S4E15 What the media won't say about the monarchy
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Okay, wait, let me get my mic up. That was a cute noise. Hello, hello, hello, MediaStormers. I interrupted you. Let's try that again. Okay. Hello, hello, hello, MediaStormers. Hello, hello, hello, Helena. Hi, Tilda. How many drugs are you on today? Oh.

My mum listens to... Not illegal drugs. No, I know. I'm ill again. It's so boring. I don't even want to talk about it. I am on Otravine. Honestly, Otravine. If you guys have sinus issues, you've got to get on that shit. Guys, Otravine is dark magic. It's so good. I know that if I snort it too much, my inner nose canal will collapse or something. Yeah, you can't use it too frequently. Much like cocaine. And yet, it is...

Definitely is addictive. Oh,

I wouldn't be able to do this podcast if I hadn't snorted half a bottle of Otropine. Yeah, so Matilda's immune system is down again. Yeah. Another UTI, perhaps? No UTIs. Oh, thank goodness. That might be more newsworthy. Headline, Matilda doesn't have a UTI this week. My mum did actually message last week to ask how my bladder was doing, which was cute. It's good to know that Doe and Papa Manson still listen to Media Snob. Oh, that's nice. My parents definitely don't. See?

Do you think they don't? Definitely don't. Should we test it? Like, should we sow some ideas here? No. Papa, what do you... Yeah, that was really creepy and pervy. That was horrible. That was horrible. I'll never do that again. What happened with your week? Nothing really. I've just been prepping for a hen do this weekend. Ooh, fun. Don't you... I don't know if you have this, but if you have skills, like video editing...

I think this might be the fifth Mr. and Mrs. video I've put together. Not to complain because shout out to Ritty and Corinne who are getting married in a month. They are avid MediaStorm listeners and we love their support. Oh, cute. I actually had Corinne. I see that name pop up on my Instagram quite a lot. Exactly. Is that him? He always likes everything. I'm so happy for you guys. Ritty, well done. You have excellent taste.

Marry a MediaStorm listener, guys. That's our advice to you. And speaking of MediaStorm listeners, we do have an update for those of you out there who care, which is that this is our penultimate episode of the series. We will be back next week with another Current Affairs episode, big finale for the series, and we will be dropping both.

bonus investigations on your feed between now and the end of the year. And watch out for next year when we have a big investigation coming your way. Now, what else is happening in the world? Further escalation in the Middle East. Explosions across Lebanon injured thousands as pages belonging to Hezbollah members were tapped into by a hostile force.

The group has blamed Israel, whose military has declined to comment. There was a second failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump, prompting questions from the right about democratic rhetoric and questions from the left about gun safety laws. And Tupperware has filed for bankruptcy. The historic snack packs have been suffering due to cheaper competition. I feel strangely sad about that. I know, but you still buy the cheaper options, don't you? Absolutely.

Absolutely. When you were researching headlines, I can't believe you decided all of those things were more important than Prince Harry's 40th birthday. I can't quite tell if you're being sarcastic or not and it's freaking me out. Well, spoiler for what's coming up later this episode. Thank God for that. But first, what media storms caught your eye?

There's a presidential election happening in the US. Yes, I've heard. I suppose we really ought to do something on that. Yeah, and this week something happened that we couldn't not do something on. Is this the whole migrants eating people's pets thing? That small thing, yeah. Donald Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, has doubled down on false claims that Haitian migrants are eating household pets in an Ohio town.

Background here is that Springfield in Ohio is a Rust Belt city that has had very high levels of immigration in recent years, especially legal migrants from Haiti who were drawn in by an explosion of manufacturing jobs. Also important background, there's no evidence they're eating people's pets at all. That claim is based on a Facebook post that has been debunked by Meta itself. You've got to be bad to be debunked by Meta. Right? Right.

But they have still been voiced by Vance on national news and by Trump at the debate with Kamala Harris, not to mention Elon Musk and a bunch of other such types. This is a clip now widely infamous. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating animals.

They're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame.

City officials have repeatedly debunked the rumours. Mayor Rob Rue had to reassure people's pets are safe in Springfield, Ohio. And he said his team actually reached out to J.D. Vance's campaign to let them know there's no evidence for the claims. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, also called the rumours a piece of garbage that is simply not true. And Springfield police said they had received no reports about pets being stolen and eaten.

But even since then, I've seen Vance's double down on this. Yes, and his curious defence is what makes this a media storm story. Firstly, it was a bit contradictory because he sort of both said that it was true and that he'd made it up, but he defended it nonetheless. He said the, quote, media...

He literally said, create stories. He literally said it. Like, wow. Okay, so there's two media issues here. One is his claims that media are ignoring this stuff. So I guess he thinks...

media has like a liberal or democratic bias. And the other is this idea that he could just make up news, that politicians could just create news. Yeah.

So let's start with like the question of bias first. I looked into it and there is an interesting assessment by The Economist done last year. It compared language used by the US media to language used by the Republicans and language used by the Democrats. For example, does the media say illegal aliens like Republicans or undocumented migrants like the Democrats? The

The article concluded that US journalism sounds much more democratic than republican, and this has increased over time. But it doesn't necessarily signify a media shift left. The Economist asks whether it actually signifies republicans sailing further from reality than democrats. Yeah, I was going to say, because alien is not a journalistic term by any allowance in that context. No.

