Meghan And Harry Prove Taking On The Media Is A High-risk Strategy

I genuinely hope Harry and Meghan are having a peaceful time in Canada. Somehow, I doubt it.

If the media world was expecting a quiet easing into 2020 in early January, they were rudely awoken in that first full week when Mr and Mrs Sussex announced, via their Instagram feed, that they planned to eventually step back from full time Royal duties and split their time between Canada and UK. The resulting Tsunami of negative opinion was enough make even Brexit a mere side issue.

The signs had been coming. In previous columns in this publication, I’d warned about whether Meghan Markle was right in taking on the Mail on Sunday and her legal battle with them for the publication of her letter to her father. Morally and ethically, of course she has every right to insist letters to her father stay private. But if the move was to try to leverage some sort of control over the media, I just can’t see that same media being particularly forgiving in the months and years to come, regardless of the outcome of that case.

This latest move only seems to have served to heighten the media’s desire to ‘do a number’ on her. Its depressing stuff. Piers Morgan, of course, leapt all over it. He’s never been shy in having his opinion on Meghan and her influence on ‘our’ Harry.

Other high-profile media figures weighed in too.

Eammon Holmes, some-time presenter of This Morning and former Sky News presenter, when quizzed on TalkRadio, said: “I just find her incredibly irritating.” Then came his zinger.

“I’ve never met her, but I look at her and think ‘I don’t think I’d like you in real life.”

I’ve never met her, but I’ll make this judgement anyway. It’s a staggeringly stupid, crass and hurtful thing to say about anybody. Even the once untouchable Philip Schofield has had his squeakyclean name muddied in the aftermath when put to rights by lawyer, author and black activist Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu when he questioned whether she could point to any instances of racism in the press relating to Meghan’s treatment. Her takedown of that statement is worth a watch.

Harry and Meghan; two (relatively) young people with a new family, trying to do the best they can to figure stuff out. I’ve been there. Many of us have. Not as Royals, of course, but even us mere mortals know how bloody tough the new dynamic can be when a child arrives. Any other vocation, any other couple with a young family and they’d likely receive widespread praise for simply trying to do the best they can for their family.

Let’s not forget the signals had already been made clear in Meghan’s revealing interview with ITV News in that she was having a real struggle to come to terms with her new life in the Royal spotlight.

But if the couple believe this will be the end to the press intrusion, then sadly I fear this may just be the start. Taking on the might of the media is a tough call. Their decision, of course, won’t have been taken lightly, and you can surely sympathise with someone who blames the media for chasing his own mother to her own tragic death.

To get what they really wanted from this – some peace and tranquillity – one wonders if they may have approached this in a less confrontational manner. Their advisers, surely, will have told them that its an unwinnable fight they were picking with the media and that to try to take them on only serves to throw fuel on the flames.

A slow and gradual retreat from the Royal frontline may well have served them better and not caused such an incredible stink, both with the media and with the general public who have suddenly found an unfathomable sense of ownership of the Royals.

As it is, MailOnline and the rest will report record numbers on any story they run on Meghan and Harry. Piers will let everyone know his Meghan rants on Good Morning Britain had record viewing numbers, and as a result, the stories will rumble on and on. I don’t think Harry and Meghan will have a chance to slip on their comfy trakkie bottoms to dash to the shop for a pint of milk just yet.