https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1356-5815
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ABSTRACT
This study builds upon historical scholarship of the royal family and the British press to examine a critical incident in 2012 involving future queen Kate Middleton. After radio deejays hoaxed a hospital where Middleton was a patient, a nurse inadvertently involved with the prank died by suicide, creating a global sensation. This study examines how the British press and public reacted to this breach of media ethics. Although some in the press condemned the incident, victim-blaming illustrated an evasion of responsibility when it comes to media and the royal family. The public, via letters to the editor, tended to take a firmer stance and were more apt to contextualize the hoax against a history of invasive media coverage. Overall, this study suggests the British press remains wedded to historical strategies of distancing and victim-blaming, providing little optimism about how the relationship between the press and the royal family might change.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Howard Jacobson, “When the Random Cruelty of the World Arises from a Silly Joke, Our Sorrow is All the Deeper,” Independent (UK), December 15, 2012.
2. The announcement did not specify Prince George, but the name is added to clarify which child this was.
3. “Full transcript: Hoax call by 2DayFM DJs,” Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), December 10, 2012.
4. Lexis Nexis reports 241 news stories about the prank call itself that ran around the world in the initial forty-eight hours, including across the British press and in American outlets such as ABC News. The deejays used Twitter to apologize for the stunt before the nurse’s death, as noted in this E! News story, since the story had taken off on the social media platform: https://www.eonline.com/news/368750/kate-middleton-pregnancy-australian-radio-djs-apologize-for-prank-call-and-hospital-hoax.
5. David Leppard and Kevin Dowling, “Suicide Note Blames DJs for Death of Hoaxed Nurse,” Sunday Times (UK), April 28, 2013.
6. David Collins and Melissa Thompson, “Our Prayers are With Her,” Daily Mirror (UK), December 8, 2012.
7. Alison Rourke, “Prank Call DJs Receive Death Threats,” Guardian (UK), December 13, 2021.
8. “Southern Cross Austereo Media Statement,” Southern Cross Austereo Media, December 10, 2012, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/southern-cross-austereo-media-statement-182777361.html.
9. “2DayFM Radio Due [sic] Speak with A Current Affair About Royal Prank Scandal,” News Corp Australia Network, December 10, 2012, https://www.news.com.au/national/dayfm-radio-due-speak-with-a-current-affair-about-royal-prank-scandal/news-story/0ffd941d83b1c1af71b22a50c9c181dd.
10. Michael Billig, Talking of the Royal Family (London, UK: Routledge, 1992).
11. Ros Coward, “The Monarchy,” in Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analyzing Print Journalism, ed. Bob Franklin (New York: Routledge, 2008), 126–35.
12. Coward, “The Monarchy.”
13. Neil Blain and Hugh O’Donnell, Media, Monarchy, and Power (Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2003); and Rosalind Coward, “What the Butler Started: Relations between British Tabloids and Monarchy in the Fall-out from the Paul Burrell Trial,” Journalism Practice 1, no. 2 (2007): 245–60, https://doi.org/10.1080/17512780701275549.
14. Billig, Talking of the Royal Family; Blain and O’Donnell, Media, Monarchy, and Power; and Tom Nairn, The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy, 2nd ed. (London, UK: Verso, 2011).
15. Coward, “The Monarchy,” 133–43.
16. Peregrine Worsthorne, interviewed in Frontline episode 1606, “The Princess and the Press,” produced by Leonie Jameson. Aired November 16, 1997, on PBS. Quoted in Coward, “The Monarchy,” 134.
17. Coward, 134.
18. Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (London, UK: Chapman & Hall, 1867), 239.
19. Ryan Linkof, “‘The Photographic Attack on His Royal Highness’: The Prince of Wales, Wallis Simpson and the Prehistory of the Paparazzi,” Photography and Culture 4, no. 3 (2011): 285, https://doi.org/10.2752/175145211X13068409556682.
20. James Jarché, People I Have Shot (London, UK: Methuen, 1934).
21. Linkof, “The Photographic Attack,” 277.
22. Linkof, 277.
23. Linkof.
24. Coward, “The Monarchy,” 133–43.
25. Martin Conboy, Journalism in Britain: A Historical Introduction (London: Sage, 2011); Coward, “The Monarchy;” and Ben Pimlott, The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II (London, UK: Harper Collins, 1996).
26. Conboy, Journalism in Britain, 109.
27. Conboy.
28. Peter Cole and Tony Harcup, Newspaper Journalism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010); and Dick Rooney, “Thirty Years of Competition in the British Tabloid Press,” in Tabloid Tales: Global Debates Over Media Standards, ed. Colin Sparks and John Tulloch (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), 91–110.
