonistic portrayals for women everywhere, often punishing those who attempt ownership and control of their narratives.
Her exercising a command of her story, opposing the account tabloids have sold about her, threatens the mirage of the monarchy as a secure institution, and the media outlets that feed into the machine they benefit from.
Never mind, too, that Harry’s contempt for the press is practically legendary and predates Meghan.”
And Harry irks the right-wing for not being silent and for calling his family out on their unethical cooperation with British Tabloids; all while literally going the opposite of what they stand for by not admitting, at least in public - what his family is doing to one of its members is literally treasonous.
If this is happening 400 years ago, Harry could literally raise the flag and contemplate the coup for the Crown!
The reform.
What the Tabloid Press gets away with writing is scary, and I wonder why the ethical press doesn’t get involved here. Yes, some of them wrote a piece here and there supporting Harry, but why aren’t they calling out the tabloid practices?
Why aren’t we having an inquiry into their practices, now that Harry whistleblowed about those practices? Why is no one looking into it, why is no one trying to pass laws to protect the integrity of the press, why aren’t we having Levenson Inquiry like the one looking into the British Tabloid phone hacking scandal? Why is Hugh Grant not taking this on?
Why aren’t we doing more?
Where is The Guardian or The Atlantic to call this out?
This is not an individual issue, this is a societal issue. Do Charlotte and Louis have to go through this in 20 years too? Misinformation and the corruption of journalism - should concern us all.
“To speak about them in such a disgusting and vitriolic fashion. To pick over their every pronouncement and step as if it is some sort of front to British values - this is not journalism.”
As I said, the Royal shenanigans are the least of it. The British Tabloids are also directly to blame for Brexit. And now the majority of British people are suffering for it.
By Zeynep Tukfeci:
“During the run-up to the Brexit vote, among other outright big lies, British tabloids screeched that, thanks to a secret conspiracy being cooked up in Brussels, the European Union would allow hordes of Turks to invade Britain, commit crimes, have too many babies and bankrupt the social services. Turkey isn’t even a member of the E.U. and is nowhere near becoming one. Brexit narrowly won, with damaging consequences still unfolding for Britain.”
This part is particularly important:
“My impression from his memoir is that Harry wants to make a crusade of applying sunlight to corrupt media practices and his family’s participation in them. If he succeeds in fighting the vile forces that he feels contributed to his mother’s death and imperiled his newfound love, he might bring a greater sense of decency in Britain, and maybe even curtail the power of the worst practices in media. Good luck to him.”
Aside from collaborating with British Tabloids that directly interfere with politics that influence the lives of people in Britain, it also begs a question, is Monarchy really working for its people? The subjects whose taxes support Royal’s lifestyles?
Diana’s popularity was good for getting attention to many causes that would help people in need. Charles was so intimidated by her popularity, he would rather have her removed & silenced than have her serve the Monarchy.
Meghan was a good addition to the institution who “elicited rapturous responses among many nonwhite Britons and in the wider Commonwealth, the association of more than fifty former British colonies and territories.”
As Amy Davidson Sorkin continues:
“Harry & Meghan’s Netflix documentary spends a lot of time on the Commonwealth, and makes a good case that the Royal Family did botch a chance at building the kind of connections and good will that the U.K., after cutting itself loose from the European Union, could use. But Harry also observes that Meghan’s popularity with crowds in Africa and elsewhere seemed to put his family on edge, too. What’s good for the U.K. might not be the same as what status-conscious members of the Royal Family think is good for them. And it’s in the nature of a monarchy that they get to decide.”
So if the British Monarchy decides on things by what’s good for them, instead of what’s good for its people and the Commonwealth, why does the British public pay them?
If the Monarchy operates on popularity and its members planting misleading stories about other members so they could be written about in a positive light, if they only exist to look into their lives in the press; how does that make them different from Kardashians?
Throwing each other under the bus, planting positive stories in the tabloids, making moves that benefit them and not the public, why is the Monarchy then still alive, if it serves themselves and not the people?
The British Monarchy is also one of the main reasons why Brexit happened which left the UK with a “more closed economy, less access to markets, higher inflation, lower purchasing power, and a weaker pound”.
How did the Royals contribute to Brexit?
“During the Brexit debate, though, Boris Johnson gave “advice” to Queen Elizabeth that she use one of her residual royal powers to “prorogue” Parliament, which meant sending the M.P.s home for a few weeks, thus cutting off a key debate, and she did so. The U.K.’s Supreme Court later found that the prorogation had been wrong and unlawful. Brexit, as much as Megxit, provided warnings that the U.K. is badly in need of constitutional clarity and reform regarding the role of the monarchy.”
Is this still not registering in your mind? The seriousness of this whole thing? The marriage between the Monarchy and British Tabloids? They keep writing about Meghan’s avocado toast fueling murder so you don’t pay attention to the serious damage their collaboration is causing its people.
And Harry is a whistleblower to this whole problem.
Does Britain, or the rest of the world need a Monarchy that fears tabloids? A great British Empire literally FEARS, wait for it - the Daily Mail!
Let that sink in.
And if Harry manages to alter the toxic model between the British Tabloids and the Monarchy, he will do more for his country than nearly anyone in his family.
Unbelievable write up. Where have you been? Well said. But be prepared for the bots to come after you. They are shameless, money hungry who have sold their souls to the devil. Preaching hate against a young family who dared to fall in love. Imagine the gaslighting. Thank goodness Prince Harry is intelligent enough to see through their hatred. He is the only one qualified enough to tell us about Meghan. He loves her so do we. Let this media back off, they lost. Let them go after the people wanting popularity.
The power of British tabloids in shaping national and world politics and policies should be terrifying to everyone, especially to the citizens of the UK and Commonwealth.
And Murdoch, at least, is shaping policies to benefit him personally in the US and AU, too. It's a tangled knot, but media forcefully calling out their bad actors would be a start. I don't have high hopes for people who have marinated in tabloid/Fox News, etc. swill for years -- decades even -- to wake up and smell reality.