Murdoch’s UK newspapers have apologised to Prince Harry. Where does it leave the legally embattled media empire?
- Written by Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University
This week Prince Harry achieved something few before him have: an admission of guilt and unlawful behaviour from the Murdoch media organisation. But he also fell short of his long-stated goal of holding the Murdochs to account in a public trial.
The Duke of Sussex, along with Tom Watson, the Labour MP who had led the charge against the Murdochs’ News Group Newspapers (NGN) in the United Kingdom during the 2011–12 phone hacking scandal, are the last to settle their claims against News over their privacy being invaded by phone hacking or through 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 £1 billion (almost A$2 billion).
This one is significant because unlike previous settlements, it came with an admission of wrongdoing and an apology, as well as the perfunctory wheelbarrow full of cash.
Until now, The Sun has simply refused to say sorry or admit liability. But that stance has become increasingly absurd.
As Grant posted on X last year when he settled his claim:
News Group are claiming they are entirely innocent of the things I had accused The Sun of doing. As is common with entirely innocent people, they are offering me an enormous sum of money to keep this matter out of court.
Prince Harry wrung from News considerably more. In a statement released after the case was settled on Wednesday morning in London, NGN said:
NGN offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion by The Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for The Sun.
It went on:
NGN also offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators instructed by them at the News of the World. NGN further apologises to the Duke for the impact on him of the extensive coverage and serious intrusion into his private life as well as the private life of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, in particular during his younger years. We acknowledge and apologise 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 this is actually saying, and what it isn’t.
Carefully crafted wording
First, it is undoubtedly a significant admission that in pursuit of stories, The Sun engaged in unlawful activity. That is a big step up (or down, depending on your point of view) from previous settlement statements.
Note, though, it carefully pins the unlawful activity on private investigators working for The Sun rather than on journalists and, more importantly, editors. The word “incidents” is doing a lot of work here: “widespread” and “industrial-strength” come to mind as more appropriate.
Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said immediately after the settlement was reached that “NGN unlawfully engaged more than 100 private investigators over at least 16 years on more than 35,000 occasions”.
He continued: “this happened as much at The Sun as it did at the News of the World with the knowledge of all the Editors and executives, going to the very top of the company.”
NGN’s statement, then, continues to assert phone hacking did not happen at The Sun but in a roundabout way, somehow, the newspaper benefited from it. Sort of.
Dancing to avoid perjury
The company has been engaged in this kind of casuistry ever since 2006 when it said the journalist and private investigator who were found guilty of phone hacking (Clive Goodman and Glen Mulcaire, respectively) were just two bad apples in an otherwise orchard-kissed media basket.
The hundreds of people who have received payments because their phones were hacked know this only too well, but there is an important reason NGN feels it still has to maintain this charade. To do otherwise would be an admission that it has perjured itself in courts and before inquiries.
The Murdochs’ company can hardly deny that journalists at the newspaper it was forced to close over phone hacking – The News of the World – were engaged in the practice. Several of them were jailed over it, most notably 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” phone hacking was happening at the newspaper.
The newspaper was closed, in large part, to try and persuade the public that the problem of unethical reporters was confined to that newspaper alone.
They weren’t expected to notice that months later, News set up a Sunday edition of The Sun that continues to be published.
The legal war continues
For Prince Harry, this has been a deeply personal campaign, especially as News has admitted seriously intruding into his private life since he was 12, and into his mother’s too, for many years.
NGN also acknowledged, without any admission of illegality, that its response to the 2006 arrests and its subsequent actions were “regrettable”. This is PR-speak for when you can’t bring yourself to actually apologise.
Harry’s lawyer went on the attack over these evasions and euphemisms:
there was an extensive conspiracy to cover up what really had been going on and who knew about it. Senior executives deliberately obstructed justice by deleting over 30 million emails, destroying back-up tapes, and making false denials - all in the face of an ongoing police investigation. They then repeatedly lied under oath to cover their tracks - both in Court and at the Leveson Public Inquiry.
Beneath the duelling statements, though, is the sense that this settlement, important though it is, may not be the end of the saga.
It seems clear those backing and advising Prince Harry see the settlement as an important step in pursuing criminal charges against NGN executives, as well as winning a personal apology from Rupert Murdoch himself.
Will that actually happen? We do know that in Murdoch’s long history in the media, apologies are vanishingly rare.
We also know that the second part of the Leveson inquiry was shelved by the former Conservative government. The recently elected Labour government has been under pressure from Hacked Off, the public interest group that has been advocating for victims of media intrusion and for reform of media laws ever since the phone hacking came to light in 2011.
Will Britain’s police and government build on NGN’s partial admissions and apologies? Will they investigate News executives, therefore fulfilling what was meant to occur in the second stage of the Leveson inquiry, whose terms of reference singled out News’s activities 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 executives, this long-running issue will now just quietly go away?
It is 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 payout in the Dominion lawsuit, then the failed attempt to revoke an irrevocable trust that is tearing apart the family, and now the settlement with Prince Harry.
Authors: Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University