29. Bob Franklin, Newszak and News Media (London, UK: Arnold, 1997); Jostein Gripsrud, “Tabloidization, Popular Journalism, and Democracy,” in Tabloid Tales: Global Debates Over Media Standards, 285–300; and Rooney, “Thirty Years of Competition.”
30. Conboy, Journalism in Britain, 116.
31. Rooney, “Thirty Years of Competition,” 107.
32. Beatrix Campbell, Diana, Princess of Wales: How Sexual Politics Shook the Monarchy (London, UK: Women’s Press, 1998); Ros Coward, Female Desire (London, UK: Harper Collins, 1984); and Coward, “The Monarchy,” 133–43.
33. Coward, “The Monarchy,” 133–43.
34. Rosalind Coward, Diana: The Portrait (Kansas City, KS: Andrews McMeel, 2004), 133–34.
35. Coward, “The Monarchy”; Franklin, Newszak and News Media; Roy Greenslade, Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits from Propaganda (London, UK: Macmillan, 2003); and Richard Keeble, Ethics for Journalists (London, UK: Routledge, 2001).
36. Adrian Bingham, “Drinking in the Last Chance Saloon’: The British Press and the Crisis of Self-Regulation, 1989–95,” Media History 13, no. 1 (April 2007): 79–92, https://doi.org/10.1080/13688800701265014; Coward, “The Monarchy”; Franklin, Newszak and News Media; Greenslade, Press Gang; and Keeble, Ethics for Journalists.
37. Franklin, Newszak and News Media, 218.
38. Franklin.
39. Coward, “The Monarchy,” 129–31.
40. Elizabeth Blanks Hindman, “The Princess and the Paparazzi: Blame, Responsibility, and the Media’s Role in the Death of Diana,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 80, no. 3 (2003): 666–88, https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900308000311.
41. Lucy Biddle and Tony Walter, “The Emotional English and Their Queen of Hearts,” Folklore 109 (1998): 96–99.
42. Coward, “The Monarchy,” 132–34.
43. Coward, 132; William Merrin, “Crash, Bang, Wallop! What a Picture! The Death of Diana and the Media,” Mortality 4, no. 1 (1999): 41–62, https://doi.org/10.1080/713685965; James Thomas, Diana’s Mourning: A People’s History (Cardiff, UK: University of Wales Press), 7.
44. Jacqueline Sharkey, “The Diana Aftermath,” in The Media and Morality, ed. Robert M. Baird, William E. Loges, and Stuart E. Rosenbaum (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1999), 103–14.
45. Sharkey, “The Diana Aftermath”; and Hugh Stephenson, “British Press and Privacy,” in Media Power, Professionals, and Policies, ed. Howard Tumber (London, UK: Routledge, 2000), 84–95.
46. Chris Frost, “The Press Complaints Commission: A Study of Ten Years of Adjudications on Press Complaints,” Journalism Studies 5, no. 1 (2004): 101–14, https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670032000174774.
47. Conboy, Journalism in Britain, 117.
48. Pamela Church Gibson, “New Patterns of Emulation: Kate, Pippa and Cheryl,” Celebrity Studies 2, no. 3 (November 1, 2011): 358–60, https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2011.609349.
49. Gibson, “New Patterns of Emulation”; Jemima Repo and Riina Yrjölä, “‘We’re All Princesses Now’: Sex, Class, and Neoliberal Governmentality in the Rise of Middle-Class Monarchy,” European Journal of Cultural Studies 18, no. 6 (2015): 741–60, https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549415572320.
50. Teri Finneman and Ryan J. Thomas, “The British National Press and the 2012 Royal Family Photo Scandals: Privacy and the Public Interest,” Journalism Practice 8, no. 4 (2014): 407–20, https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2013.833678.
51. Binakuromo Ogbebor, British Media Coverage of the Press Reform Debate: Journalists Reporting Journalism (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, 2020); and Ryan J. Thomas and Teri Finneman, “Who Watches the Watchdogs? British Newspaper Metadiscourse on the Leveson Inquiry,” Journalism Studies 15, no. 2 (2014): 172–86, https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2013. 806068.
52. Bingham, “Drinking in the Last Chance Saloon”; and Franklin, Newszak and News Media; and Frost, “The Press Complaints Commission.”
53. Ryan J. Thomas, “Changing the Conversation: Can the Phone Hacking Scandal Lead to a New Covenant on Media Responsibilities?” Political Quarterly 83, no. 3 (July 2012): 524–31, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2012.02319.x; see also George Brock, “The Leveson Inquiry: There’s a Bargain to be Struck Over Media Freedom and Regulation,” Journalism 13, no. 4 (2012): 519–28, https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884912443495; and Julian Petley, “The Leveson Inquiry: Journalism Ethics and Press Freedom,” Journalism 13, no. 4 (2012): 529–38, https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884912443498.