On the other hand, there's the question of the amount of coverage. But it's well established by now that reporting on Trump is very profitable for news outlets, whether they're on the left or the right. The first year that Trump ran for election was the most profitable in CNN history. Online subscriptions soared for The New York Times and Washington Post and Fox News ratings went through the roof. This is...

Possibly why Trump received 15% more coverage than Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. And I guess it's also why Vance and Trump apparently now think that they can create news. Well, exactly, because the kind of sensationless clickbait story that's profitable for papers is also the kind of story that's... Outlandish and not true? Mm-hmm.

That's why I want to talk about this story. This is basically an admission by the Trump campaign that they are exploiting the media to get themselves coverage with fake, created stories. But it hasn't led to much reflection by the media. On the contrary, these unfounded claims have become so newsworthy, Vance has started to believe his own rumors. What do you mean? After claims were repeatedly falsified by city officials, Vance said...

Whatever some local mayor said about this case, I am hearing from dozens of constituents who are concerned about these issues. There are dozens of us! Well, no wonder he's hearing reports now after he made such a hype about it. Exactly! Since his original claim, dozens of stories have sprung up online, which he has then used to back up his original claim. But all these stories have been falsified on Investigation.

For example, there's a viral clip showing police footage of a woman being arrested for animal cruelty. And this has been shared as proof that Trump and Vance were right and fact checkers were wrong. Captions said, an illegal woman from Haiti killed and ate a cat in front of neighbors in Springfield, Ohio. The video actually showed a U.S. citizen who was born in Ohio and is not a Haitian immigrant being arrested in a different town to Springfield. Although it was true she ate a cat in front of her neighbors. Okay.

So it's a cycle of fake news. Yes, basically. And when it's used in policy, there's something more sinister we have to watch out for. Astro-turfing. Okay, just explain that term for listeners and for me. Astro-turfing is the deceptive practice of disguising an orchestrated marketing campaign as organic unsolicited comments from members of the public.

Right, so here we have a politician spreading unfounded fears about a minority group, which led to a bunch of unverified reports of exactly that happening, which he then used to justify his original unfounded claims. Yes, and not just his claims. He's used it to justify policies. Trump has pledged to deport thousands of migrants from Springfield if he gets into power.

Now that's not based on valid fears about migration, but unfounded racial and cultural stereotypes. This kind of news muddies the immigration debate with lies, making it impossible to address people's rational concerns. It

deliberately hijacks moderate debate about immigration, preferring panic and hate. And I guess it wouldn't be a stretch to presume these rumours have led to a rise in hate crimes against Haitian migrants in the area. No, sadly not at all. Multiple bomb and shooting threats have since been made against public buildings in Springfield, targeting Haitians, and police have had to evacuate three schools and a university in response. Enough said.

I want to revisit a story raised by Sharon Dhaliwal on our earlier episode about media racism, which has come back into the news cycle. It's about a British woman of colour who was charged with racially aggravated public order for essentially calling Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman coconuts. She was just acquitted, right? Yes, after a two-day trial. Here's a clip of the woman, Mariah Hussain, outlining what she went through before she was acquitted. BEEP

My name is Mareha Hussain and on the 11th of November I participated in a pro-Palestine demonstration in London. I had a placard with me depicting Rishi Sunak and Sulaimah Brahman as coconuts. A far-right pro-Zionist Twitter page uploaded my picture and within six minutes it was commented on by the Metropolitan Police saying that they were looking for me.

Since then, I have lost my job. I have been subjected to an abusive police interview. I've been harassed by the police in the middle of the night. I've had to leave home. I've had to leave my children behind. I've had to pull my son out of school for a short period of time. I'm currently four, almost five months pregnant.

Whoa. What exactly did the placard say? Okay, so the sign she was holding showed a drawing of a palm tree with coconuts falling off it and pasted over two of the coconuts were the faces of Suella Braverman and of then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. It's not exactly what comes to mind when I hear the charge.

racially aggravated public order. No, I literally think of Romesh Ranganathan joking about how his mum always calls him a coconut because he doesn't speak Tamil. Like, hello, been there myself as well. Yeah, you're not exactly calling the police on your mum. No. Okay, but humour me. The term is clearly racial and it's also derogatory. It means brown on the outside, white on the inside. So kind of implicating that someone is a traitor to their race.

But it's way more complicated than that, because this term was formed by colonised people as a defence mechanism, as a way of criticising members of their community who colluded with colonisers. I literally used to call myself a coconut at school to fit in. Is this language really something that the British state should get to police?

