This week, Prince Harry got something few people before him have achieved: an admission of guilt and illegal behavior from the Murdoch media organization. But he also failed to achieve his long-held goal of holding the Murdochs to account in a public trial.
The Duke of Sussex, along with Tom Watson, the Labor MP who led the charge against the Murdochs’ News Group Newspapers (NGN) in the UK during the 2011-2012 phone hacking scandal, are the latest to settle their claims against News. because their privacy has been invaded by phone hacking or the use of private investigators.
They join a list of around 1,300 people, including celebrities such as Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller, who have already settled their claims against The Sun newspaper at an estimated cost to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch’s company of more than a billion pounds sterling (nearly 2 billion Australian dollars). ).
This one is important because unlike previous settlements, it came with an admission of wrongdoing and an apology, as well as a perfunctory wheelbarrow full of cash.
So far, The Sun has simply refused to apologize or admit responsibility. But this position has become more and more absurd.
As Grant posted on X last year when he settled his claim:
News Group claims they are entirely innocent of the things I accused The Sun of doing. As is often the case with completely innocent people, they are offering me a huge sum of money to keep this matter from going to court.
Prince Harry snatched a lot more news. In a statement released after the settlement of the case on Wednesday morning in London, NGN said:
NGN apologizes fully and unequivocally to the Duke of Sussex for The Sun’s serious intrusion between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of illegal activity carried out by private investigators working for The Sun.
It continued:
NGN also apologizes fully and unequivocally to the Duke of Sussex for the phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators commissioned by them at the News of the World. NGN further apologizes to the Duke for the impact on him of the extensive media coverage and the serious intrusion into his private life as well as the private life of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, particularly during his young years. We acknowledge and apologize for the distress caused to the Duke and the damage inflicted on relationships, friendships and family, and have agreed to pay him substantial damages. It is also acknowledged, without any admission of illegality, that NGN’s response to the 2006 arrests and subsequent actions were regrettable.
Let’s break down what it actually says and what it doesn’t mean.
A carefully crafted formulation
First, it is undoubtedly a significant admission that in pursuit of stories, The Sun engaged in illegal activities. This is a big step up (or down, depending on your perspective) from previous settlement filings.
Note, however, that he carefully blames the illegal activity on private investigators working for The Sun rather than on journalists and, more importantly, editors. The word “incidents” does a lot of work here: “widespread” and “industrial strength” seem more appropriate.
Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said immediately after the deal that “NGN illegally engaged more than 100 private investigators over at least 16 years and on more than 35,000 occasions.”
Alastair/AP Scholarship
He continued: “This happened at both the Sun and the News of the World, with the knowledge of every editor and executive, right up to the top of the company. »
The NGN statement therefore continues to assert that the phone hacking did not take place at the Sun but that, in a roundabout way, the newspaper benefited from it. Sort of.
Dancing to avoid perjury
The company has engaged in this kind of casuistry since 2006, when it declared that the journalist and private investigator convicted of phone hacking (Clive Goodman and Glen Mulcaire, respectively) were just two bad apples in a media basket otherwise filled with orchards. .
The hundreds of people who received payments because their phones were hacked know this all too well, but there is an important reason why NGN feels it still needs to keep up this charade. To do otherwise would be tantamount to admitting that he perjured himself in court and in investigations.
The Murdoch company can hardly deny that journalists at the newspaper it was forced to close following phone hacking – The News of the World – engaged in this practice. Several of them were imprisoned because of this, including former editor Andy Coulson.
As one of Coulson’s former reporters, Dan Evans, testified at his editor’s trial in 2014, “even the office cat knew” that phone hacking was taking place at the paper.
Andy Rain/EPA
The newspaper was shut down, in large part, in an attempt to persuade the public that the problem of unethical journalists was limited to that newspaper.
Little did they expect them to notice that a few months later News created a Sunday edition of The Sun which continues to be published.
The legal war continues
For Prince Harry, this is a deeply personal campaign, especially since News has admitted to seriously intruding into his private life since the age of 12, as well as that of his mother, for many years.
NGN also acknowledged, without any admission of illegality, that its response to the 2006 arrests and its subsequent actions were “regrettable.” It’s PR-speak when you can’t bring yourself to apologize.
Harry’s lawyer attacked these evasions and euphemisms:
there was a vast conspiracy to cover up what was really happening and who knew about it. Senior executives deliberately obstructed justice by deleting more than 30 million emails, destroying backup tapes and making false denials, all while a police investigation was underway. They then repeatedly lied under oath to cover their tracks, both in court and at the Leveson public inquiry.
However, behind the duel declarations lies the feeling that this settlement, as important as it is, may not mark the end of the saga.
It seems clear that those who support and advise Prince Harry view the settlement as an important step in pursuing criminal charges against NGN executives, as well as securing a personal apology from Rupert Murdoch himself .
Will this actually happen? We know that in Murdoch’s long history in the media, apologies are extremely rare.
We also know that the second part of the Leveson inquiry was shelved by the former Conservative government. The newly elected Labor government has come under pressure from Hacked Off, the public interest group which advocates for victims of media intrusion and for reform of media laws since phone hacking was exposed in 2011.
Will the British police and government rely on NGN’s partial confession and apology? Will they investigate News executives, thereby carrying out what was supposed to happen in the second stage of the Leveson inquiry, the terms of reference of which distinguished the activities of News as a company?
Or will they take the cautious view that this rare settlement means justice has now been served and hope, like Murdoch and many of his senior leaders, that this long-standing problem will now quietly disappear?
It’s too early to tell. What we do know is that in recent years, the Murdochs’ once-brilliant batting average has dropped like a stone. First there was the historically high award from the Dominion lawsuit, then the failed attempt to revoke an irrevocable trust that is tearing the family apart, and now the settlement with Prince Harry.