RocknRoll and News Group Newspapers (and “The Trouble with Harry”) – Jonathan McCully

Edward Rocknroll was granted an interim-injunction pending trial on 8 January 2013, which prevented the Sun from publishing a potentially embarrassing photograph of  him in its paper ([2013] EWHC 24 (Ch)). Following the hearing, Mr Rocknroll and his wife, Kate Winslet made the following statement: “We have stopped the Sun from publishing semi-naked photos of Ned taken by a friend at a private 21st birthday party a few years ago. The photos are innocent but embarrassing and there is no reason to splash them across a newspaper.  We recognise that in the internet age privacy is harder and harder to maintain. But we will continue to do what we can, particularly to protect Kate’s children from the results of media intrusion. We refuse to accept that her career means our family can’t live a relatively normal life”.

Prince Harry’s Photos – Five Lessons for the Media Regulation Debate

As the froth dissipates it is worth reflecting on what lessons the saga of the Prince Harry photographs has for the media regulation debate. There is a natural tendency to conclude  that this is another passing “silly season” story – with as much wider significance as the Essex lion.  After all Prince Harry holds no public office and the invasions of his privacy were relatively minor in the scheme of things.  Such a conclusion would be too hasty.  The absurd affair of Prince Harry’s bum is nevertheless a very clear and illuminating example of what remains wrong with the tabloid press and, we suggest, provides five important lessons for the media regulation debate.

The Sunday Times, bravery and press freedom – Brian Cathcart

The Sunday Times does not mince its words, with a leading article entitled ‘The Sun’s brave lone stand for press freedom’. Prince Harry, it declares, ‘has put the issue of press freedom squarely on the agenda’, and the Sun, by publishing pictures of him with his clothes off, had exposed the absurdity of a situation where ‘British newspaper readers have been deprived of information freely available to their counterparts overseas’. This, said the Sunday Times, recalled the abdication crisis and the Spycatcher case.

Prince Harry’s bum; to print or not to print? an alternative view – Brian Pillans

Well, against a cacophonous backdrop of hysterical commentary, The Sun has bitten the bullet and published on today’s front page those notorious photos of Prince Harry on the Vegas Strip. The Sun says that they have published in the public interest and as a test of Britain’s free press. Many commentators and rivals have condemned the move as cynically putting up two fingers to both the law and the PCC Editors’ Code while others have lauded The Sun’s guts in challenging the hubris of the establishment when anyone with access to the internet can see exactly what they are not supposed to.

Public interest and the Prince – the Sun fails the responsibility test

So, finally, the “Sun” has come up with a public interest argument to justify writing about and publishing illegally taken photographs of a party in a private hotel room.  Under the headline “We fight for press freedom” the “Sun” bootstraps for Britain – justifying its publication of private photographs by reference to the “debate” which it, and the rest of the media have generated.  The public interest in publishing the photographs is, apparently, “in order for the debate about them to be fully informed“.

This is not about Harry’s Bum – Brian Cathcart

So there you have it. We spend a whole year discussing press ethics and then, for the sake of a peek at Prince Harry’s bum, half the world seems ready to say that the editor of the Sun can make up his own ethics.

No, this is not about the freedom of the press. Nor is it about print versus internet. And it is not about the public’s ‘right’ to see pictures of Harry’s bum either. It is about mob rule and the right of large newspaper corporations to do whatever they like. 

The Mail and the naked prince – Brian Cathcart

More than anyone else, it seems, the Daily Mail is furious about Harry. The Express, in an editorial on the prince’s adventures in Las Vegas, concludes: ‘Good luck to him.’ A Mirror writer observes: ‘. . . these pictures have just made me like him even more.’ The Sun’s leader carried a headline making a joke out of the prince’s game of strip billiards: ‘Cue laughter.’ But the Mail is at Defcon 1 on the indignation scale, devoting its first five pages to the story and leading with the headline ‘Palace fury at Harry naked Photos’.

Prince Harry, Privacy and Naked Photos: what part of “private” do the press not understand?

The internet has, today, been buzzing with stories about Prince Harry “cavorting naked” in his hotel suite in Las Vegas.  It is said that the photographs are available on US celebrity websites – but the British press have rightly held back from publishing even “edited highlights”.  The RPC Privacy Blog has drawn attention to the views of former News of the World Deputy Editor, Neil Wallis, about the reasons for this restraint by his former colleagues.