Despite the ongoing pandemic and a spluttering economy, for the fourth day in a row, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry led the news in the U.K. as the aftershocks from the couple’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey continue to be felt.
Piers Morgan’s dramatic Tuesday exit from ITV’s Good Morning Britain over his vitriolic comments about the Sussexes, and Markle in particular, may have gripped the nation but a less performative resignation Wednesday at one of the U.K.’s leading journalism bodies has highlighted the division in the country’s media over some of the issues raised by the interview: most pertinently, whether it was, in Prince Harry’s words, “bigoted.”
Speaking to Winfrey, Prince Harry said that a “large part” of why the couple had left the U.K. was the racism of the tabloid press. After relating a conversation he had with a friend who was familiar with many newspaper editors, Prince Harry said, “the U.K. press is bigoted, specifically the tabloids.”
On Monday, the Society of Editors, a nearly 400-member body of editors-in-chief and managing editors at national and local newspapers, released a strongly worded statement that said, “The U.K. media is not bigoted and will not be swayed from its vital role holding the rich and powerful to account following the attack on the press by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.”
The statement continued: “It is not acceptable for the Duke and Duchess to make such claims without…
