As we discussed, the British media claimed this week that Prince Harry lost some court battles (but not the larger war) in his various lawsuits against the Mail (ANL) and the Sun (News Group Newspapers or NGN). Harry’s lawyer David Sherbourne has tried to expand his NGN lawsuit to include the names of several former editors of The Sun and the now-shuttered News of the World. The judge would not allow Harry to name Rupert Murdoch, but several new names are now cited in the lawsuit. One of those names is Will Lewis, who is currently the CEO of The Washington Post here in America. Semafor got an interesting scoop about how WaPo has been told to handle Harry’s lawsuit:
A top Washington Post editor instructed editors Tuesday night not to promote a story about a controversy involving the paper’s new CEO Will Lewis. On Tuesday, a court in the United Kingdom ruled that Prince Harry could introduce new amendments in a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. over phone hacking — including one alleging that Lewis, then an News Corp executive, was involved in a plan to delete emails regarding the phone hacking after the scheme was revealed.
The Washington Post published a story about the ruling on Tuesday, detailing Lewis’ role and his denials of wrongdoing. But in the hours after the story was published, editors sought to downplay it. In an email to some staff Tuesday evening, newsletter chief Elana Zak issued a brief directive with the subject line “don’t distribute this story,” linking to Tuesday’s development.
“Please do not put this Prince Harry story in any of your newsletters,” she wrote. The email contained no additional information explaining why the paper did not want the story included in its newsletters. The Washington Post did not respond to multiple inquiries about the decision Tuesday evening.
While the yearslong lawsuit has not dominated headlines in the US, Lewis’ appointment to the top job at the Washington Post and recent court filings have revitalized interest in the story in media circles. Prince Harry and 40 other plaintiffs have alleged that Lewis attempted to cover up executives’ role in the scandal by helping to justify the erasure of emails that could have contained details about the scandal. Lewis has denied wrongdoing publicly and to the Washington Post newsroom, and said that he was brought in after the scandal to “put things right.” He told staff he does not want to discuss the issue further.
I rarely follow the insider-media stories these days, so I wondered how the hell a British tabloid guy ended up at WaPo. As it turns out, Lewis went from NGN to the now-Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, and WSJ was like the gateway drug to the legitimate American media. Anyway, the deleted emails go to the very heart of Harry’s case – as I said, it wasn’t simply the hacking, blagging and stalking of celebrities, royals and royal-adjacents, it was the systemic covering up of those crimes. NGN and other media companies have pointed to Leveson (in 2012) as the end of their criminality, but they not only continued to commit crimes, they covered up those crimes by deleting evidence and lying. It could be especially spicy – there’s nothing American media loves more than some blood-letting within their own ranks.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Prince Harry pictured leaving the Royal Court of Justice in London. Pictured: Prince Harry BACKGRID USA 27 MARCH 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: Mario Pietrangeli / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Prince Harry arrives at the High Court, Rolls Building. Several high-profile people, including Prince Harry, have taken legal action against Mirror Group Newspapers over alleged unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking. Pictured: Prince Harry BACKGRID USA 6 JUNE 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Prince HARRY, Duke of Sussex, arrives at the Rolls Building of the High Court in London, to testify against Mirror Group Newspapers, in phone-hacking case. Pictured: 20230606_zip_k172_001.jpg BACKGRID USA 6 JUNE 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Prince HARRY, Duke of Sussex, arrives at the Rolls Building of the High Court in London, to testify against Mirror Group Newspapers, in phone-hacking case. Pictured: 20230606_zip_k172_003.jpg BACKGRID USA 6 JUNE 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Prince HARRY, Duke of Sussex, arrives at the Rolls Building of the High Court in London, to testify against Mirror Group Newspapers, in phone-hacking case. Pictured: 20230606_zip_k172_004.jpg BACKGRID USA 6 JUNE 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, leaves the Rolls Building at the High Court in London where he testified against Mirror Group Newspapers in the phone hacking case. Pictured: Prince Harry BACKGRID USA 6 JUNE 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
What’s a better way to ensure that the journalists who work for you are going to immediately discuss something with their media friends and become a source , than to say I never did anything wrong but please don’t talk about this or include this in any subscriber newsletters. Democracy dies in darkness hmm WaPo?
Yup. You’d think that journalists would understand the Streisand Effect.
The management of the Washington Post (and also the NYT) might be trying to undermine journalistic principles but there are still plenty of rabble rousing journalists working there that will make sure this gets out. I hope the attempt to downplay this article gives it legs across the US news outlets. No one who worked in positions of responsibility for the 💩 British tabloids should be allowed to lead legitimate news organizations.
So bad. The audacity.
🎯
CNN says WaPo lost $77M last year –
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/23/media/washington-post-will-lewis-turnaround-plan/index.html
Looks like WaPo has reduced that 99 cent / week deal further, with digital annual subscription of $40. I recall enjoying David Farenthold articles back in 2016. Probably worth $40 to find out if WaPo will become a british tabloid under the alleged hacker and mass email deleter in chief.