True, that feels super dark. But also is arguing that not kind of arguing that not everyone should be equal before the law. But not everyone is equal before the law. Reality for some ethnic minorities is very different to reality for others. Like the term coconut expresses the frustration many minority Brits feel about how

They're being gaslit by a small number of powerful right-wingers who claim to represent them. I totally agree. Braverman and Sunak promote a racist political agenda through the Rwanda scheme, especially. And Braverman's comments about Pakistani men or about asylum seekers. And to be honest, I could list loads.

but are there not plenty of ways to criticise her that don't use racialised terms? I mean, is the right way to criticise them with criticisms that are founded on their skin colour or isn't that holding them to different standards to white politicians? I just increasingly feel like name-calling is proving really unhelpful in these debates. Still, even if it's not helpful or not your choice of communication style, does that mean it should be a crime? A crime that carries a maximum of

two-year prison sentence. No, you're right. I also definitely don't think it's worse name-calling than Braverman calling the ceasefire marches hate marches. And actually, as a citizen, all Maria has to attack Braverman and Sunak is protesting and placards. They have the police. This is not a story I like. This feels like a political trial. I agree.

So then we have to ask, what agenda is served by holding up a brown woman who's marching in support of Palestine as a racist aggressor against government officials? Is it really about the term coconut? OK, so what makes this a media storm story? This is a media storm story because the campaign calling for her arrest started in the fringe media and was taken up with force by the mainstream media. And I would argue she probably would have never been arrested without it.

So was she not arrested at the protest itself? No, she wasn't arrested until six months later. After the protest, a photo of her at the protest, smiling, holding the placard, went viral. It was posted by an anonymous right-wing blog called Harry's Place on X. It's since been viewed more than four million times. The caption said, among anti-racists, you find some of the worst racists of them all. And then Harry's Place tagged the Met Police saying,

which soon replied to the post saying they're actively looking for her. News outlets, including The Times, The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Express, took it upon themselves to identify Maria Herr, expose intimate details of her personal life and pressure police to go ahead with her arrest. Story time. A few days after the protest, these outlets published a slew of articles revealing the name of the woman pictured, her age and her job. And

And not just that, but details of her childhood home. The Daily Mail published a headline identifying her father as a distinguished dermatologist who qualified in Pakistan but has worked in the UK for decades. How is that relevant? How is that in the public interest?

I mean, no wonder she had to relocate and pull her son out of school. There's more. The Express headline was grinning teacher hunted by cops over racist Rishi Sunak poster. The Sun headline was sick, taunt woman hunted by cops over racist placard. An article, by the way, written by a white guy.

It's interesting that at this point, her identity is fully known. Tabloids have tracked down her childhood home and her dad, but police are still hunting her. Why are police having so much more difficulty than reporters finding her? Well, that's my question. Were they actually hunting her or did they decide this was not a priority for stretched police resources?

But the reporters behind these articles kept making inquiries to the police and publishing updates that they were yet to make an arrest. So this is putting pointed pressure on the police to arrest her. So basically, this was an arrest made under media pressure and it's an arrest that a lot of people believe should never have happened. Exactly. And wait for this. When Maria was actually charged, she found out not from the police, but from a journalist. Oh.

Are you joking? What does that say about the police's priorities? That's so dodgy. Okay, final story before we move on to our main topic. Let's talk about what happened at the Jewish Chronicle. Yes, I was hoping we would.

What do you know? OK, so I know that over the weekend, four of the paper's best-known columnists resigned over doubts about editorial accuracy. And I know it was regarding a number of articles that obviously had to do with Israel and Gaza. Yeah, so their resignation came after the paper was forced to delete nine articles by a writer called Elon Perry. When it came out, he had fabricated not just multiple stories, but basically his entire CV.

The paper's editor, Jake Wallace-Simons, framed the problem as basically being down to this one rogue journalist. He wrote on X, Obviously, it's every newspaper editor's worst nightmare to be deceived by a journalist. The Jewish Chronicle has cut all ties with the freelancer in question, and his work has now been removed from our website.

The resigning columnists said the issue was more institutional. One of them, Jonathan Friedland, also a Guardian columnist, tweeted, But I want to talk about the wider problems implicated

within our news ecosystem at large. For one thing, this wasn't the first time doubts had been raised over editorial practice at the Jewish Chronicle. Really? No. In 2021 and again in 2023, a group of people who'd had inaccuracies published about them by the Jewish Chronicle wrote to Ipsos, the independent press regulator, demanding an investigation into the paper. But this never happened and these concerns were dismissed by the right-wing media as anti-Semitic. It's

It's also important to say that some of the people who signed the letter did have histories of anti-Semitism, which totally undermined the integrity of their editorial concerns, even if there was cause to have editorial concern. So this paints a picture of a British media muddied by partisanship. For example, The Telegraph debunked the complaints as Corbynite and said some on the left would rejoice if the world's oldest Jewish newspaper was plunged into another existential crisis.

The Jewish Chronicle had a key role in exposing anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, so it was always going to become a target. But at the same time, all the people who wrote this letter to Ipso had had inaccuracies published about them by the Jewish Chronicle. And in some cases, the paper actually had to pay out damages in libel. But because their complaints could be dismissed as anti-Semitic, the editorial concerns were cast aside. And now we're here.

Right, now we're in a situation where they have published untrue content that plays right into Benjamin Netanyahu's hands. Yes, partisanship has become propaganda. The Elon Perry articles...

