What the Media Doesn’t Say About Our Monarchy

Beirut blasts, US elections, and Prince Harry’s 40th birthday. This week, we discuss these equally important global stories on the Media Storm Podcast because – like any good British news provider – we believe that when a royal defecates, it’s headline news. And anyone who thinks otherwise should definitely not be quoted.

But wait, some anti-royalist rascals have stormed our newsroom, so it looks like we’ll have to hear what they have to say. On a week that saw another Prince Andrew drama released, it’s time to fill some of the imbalances in our media’s coverage of our monarchy. 

How do you cost a corporation whose feudal accounts are concealed? Why don’t editorial guidelines about ‘due impartiality’ apply to the monarchy, when 41% of Brits say they do not view it positively? Why are royal correspondents all called Ms England, or Mr Dymond, or Ms Bond? And why won’t anyone tell us what actually happened during Elizabeth II’s empire? 

Let’s begin with costing. We’re told the royal family are good value for money, “worth every penny”, and only burden the taxpayer “£1.29 each year”.

But how are papers drawing these conclusions when the family company is clouded in ceremonious cloak-and-daggery?

The tax-paid Sovereign Grant, set to rise by 53% in cash terms next year, is supplemented by an array of government departmental and local council spending on visits and security; the royal wills are sealed; and the institution is not beholden to Freedom of Information laws like other public bodies.

Why? Because they are, of course, a family not a corporation. You can’t just look up The Royal Family accounts on Companies House – although our incomplete conclusion from the plethora of companies assigned to their name is it’d be a hell of a lot to take in.

“It’s a lot to take in because it’s extremely complicated and I think that works for them,” said Dr Laura Clancy, who has attempted this arithmetic in her book, Running the Family Firm. “Layers of masking make it difficult to come up with that figure, and that’s really useful to them because I think that figure would be astronomical.”

“Good value for money for whom?” asked Nigerian-born, London-based author Kelechi Okafor. If we knew the full cost of the crown, Kelechi said, “that would actually be the beginning of the revolution. If you can’t turn your heating on, you can’t buy food, or you’re sleeping rough, but this family is protected in ways that you will never be, and on top of that they’re chopping your money? People would be out in the streets.”

Media Storm is not editorially anti-monarchy, but works to redress imbalances in mainstream media debate. Of which this topic is royally guilty.

In the ten years following the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, public backing for the monarchy fell from 75% to 62%.

From a media tied to ‘due impartiality’, we should therefore expect to see a respectable amount of royalist coverage balanced by a healthy number of republican voices, particularly given the colourful plurality of our wonderfully partisan papers. We do not.

From Guardian to Telegraph, Star to Express, every single frontpage last Monday morphed with the warming tones of family wholesomeness, perfect PR, and even more perfect hair, after Kate Middleton announced she had completed her cancer treatment.

Society’s penchant for gossip also elevates royal ‘fluff’ pieces about their personal lives to the status of hard front page news. This is mutually convenient for news outlets challenged with commercialising inherently uncommercial content, and a royal institution that would rather be scrutinised as a humble family than a political and economic powerhouse.

“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?” Laura pointed out. “[The media] positions them as celebrities or entertainment and removes questions of politics and economics.”

We also try to let guests finish sentences, which is a rare privilege for an anti-monarchist on any UK news panel. Watch these two struggle to squeeze a word in edgeways on Piers Morgan’s ironically titled ‘Prove Me Wrong’ (an act that would require actual listening). Perhaps he believes even listening to treachery is begging for a beheading.

Royal correspondents know well the dangers of enraging the monarchy, even if not quite so mediaeval. Those interviewed by Laura during her book research spoke of “needing to keep the monarchy on side” and told her, quite simply, “we need them”. Take the ‘royal rota’, the process by which journalists are selected for press-pen access at royal events. When the people granting entry are the same people you’re writing about, “how critical are you really going to be?”

Perhaps there is a sense of duty in this curious job that morphs PR with journalism. Perhaps it is even a valuable one.

We are no strangers to the relevance of identity in this political age, and the dangers of its fragmentation to public wellbeing and order. Centralisation, neglect and austerity have left many towns suffering a loss of identity, feelings all too familiar to diaspora communities who have had to make their home among others.

In a globalised world, what remains to unite fellow voters if not national identity, and what is national identity if not the Crown?

The monarchy’s official website claims to provide “a focus for national identity, unity and pride”. Arguably, a key part of ‘public service journalism’ is upholding this.

However, our monarchy does not conjure the same heritage for everyone. “What comes to my mind is a legacy of rape, pillage, theft, colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade,” said Kelechi.

The depravity that millions of people had to endure in the name of the monarch. Even the clothing, the crown, the gems – everything is soaked in blood

Kelechi Okafor, author on the royal family

Which is why, Kelechi believes, “Britain is very much due an identity crisis”.

Kelechi provided a distressing diatribe that moved from the Mau Mau uprisings to the partition of India and Pakistan. These are histories most listeners will not know.

Nor, to be frank, do most of the media class, who qualified via the British education system.

It’s no surprise, then, that people reject “woke anti-colonial indoctrination” (as remarked a GB News about Lee Carsley’s refusal to sing ‘God Save The King’ last week), when they are blissfully unawake to the realities behind it. People know their identity is being challenged, they know a source of pride is under attack, but they do not understand why. 

Isn’t there a self-knowing national identity that could unite us in its honesty rather than divide us with its lies? In this utopia, information is power – and the media are the ones who wield it.

Media Storm’s new episode, ‘What the media doesn’t say about the monarchy’ , is out now