54. Steven Barnett and Judith Townend, “‘And What Good Came of It at Last?’ Press-Politician Relations Post-Leveson,” Political Quarterly 85, no. 2 (2014): 159–69, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.12088; and Gordon Ramsay, “The United Kingdom: Consolidation and Fragmentation,” in The Global Handbook of Media Accountability, ed. Susanne Fengler, Tobias Eberwein, and Matthias Karmasin (London: Routledge, 2022), 63–74.
55. Billig, Talking of the Royal Family, 28–35.
56. David Cannadine, “From Biography to History: Writing the Modern British Monarchy,” Historical Research 77, no. 197 (August 1, 2004): 289–312, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468–2281.2004.00211.x.
57. Specifically, the search terms for the individual newspapers were: (“Kate Middleton” or duchess) AND (hoax or prank) AND (opinion OR editorial OR comment OR column OR letters OR “leading article” OR feature) as well as (Jacintha OR nurse) AND (hoax or prank) AND (opinion OR editorial OR comment OR column OR letters OR “leading article” OR feature). The researchers also used the Lexis-Nexis feature to search all British newspapers at once and used the search terms: Australia nurse Kate opinion; radio nurse Catherine opinion; Australia AND hoax AND (opinion OR editorial OR comment OR column OR letters); and “Kate Middleton” OR “Cambridge” AND hoax AND (opinion OR editorial OR comment OR column OR letters).
58. The editorials and columns were drawn from the Daily Mirror (9), Daily Mail (7), Guardian (7), Sun (7), Times (5), Independent (4), Sunday Sun (3), People (2), Sunday Mirror (2), Daily Telegraph (1), Morning Star (1), Sunday Times (1), Independent on Sunday (1), Observer (1), Daily Express (1), and Sunday Express (1). There were no editorials or columns published in the Daily Star, Financial Times, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Telegraph, and Daily Star Sunday regarding the hospital hoax. A full list of articles is available from the first author.
59. Thomas R. Lindlof and Bryan C. Taylor, Qualitative Communication Research Methods, 3rd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011).
60. David L. Grey and Trevor R. Brown, “Letters to the Editor: Hazy Reflections of Public Opinion,” Journalism Quarterly 47, no. 3 (September 1, 1970): 450, https://doi.org/10.1177/107769907004700302.
61. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, “A ‘Legitimate Beef’ or ‘Raw Meat’? Civility, Multiculturalism, and Letters to the Editor,” Communication Review 7, no. 1 (2004): 90, https://doi.org/10.1080/10714420490280161.
62. The letters were drawn from the Daily Mirror (17), Sun (9), Daily Telegraph (7), Independent on Sunday (7), Daily Star (4), People (4), Times (4), Sunday Times (3), Independent (2), Morning Star (2), Guardian (1), and Sunday Express (1). No letters were published in the Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Star Sunday, Financial Times, Mail on Sunday, Observer, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Sun, and Sunday Telegraph regarding the hospital hoax.
63. Tony Parsons, “Bullying is No Joke,” Daily Mirror, December 8, 2012.
64. Jan Moir, “Joke’s on the Jokers,” Daily Mail (UK), December 7, 2012.
65. Editorial, “Australian Station Is Guilty of Disgusting Complacency,” Sunday Express (UK), December 9, 2012.
66. Australian Commercial Radio Code of Practice, https://commercialradio.com.au/CR/media/CommercialRadio/Commercial-Radio-Code-of-Practice.pdf.
67. Victor Lewis-Smith, “I Smell McCarthyism in the Air: The British Press at Their Most Prurient,” Independent, December 15, 2012.
68. Richard Littlejohn, “Who Does Keith Vaz Think He Is, Tony Soprano?” Daily Mail, December 14, 2012.
69. Brian Reade, “Oz DJs Thick as a Plank,” Daily Mirror, December 13, 2012.
70. Alan Ross, “Time to End Pranks,” Sunday Sun (UK), December 16, 2012.
71. John Lloyd, “When the Laughing Has to Stop,” Independent, December 10, 2012.
72. Parsons, “Bullying is No Joke.”
73. Editorial, “A Sad and Avoidable Tragedy,” Sunday Times, December 9, 2012.
74. Matthew Parris, “Our Furious Urge to Blame Causes These Tragedies,” Times (UK)¸ December 13, 2012.
75. Yvonne Roberts, “A Hoax That Shows We’re Quick to Judge, but Slow to Learn,” Observer (UK), December 9, 2012.
76. Editorial, “Hoax Horror,” Sun (UK), December 8, 2012.
77. Peter Hill, “Everyone Involved in the Tragic Death of Jacintha Saldanha Needs Sympathy,” Daily Express (UK), December 11, 2012.