And one in particular is the problem here. So the day before it was published, Netanyahu called a press conference to explain his insistence on keeping Israeli forces along the border between Gaza and Egypt, even at the cost of a hostage deal. He said if he removed the military, Hamas could easily smuggle hostages out of the country.

And the Jewish Chronicle article by Perry claimed to have proof that this is what Hamas was planning, right? Exactly. Elon Perry claimed that his sources were Israeli interrogators and documents seized the day that the bodies of six murdered hostages were recovered.

All of this was refuted by Israeli intelligence and the IDF military the next day. But it didn't stop Netanyahu's representatives saying that they needed to keep the military on the border because, quote, reports Hamas were planning this. They've used this article to, again, it's this astroturfing. They're using the article to defend their policy. Yeah, this really reminds me of the whole...

Iraq war weapons of mass destruction fiasco. It is very, very similar. I mean, before the West's illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, politicians justified their decision to go to war by citing reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But these reports came from newspapers, including every single one of Rupert Murdoch's papers. And if you followed the trail, all these papers referenced each other in a cycle of references that had no original verifiable source. It's a lie. And it destroyed public faith in the media in our countries. And that has never fully recovered. It really just shows.

how dangerous this kind of editorial mishap can be. Yeah. And the other problem is we can't hold anyone accountable in this situation because the Jewish Chronicles ownership has been completely opaque since it was saved from liquidation in 2020 by a mysterious anonymous cohort.

But again, ownership is not just an issue with the Jewish Chronicle, but with our whole mainstream media. We talk about this in our earlier episode, what does a free press really mean? Because something like 90% of national newspaper circulation is owned by just free

three companies and these in turn are owned by a handful of individuals like Jonathan Harmsworth, the Murdochs, Evgeny Lebedev. I mean at least we know their names. Yeah which is only slightly more comforting. Yeah so basically this story should not just have us pillaring the Jewish Chronicle but asking questions about the whole British media. Starting with partisanship not ending with ownership.

On to our main media storm for this episode then. What are we looking at? Well, I mentioned at the beginning that it was Prince Harry's 40th birthday. Yeah, that's royal fluff news that's being reported everywhere. Not exactly a media storm. That's very true. The royals have been all over our news this week. In fact, they're over the news most weeks. Prince Harry ageing made headlines and reopened questions of a royal brotherly rift.

Kate Middleton had her first meetings following cancer treatment, marked by releasing a video media outlets described as tender and having big Princess Diana energy. And a second dramatisation of that god-awful Prince Andrew Newsnight interview is being released today on Prime. I'm very happy to hear Kate Middleton is cancer-free, of course. But a lot of these stories you've mentioned sound a little bit more...

More like PR than news? Exactly. Yet, royal fluff continues to make endless news headlines. And the monarchy is given a fairly easy ride in the media. Rarely questioned, often praised, and its history erased. In a media landscape that prides itself on giving all sides due impartiality, why are there almost no voices against? ♪

The Queen died peacefully this afternoon. Thousands of people have been queuing for hours to pay their respects. I think it's time to find a way back for Harry. The less said about his wife Meghan, the better. But where are the anti-royalists during all of this? At least some of them have found themselves in police custody. Not my king! Not my king! Welcome to MediaStorm, the news podcast that starts with the people.

who are normally asked last. I'm Helena Wadia. And I'm Matilda Mallinson. This week's MediaStorm. What the media won't say about the monarchy. The 2024 F-150 Lightning truck gets dirty and runs clean.

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Thanks to IP. Learn more at phrma.org slash IPWorksWonders. Welcome to the studio. We are lucky to be joined by two very special guests. Our first guest is a storyteller. Whether it's through her podcast, Say Your Mind, or books or video essays, she explores and challenges what it means to navigate modern society based on what we remember of our histories. She's a

And that includes the history of the monarchy, something she speaks about on many media outlets. Welcome to the podcast, Kelechi Okafor. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Our second guest is a lecturer in media at Lancaster University. She is the author of Running the Family Firm, How the Monarchy Manages Its Image and Our Money, and the forthcoming book, What is the Monarchy For? A very apt question. We hope you can help us answer today. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Laura Clancy.

Hello, thank you for having me. Now, in order to discuss the monarchy, we need to know where public opinion generally stands. Sifting through data from YouGov, we can establish that the monarchy is still popular overall, but there are deep generational divides. While support for the monarchy remains high, it is significantly down on previous levels. YouGov tracker data found backing for the institution was as high as 75% in 2013.

10 years later, in 2023, it was polled at 62%. The latest YouGov data on this topic also showed that only 32% of 18 to 24 year olds say the monarchy is good for Britain, compared to 77% of 65 plus year olds. That's a huge gap, 77 versus 32. It's also worth saying that at the

peak of support for the monarchy in 2013, as many as 72% of 18 to 24 year olds wanted to keep the institution and that has now dropped to 36%. Now while young people have been typically less enthusiastic about the monarchy than their elders ever since these YouGov polls were a thing, this still shows a remarkable shift in opinion for the younger generation. Kelechi, why do you think this shift of opinion happened?

