Tabloids Shriek As Celebrities Go After Celebrities

Michael Hedges March 14, 2021 Follow on Twitter

Celebrity is a very common to the human species. People are ranked by their own: the rich, powerful, talented and well-bred vie for status, sometimes intermingling, with the mean, cruel, vicious and brutal. Pigeons, turtles and trout are much less so inclined. To communicate human celebrity came gossip. To memorialize it came tabloids.

Royalty - kings, queens and their offspring - are the ultimate celebrity. They dress well, if a bit stiff, and communicate a sense of order, except when they don’t. Royalty are celebrities because they are distinctly separate and, in the post-modern age, there are only a few. Think: castles and moats. British Royalty are in a class of their own.

It has been a week since US television network CBS broadcast a special two-hour interview show with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, also known as Prince Harry and Meghan. It was hosted and produced by Oprah Winfrey, an unparalleled television celebrity. It promised Royal gossip. It delivered. The younger British Royals unloaded, with a degree of discretion, on everything and everybody distressful to them. Ms Winfrey exuded empathy, her trademark.

According to Nielsen audience estimates, quoted by Deadline (March 12), nothing else was on TV in the US last Sunday night primetime (March 7). The US audience topped 17 million viewers and it was rebroadcast Friday night (March 12). UK viewers were treated to the show last Monday, also in primetime, on ITV. It drew 11.3 million folks to the TV screens.

In many countries, the US in particular, entertainment media is the antidote to rough realities. And, everything is entertainment. The interview “obliterated the competition” in Ireland, said celebrity news portal extra.ie (March 10). Australians, 1.78 million of them, viewed the show. Just short of a million and a half French people tuned in Monday night on cable channel TMC. Nielsen reported, according to Deadline (March 12), worldwide audience was around 61 million. That did not include viewers in Spain who were finally offered the show at the end of the week. Media watchers, generally, touted the interview as a decisive victory over streaming services. “TV can still make a splash,” headlined Financial Times (March 11).

In supplemental material not included in the original interview Prince Harry indicated racism from the tabloid press in the UK contributed a “large part” to the couple’s decision to relocate to the US. "My biggest concern was history repeating itself,” he said in an oblique reference to the death of his mother, Princess Diana, being chased by tabloid paparazzi. “And what I was seeing was history was repeating itself.” Both spoke of resistance from within the Royal Family to their seeking mental health assistance. Then there were the “concerns” from an unnamed Royal Family member about their baby’s skin color.

UK tabloids, with typical lack of contrition, did not take kindly to the criticism. Largely, the Daily Mail, MailOnLine and the Sun bashed the veracity of Meghan Markle’s claims, particularly racism within the Royal Family. The Society of Editors, meant to represent editors, journalists and publishers, defended, at first, the tabloids. “The UK media is not bigoted and will not be swayed from its vital role holding the rich and powerful to account,” said its statement, from which it backtracked almost immediately after a co-host of its upcoming Press Awards withdrew and several newspapers removed themselves from the group. Then Ian Murray, executive editor of the trade body, resigned under fire.

While all that was going on, notorious crank TV host Piers Morgan abruptly exited the Good Morning Britain set Tuesday morning when confronted by a colleague about his comments disparaging Prince Harry and, particularly, Meghan Markle, for which UK media regulator Ofcom received more than 40,000 complaints. He claimed, in typical tabloid lack of irony, to be the victim of “racist bullying.” Within hours ITV accepted his resignation. Mr. Morgan has another job, however, writing regular rants for Daily Mail.

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• Hot Topics - Tabloids

• Hot Topics - Media in the UK