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."
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