I think that one of the reasons might be through the globalisation that social media, for instance, has allowed. We're able to share information more readily, people becoming more aware of life outside of themselves. And also the whole thing with Meghan Markle is people would like to put it, Britain's racism is underlying, right? That's what we're told, that it's underlying. But then when that happened, it brought it right to the surface for people who weren't as aware that this was a thing and understood

I think you can't unsee that. And when you know better, you have to do better.

Laura, I saw you were nodding when Kelechi mentioned Meghan Markle there. Do you think that had a significant impact on people's views of the monarchy? Yeah, I definitely do. I think people saw what happened and recognised what happened as sexism and as racism and perhaps, you know, for some that reflected their own experiences. I think also younger audiences, younger people we know more keenly feel class inequality. We know that, you know, younger people are much more

less well-off than parents, their grandparents or whatever. And so I think they recognise the class inequality as well that is inherent in the monarchy. Polling between November 2019 and March 2020 showed a big shift. And there were two significant things that happened in that period. One of them is exactly, as you both point out, Harry and Meghan stepping back from...

from official duties and then that media backlash against them. And then the other thing was, of course, that disastrous Prince Andrew Newsnight interview, which is featuring in a documentary the day that this podcast comes out, the second documentary about the interview since it happened. Like, we were all there. Thanks. Do you think that the Prince Andrew incident has had a massive...

massive impact on on young people's favor of the monarchy as well absolutely i think that before the royal family were able to present themselves through careful orchestration as this impenetrable formidable force right and you know we don't get any answers from them they just go about their business and we're just meant to acquiesce we're just made we're the subjects that's fine but then

when we start seeing the shenanigans that Prince Andrew's getting up to or allegedly whatever the case may be and how strongly people feel about that coming off the back of the Me Too movement as well I think a lot of people have become really riled up about it thinking how is it possible that you've told us that this powerful entity is incapable of doing something about this man and his transgressions why should we trust you and for the fact that we receive no answers we

and everybody's going on with business as usual. I think Prince Andrew really landed a deadly blow, like a fatal blow to the monarchy. And we're now seeing it play out.

Well, a big talking point that surrounds the monarchy is money. In the same YouGov data from last year, 70% of 65-plus-year-olds say the royal family is good value for money. Younger people are divided. Only 37% of 18- to 24-year-olds think the royal family is good value for money.

is good value for money. But what does value for money really mean? The monarchy is supported financially by UK taxpayers via the Sovereign Grant, which covers central staffing costs and expenses for the monarch's official households, maintenance of the royal palaces in England and travel and royal engagements and visits. For this year, the Sovereign Grant is worth £86.3 million,

These costs have fluctuated somewhat. For example, in 2022, the costs associated with King Charles succeeding Queen Elizabeth, plus higher than expected inflation, took total spending for that period to £107.5 million. How else does the royal family receive money? The king also receives money from a private estate called the Duchy of Lancaster, which is passed down from monarch to monarch.

The King and Prince William receive the profits from the Duchies personally and can spend them as they wish. However, they're not entitled to proceeds from the sale of any estate assets, which must be reinvested. Laura, it's a lot to take in. Can you help us understand the

the costs of the royal family? Well, I think it's a lot to take in because it's extremely complicated. And I think that works for them. We often see newspapers reporting, you know, the royal family costs every person in the UK £1 or £1.10 or, you know, whatever the figure is.

And that's taken from the sovereign grant. That's how they calculate that. But we know, as you've just explained, that that's nowhere near the total. They also get money from different government departments as well. So royal visits are usually funded by local governments and local councils. Which is also taxpayer funded. Yes. And security, some of the security for some of them is funded by different government departments. That still doesn't cover everything. And I think that

it's useful for them not to be able to give a total. The other thing is we also don't know their wealth, so their private wealth. So royal wills are sealed.

We don't know what's in them. We can't tell, you know, for instance, what Elizabeth passed on. And that makes it impossible. How can you possibly calculate what they're worth if you don't have that information? So there's these kind of layers of masking and hiding things that makes it really difficult to come up with that figure. And that's really useful to them because I think that figure would be astronomical. I also just didn't really know this. Do you know what I mean? Like, this is not really common knowledge.

knowledge about how much money is spent on the royals and where they get their money. And as you said, the masking and the things that are sealed. Cleche, do you think the general public understand the costs of the royal family? No, because it is intentional that we are not well versed as to what is happening. Historically speaking, the subjects weren't meant to be educated like that. We weren't meant to know these things. We were barely meant to read.

So we were meant to just be told, you work, you're a worker, you make your money. And then this person or this family takes the money and they can do with it what they will, because due to the divine right of kings, God has chosen them to rule over you. So you have no jurisdiction to ask how your money's been spent after you've been in a farm or the factory all day earning it. So when we're told things like, oh, the royal family or the monarchy is good value for money, like their Tesco value bread, like what, what, what?

does that even mean? Like good value for money for who? If you know that you can't turn your heating on, you can't buy food or you're sleeping, you know, rough, but you know that this family that you're not allowed to ask questions to, they are protected in ways that you will never be. And on top of that, they're chopping your money. Yeah, I think people would be out in the streets and that's what they wouldn't want.