Can’t wait to see what else comes out with this case. I have a feeling we haven’t seen anything yet. This looks absolutely horrible for the WaPo especially considering the current issues with “fake news” and media manipulation front and center everywhere.
I’m interested to see how the US media reacts. Clearly, Harry gets clicks and his name has made the BM millions, often with sketchy/ nonexistent news. This is actual news and a mogul is trying to bury it. How far does Murdoch’s power go?
And good on Harry!
If they just handled it as they do stories about Jeff Bezos and Amazon, ie with a parenthetical stating Bezos’s relationship with the publication and the do the story as they normally would, it would have been SO much better.
Did this guy not learn the FIRST time back in his News media days that the old saying “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover up” rings very true?
Now he’s just drawn MORE attention to it, and makes it seems like his claims of innocence were sus.
Disclosing potential conflicts of interest doesn’t seem to be a thing for vast majority of britmedia that’s used to working on bended knee for The Crown. One of the better stories on accused plotter, Will Lewis, was from David Fokenflik of NPR before Rupert was personally excused: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/21/1239682458/prince-harry-hacking-murdoch-tabloids-will-lewis-washington-post
British-American journalist, Clive Irving, who used to work for The [London] Times, has written some decent articles on this subject for Daily Beast in recent weeks. He thinks excusing Rupert didn’t help Rupert’s case, of which the accused plotter, Will Lewis, is central figure.
Sounds more as if he came in to help cover their tracks.
It will be interesting to see what happens if he’s implicated in this case.
So former Murdoch British rag employees are whitewashing themselves for American media through the Wall St. Journal. That’s good to know. The Washington Post, like the NY Times, has always been overrated.
No, until recently-ish the Washington Post was quite accurately rated. It has since taken a pretty right wing bent.
Sometimes the cover up is worse than the crime itself. Here, both the crime and the coverup are criminal. We will see if other outlets would protect one of their own or do their jobs.
@Sevenblue When I read your comment my first thought was actually about what is going on with Kate Middleton.
Go get em Harry , get the whole damn lot of them .
{no words}
Ugh, Katharine Graham must be spinning in her grave that this hot garbage is now running the Washington Post.
This is embarassing 😒😒😒 you mean The Washington Post couldn’t get anyone else instead of this fraudulent tabloid guy / Will Lewis 😒😒😒
I hope Americans take this seriously. Much of the news about the Royal Family is met with eye rolling over here, but this isn’t about them; it’s about legitimate news organizations kowtowing to money and power, and colluding with each other. This is a much bigger deal than just Harry, but I’m not seeing it reported elsewhere.
It really is frightening to think of how much power the monarchy has over papers in the UK, and I shudder to think that reach is expanding here. It’s bad enough that a huge amount of the readership of the Daily Mail is from the US.
This is very concerning. How did the WAPO board not do any due diligence? or worse, they did and thought- this is fine? An eye needs to be taken at all proposed reporting on Harry and generally what this guy has been doing during his UK run and in the US to date. Who has been backing him and promoting him? People dont get positions like this without heavy weight backers
+1. Exactly!
I just re-subscribed bc of a 99 cent/week deal (thanks Meidas) and for news about politics but this is making me seriously sided eye them. Wth? Ex BM infiltrating the top levels in our news orgs needs to be addressed now and if this is how he is going to run this paper, he needs to go!
But, the board did cover this and they hired him anyway!!!
It was sort of a quiet news item in the Fall when he was announced as candidate for the job and this January when he actually got the job. The public had to really be alert and have followed the British media scandal for years to catch this story. All I can think of to rationalize his hire is that the board thought his time with British tabloids means he’s good at sensationalizing news and knows how to drive clicks. The shit.
I grew up with the Washington Post and subscribe even though I live on West Coast now. It’s disgusting.
This is so much bigger than Harry. Will Lewis was named CEO and publisher of the Washington Post on November 5 2023. Exactly one year before the 2024 election. Rupert Murdoch likely has proof of his criminal activity, since Lewis did it at his behest and was defended by his lawyers. That’s kompromat. That’s leverage.
And that would explain the newspaper’s strong right wing tilt lately.
Well gosh, I guess I shouldn’t go post about it on other social media platforms, like, IMMEDIATELY.
Pardon me, I’ll be back shortly.
I wonder if all of us should be taking advantage of the $.99 subscription. Then we can comment about the right leaning articles, etc., and ask if it has anything to do with Will Lewis.
Honestly, they won’t care. The only thing that will matter is when they lose enough subscribers to change the guard.
I just saw this posted on my twitter. All Things Considered covered this yesterday on NPR. At least some US news is talking about it.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/22/1252991372/a-decade-old-scandal-in-the-u-k-haunts-ceo-of-washington-post
Even more reason to be wary of Jeff Bezos.