Prince Harry Loses Battle As Duke's Media Complaint About Article Dismissed

Jan 31, 2020 by apost team

Prince Harry's complaint against the Daily Mail has been dismissed after the Independent Press Standards Organisation in the U.K. found the mail's reporting to be truthful. The complaint is regarding a photograph of an elephant on the Duke and Duchess' social media that the Mail believed did not quite tell the full story. 

The IPSO said in a statement regarding the ruling of the complaint:  “The article claimed that the ‘pictures… don’t quite tell the full story’ and said that the Sussex Royal account “notably avoided explaining the circumstances in which the images were taken”, meaning that all three of the animals had to be tranquilized and that the elephant had also been tethered as they were being relocated as part of conservation projects."

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“It reported that followers of the complainant’s Instagram account were unable to see a rope around the hind legs of the elephant because of the way the picture was edited,"the organization said. “The photograph of the elephant had been cropped to edit out the animal's tethered leg; the publication had demonstrated that the photograph could have been edited differently and the complainant accepted that the album could have been uploaded in a different format which would have made editing the photograph unnecessary."

The photograph appeared in an Instagram post slideshow celebrating Earth Day along with other images of the natural world.

The Guardian reports that the Prince maintains his transparency, noting that the image of the tethered elephant was published on the Royal Family website since 2016, and that his Instagram account linked directly to the website.

In a blow to Harry's fight to maintain his privacy for his family and fight against any slander they might experience, his complaint was not upheld.

What do you think about this case? Should Prince Harry have been able to complain against the Mail on Sunday or was the IPSO's decision correct? Let us know what you think.