Are they paying into the pot? You know, like all this private wealth that they have. Are they paying tax on that? Because I remember reading that Charles wasn't paying inheritance tax. Are there different tax rules that apply to the monarchy?

Yeah, they're exempt. What? Because the crown is a corporation, so it's not an individual, it's a corporation. They do pay voluntary tax on some of it, but the percentage that they pay is just arbitrary, so they just pick it out of thin air. No,

It'd be like me just deciding I'm going to pay 1%. You know, you just could no one else. I'll voluntarily pay 1% income tax. I will just message HMRC. We've established there's a lot of money spent on the royal family. But what about the money that comes in because of them? Any argument for abolition of the monarchy is more often than not met with a rebuttal of, but tourism...

Last year, the consultancy Brand Finance argued the cost of the royal family is eclipsed by what it contributes to boosting tourism and trade. Their research said that the coronation year produces a net positive contribution of £761 million.

However, Republic, the organisation which campaigns to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state, questions the validity of their research and points out that many of the royal family's assets, for example, are the property of the state. Laura, I mean, we can't undermine the tourism and trade argument, can we? I mean, it does bring money in.

Yeah, it does. But the Palace of Versailles isn't exactly struggling for tourists and they don't have a sitting monarch. Buckingham Palace wouldn't cease to exist just because the king wasn't there in it. And actually, at the moment, they only open Buckingham Palace, I think it's one month a year. And if no one was in it, they could open it all year round and get that money. So yes, of course, they'd bring in tourism, although I don't think it's

anywhere close to what they say. There was a load of surveys done around the time of Kate and William's wedding. They were just saying, you know, the wedding is going to bring in this much amount of income. But actually, they just added up all of the expected income from all of the tourist sites that might vaguely be attached to monarchy, like the Tower of London. Well, no one's going to the Tower of London to watch Kate and William's wedding. So I think people do inflate the figure. Another argument from those who are pro-monarchy stems from

this question of legacy. It can be said that, you know, the royal family is Britain. The Queen especially was greatly loved by many and was said to be a source of diplomatic influence throughout her 70-year reign, making countless state visits and foreign tours that can be said to have brought in benefits for national security, influence and trade. She was depicted often as a unifying force.

The Royal Family's official website says its monarch provides a focus for national identity, unity and pride and gives a sense of stability and continuity. Kelechi, when we talk about legacy and the legacy of Queen Elizabeth, what comes to your mind? What comes to my mind is a legacy of rape, pillage, theft, colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade. It's not positive. So I always wonder, legacy to who?

And for what? Because there are millions of people who we can't find their bodies. They were dashed into the sea. The depravity that they had to endure in the name of the monarch, even the clothing, the crown, the gems, the diamonds, everything is soaked in blood.

And so what would anybody want to be proud of about that? And it's interesting that then Elizabeth then became like this embodiment of all that is great. Of course, because it makes sense when you think about white supremacist heteropatriarchy, that you can validate or justify going to war in the name of a woman. You know, the Mau Mau uprisings, I think about that. Even the partition, when we think about India and Pakistan, all of these things done in the name of

whichever monarch. And we talk about, you know, Elizabeth stood for so much because people saw her as this first, this young woman, then this, you know, very demure, slightly middle-aged woman. And then she became the grandmother. Once she hit grandmother age, that meant that you could not say anything about Britain. You could not say anything about the monarch or the monarchy because you were attacking this grandmother.

So I think that Britain is very much due an identity crisis. And that's kicked in since Elizabeth passed away, because now Britain has to think about that legacy and think about what it's going to do going forward, because nobody knows what Britain is anymore. And Charles sure as hell isn't holding it together. I mean, the episodes you mentioned that the Mau Mau uprising and the partition,

These are histories, yeah, I mean, that are atrocious, but people listening probably won't know about them by and large.

And that's one of the reasons I think people are so protective of the monarchy because as soon as it's criticized, they don't know the validation of that criticism. What they know is that something very core to their identity is being taken from them. They're being told to feel shame or to not feel pride. And given the fracturing happening in our communities today, so many people are desperately clinging on to any sense of identity and

And perhaps one of the antidotes to them feeling so threatened by these challenges would be actually knowing that history. And yet we don't. It is shocking. I mean, why do you think we don't hear much about the empire and the role of the monarchy in it?

in our education in the media? Well, I remember being taught in school about Henry VIII's wives in World War II, which plays a lot into actually, I think, how people think about the monarchy and that tie between the queen and that kind of nostalgia that people are still obsessed with. It's attached to what kind of stories we want to hear about ourselves or we think we know, we're told we want to hear about ourselves.

and what stories we don't. You know, there's all these polls that say people are proud of the empire that shows it's, you know, a complete lack of understanding of how it works, of how it still works. Obviously the monarchy were representative of that system, but they were also key to parts of how that happened.

So like Elizabeth I granted a royal charter for exploration in Canada, which was then used to establish a colony. And she also granted a charter to the British East India Company, who obviously ended up ruling over India. There's a suggestion that it's just about symbolism, and it obviously is, but it's also about much, much more than that. It's much more complicated than that. And again, people don't necessarily want the complicated argument. They want the easy argument.