78. “Lay Off DJs in Nurse Tragedy,” People (UK), December 16, 2012.
79. Kenneth Einar Himma, “Artificial Agency, Consciousness, and the Criteria for Moral Agency: What Properties Must an Artificial Agent Have to Be a Moral Agent?” Ethics and Information Technology 11, no. 1 (March 1, 2009): 21, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-008-9167-5.
80. Alison Phillips, “Who Was There to Care for Phone Prank Nurse?” Daily Mirror, December 12, 2012.
81. Lorraine Kelly, “Prank Disgusted Me … Now it is Horrifying,” Sun, December 8, 2012.
82. Carole Malone, “What Did Bosses Tell Kate Nurse?” Daily Mirror, December 16, 2012.
83. Kevin Maguire, “I’d Like to Know,” Daily Mirror, December 11, 2012.
84. Shereen Nanjiani, “Silly, Not Criminal,” Sun, February 4, 2013.
85. Phillips, “Who Was There to Care for Phone Prank Nurse?”
86. Jane Moore, “Is There More to Nurse’s Suicide?” Sun, December 12, 2012.
87. Nanjiani, “Silly, Not Criminal.”
88. Hill, “Everyone Involved in the Tragic Death.”
89. Janet Street-Porter, “A Pinch of Spice Peps Us All Up,” Independent on Sunday (UK), December 16, 2012.
90. Jacobson, “When the Random Cruelty of the World.”
91. Mark Lawson, “Is There a Future for On-Air Pranks?” Guardian, December 11, 2012.
92. Roberts, “A Hoax That Shows We’re Quick to Judge, but Slow to Learn.”
93. Parsons, “Bullying is No Joke.”
94. Chris Blackhurst, “I Can’t Excuse This Thoughtless Prank, but a Little Perspective is Still Required,” Independent, December 8, 2012.
95. Sunday Times, December 16, 2012.
96. Sunday Times, December 16, 2012.
97. Daily Telegraph (UK), December 11, 2012.
98. Guardian, December 10, 2012.
99. Sun, December 11, 2012.
100. Daily Mirror, December 17, 2012.
101. Daily Mirror, December 16, 2012.
102. Daily Mirror, December 17, 2012; and Daily Mirror, December 12, 2012.
103. Daily Mirror, December 17, 2012.
104. People, December 16, 2012.
105. Independent, December 12, 2012.
106. Times, December 10, 2012.
107. Times, December 10, 2012.
108. Daily Mirror, December 17, 2012.
109. Independent, December 12, 2012.
110. Sunday Express, December 16, 2012.
111. Daily Star (UK), December 10, 2012.
112. Daily Telegraph, December 7, 2012.
113. Daily Telegraph, December 10, 2012.
114. Independent, December 12, 2012.
115. Daily Mirror, December 9, 2012; and Daily Mirror, December 16, 2012.
116. Daily Mirror, December 17, 2012.
117. Sun, December 11, 2012.
118. Independent, December 9, 2012.
119. Sunday Times, December 16, 2012; and Independent, December 9, 2012.
120. Independent, December 9, 2012.
121. Independent, December 9, 2012.
122. Daily Telegraph, December 11, 2012.
123. Times, December 10, 2012.
124. Katie Kindelan, “Prince Harry Opens Up About Rift with Royal Family and Whether He Can Return to Royal Role,” ABC News, January 9, 2023, https://abc7chicago.com/prince-harry-interview-spare-royal-family-book/12680102/.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Teri Finneman
Teri Finneman is an associate professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on news coverage of US first ladies and women politicians, as well as the US suffrage movement. She is an oral historian who captures the histories of journalists in the Heartland. Finneman is also founder of the Journalism History podcast. Her book, Press Portrayals of Women Politicians, 1870s-2000s, was named a 2016 finalist for the Frank Luther Mott Kappa Tau Alpha book award. She is co-editor of Social Justice, Activism and Diversity in U.S. Media History.
Ryan J. Thomas
Ryan J. Thomas is an associate professor of journalism and media production and director of graduate studies in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. His research addressing journalism’s roles and responsibilities in public life amid processes of change has been published in such journals as Journalism Studies, Digital Journalism, New Media and Society, and the Journal of Media Ethics.