Currently, about 62% of people in Britain support the monarchy. So if the media were to give due impartiality to each side, we should get a fair amount of coverage that is supportive of the monarchy and also some coverage that is not. But in reality, it's very rare for mainstream media to even quote a Republican voice on matters of the monarchy. Laura...

You have written about the media extensively. Why do you think the British media tends not to feature these voices? Because they've got a relationship with the monarchy, essentially. I think particularly, you know, some of the bigger institutions in the early days of the BBC relied a lot on the monarchy for legitimacy in the eyes of a public who were very sceptical about television and about these new kind of technologies. And I think that relationship has continued.

I think as well that happens in other spaces. So I've done research with Royal Correspondents. So these are journalists who just report on the monarchy. So the BBC has one, the Sun has one, the Daily Mail has one. You know, all of these kind of big outlets have them. And I interviewed them to kind of get an idea of how Royal News was produced. And a lot of them talked about...

you know, essentially needing to keep the monarchy on side. So they didn't want to publish anything that might be considered damaging to the monarchy, or they didn't want to publish anything that they hadn't confirmed or said that they could publish because they said, well, we're worried if we do that next time, they'll just tell us to get lost and they won't even speak to us and we need them. It's also the Royal Rota, which is where particular journalists or particular outlets

apply and get signed onto a Royal Rota. And then they're allowed to kind of be in the press pen at particular Royal events. They're allowed to speak directly to Royals and they have to pass on the information that they get onto other journalists who aren't allowed in the press pen. But of course, if you want to stay in there and get that exclusive thing of Kate shaking someone's hand or whatever else they're trying to get that day,

You need to keep them on side. So unlike, you know, a regular press conference with a politician where all the press are there and can ask questions, they choose whose questions they ask and who gets to be there. I mean, is that journalism or is that PR? Yeah.

Well, exactly. Exactly. The other thing is when they go on royal tour, so when they go abroad to wherever, the palace organises the press's travel. So they organise their flights to get them to a certain place at a certain time. So it's like if you're favourable business class, but media storm, you're back in the house. Hanging on to the plane in the back. Yeah.

But again, that's essentially modelling on embedded journalism that they would do for war, right? So they would get kind of and attach themselves to the Ministry of Defence. And of course, if you're on a plane or in a hotel that's being funded by the palace, how critical are you going to be? Or how much are you going to just report on what they wanted you to report on? I mean, we've joked about royal correspondents before because they're all called stuff like Rebecca English and Johnny Diamond and Bond. Those are actual names. Actual names.

But we looked at the makeup of the royal correspondents from the BBC, ITV, Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Sky News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Mirror. Out of all of these outlets, only one royal correspondent is a person of colour. That's incredible, being careful about who's chosen. I feel like I should be chosen. LAUGHTER

Something else we wanted to talk about is this kind of blurred line between news and celebrity. I mean, like, let's be real. As a society, like, we love gossip. We love a gossip, OK? And the royal family is basically gossip. Why else would we have depictions like this?

The Crown on Netflix, The Windsors on Channel 4, huge blockbusters like The Queen and The King's Speech. I mean, Laura, the monarch no longer wields this political power, yet there seems to be always something to say about the royals in the news. You've written before that there's this kind of balance of visibility and invisibility here. What do you mean by that? Yeah.

So I mean, in some ways, of course, the monarchy has to be hyper visible. So in ceremonies, for example, you know, the coronation, the funeral, it was everywhere, everywhere you turned, you could not possibly have avoided it. On the other side of that, they have to remain invisible. So we talked earlier about things like funding, we talked about this, you know, this history, these links with the British Empire and all of this that has to remain invisible, or people start asking questions.

The Queen is a particularly interesting example. You know, over her lifetime, I think she gave, you can count on one hand, I think, how many interviews she gave.

We never really knew anything about what she thought about anything beyond like corgis. Like what did we actually know about her opinion about anything? And that was powerful because she just became symbolic. She almost became symbolic of everything because we didn't really know what she stood for. And I think that has become harder and harder for them to maintain in the last few years because of things like Prince Andrew, because of Harry and Meghan exposing what it's like inside, because of social media and the way that that changes people.

how we get our news and how we hear our news, that balance becomes much more difficult, I think. And I guess then that's why we end up relying on gossip about them to fill the front pages. Yeah, and that's what we're interested in, right? We, you know, we said earlier, no one knows about how they're funded, but who's interested in that story when you could talk about Harry and William having a spat? Yeah.

how society works is they're interested in the personal they're interested in the you know the family they play up this idea of them being a family they don't talk about them being a political entity or a corporation or the things they you know they actually are those things they talk about them being a royal family that's what we hear we don't very often see pictures of them doing anything political we see pictures of Kate and her kids like there's a particular story being told that feeds into as you just said celebrity culture even

to a certain extent I think influence a culture that positions them as celebrities as entertainment and removes questions of politics and economics. But I think that what makes them different slightly from other celebrities is the link to Christianity or the perceived or orchestrated I keep using that word links to God right so we have like we said historically the divine right of king so even if that's not articulated to us currently it is still there you can't not

question these people like they were born into this role you weren't you raggedy poor they were though who else do you have what other entity do you have that is both visible and invisible all at the same time God and so you're telling us that these people this monarch is the physical embodiment of God

So therefore they can rely on that to be like, oh, well, you can't really question me and I don't have to answer to you because you're merely human, but I'm God force. So even if people don't deem themselves as religious, the monarchy is a religion.

Now, during the time of the Queen's death, domestic news coverage, and the BBC's in particular, was uncritical of the monarchy. Most criticism, for example on social media, was met with the response that the period directly following the Queen's death was not the time to be critical. But after the Queen's funeral, and in the run-up to Charles' coronation, coverage did shift somewhat.

In the three weeks before the coronation, BBC Panorama broadcast a programme titled Will King Charles Change the Monarchy? The programme shared poll findings about the opinion of those under 50 and discussed an elected head of state as an alternative to the monarchy. BBC Radio 4 also broadcast the Today debate, Do We Need a Monarchy? And other UK broadcasters had similar programmes critically analysing the role of the monarchy as an institution in UK life and politics.

Laura, you've mentioned the Queen's media personality, but King Charles is quite a different story. How do you see the future of the media monarchy now? Is it fair to say that the current monarchy can still rely on mainstream media in Britain for support? I would still say yes.

I do think people are more willing to have a slightly more critical conversation. So even if I talk about my own experiences, since the Queen died, I've been asked to do way more media talking about real finances, for example. It's absolutely rocketed the amount of people that want to have that conversation. But I still think there's enough investment amongst a lot of the mainstream media in the system to kind of keep that upheld for now.

Kelechi, on the occasions that you actually have been invited onto media outlets to discuss the role of the monarchy, what have your experiences been like? I've been used to for so long being this dissenting voice that people would have for the sake of impartiality, but I'd be cut off while I'm speaking because somebody else who wants to fawn over the monarchy, they will have more airtime to speak. So I'm glad it's changing, but

you know, it's been lonely for a while. You mentioned being interrupted a lot on these programmes. And yeah, in our research, as we were prepping for this episode, watching, you know, some of your appearances, Kalechi, and other appearances, I mean, there aren't very many is the first thing to say. And the second thing to say is, yeah, most of the time, you're kind of brought on to the shows to be positioned as an extreme view, and then to be interrupted.

by Piers Morgan or something. So here right now, we want our listeners to be able to hear what could be possible so then they can make up their own minds. So if we didn't have a monarchy, what would be in its place? An elected official that is answerable to different bodies in order that the power does not stay solely with them. What I'm describing sounds like democracy, right?

But I don't think it's something that we've actually seen. If we look at a lot of the systems in place, they label themselves as democratic, but that's not actually how it's playing out. Every time we say, oh, we're choosing the lesser of two evils. Why should your life be based on that? We can overturn all of these systems and implement something else that is more reflective of us as a society. So I think we should have the equivalent system.

of a president that's answerable to the people. But wouldn't like a single president chosen to elect the whole of a population with all of its plurality of views not be imperialistic in the end? I suppose the parliament we have now, as flawed as it is, there's hundreds of representatives. Yeah, but they are also elected.

So in my vision, everybody's elected. Nobody just gets to be there. So it's not like we have this president and then the president gets to choose everybody. No, every layer is elected. Nobody just gets to be there by chance. I'm trying to get out of nepotism and nobody should be allowed to stay there for too long. How about you, Laura?

I think that's interesting. I think the problem, I think, with the monarchy is that a head of state is meant to provide a role that is like checks and balances, that is ensuring things are working in a way that keeps the government accountable. And we saw with the Queen and Boris Johnson when he tried to pro-parliament that that doesn't work. You know, they can't be seen to be political. They can't be seen to take sides. They need to stay political. So they can't do that role. So having a head of state who was elected, who could actually do that role in an effective way.

to ensure that people can't try and do what Boris Johnson did or anyone else would be a much more successful way. So I think what Republic, the campaign group, talk about is something similar to what Ireland have. Actually, that wouldn't look that different from what we have now. And if we want to be really radical about it, there might be other propositions, but I'm trying to say what could actually be achievable and what actually might be palatable to people.

Thank you both so much for joining us on MediaStorm today. We'll ask you each if you have anything to plug and where people can follow you. Kelechi, why don't you start? I can be found at Kelechnikov, that's my alias online, and I've got a speculative sci-fi collection of short stories that's out in paperback now, so if you want to read my views and how I think the world should look, yeah, you can check it out. It's called Edge of Here, so that's everywhere, yeah.

And Nora, how about you? I have a new book coming out next April, April 2025, which is called What is the Monarchy for? So it's just a short account asking that question critically. It talks about histories of empire, it talks about gender, it talks about wealth, it talks about all those questions.

Thank you all for listening. Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcasts so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helena Wadia and Matilda Mallinson with music from Samphire. Episode research is by Camilla Tiana and our assistant producer is Katie Grant.

You can follow us on social media at MatildaMal, at Helena Wadia and follow the show via at MediaStormPod. Listen and hit follow on Spotify.

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