Kate’s doctored photo is particularly troubling – presenting big questions for the Royal Family
The Princess of Wales has taken the blame. She has apologised for the doctored Mother’s Day photograph, which was issued officially on behalf of the Royal Family.
“Give her a break”, she’s been in hospital and is recuperating after serious abdominal surgery, sums up a widespread mood of forgiveness.
“What does it matter?” chorus those eager to move on to more “serious” issues.
Sympathy for Kate, and what could be her understandable carelessness, should not wipe away concerns raised by the curious case of the altered snapshot.
This seemingly trivial matter touches on the credibility of the mainstream media in the photoshop era and the fair and accurate reporting of the monarchy and the Royal Family, who are the taxpayer-funded and government-enabled titular heads of the British state.
The Royal Family enjoy enormous privilege in exchange for living in a goldfish bowl. They are subject to public scrutiny because their function is to preside over and represent the nation in public.
The unforced error of the picture has led to global speculation on the state of Kate’s health and marriage.
This incident is also an indicative battle in the existential war between truth and fake news. That explains why the world’s five leading news agencies, including Reuters and Associated Press, took the dramatic step of issuing a kill notice on a picture they had distributed.
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Agency Reuters issued a ‘kill’ notice for the image. Pic: Reuters
It could be a fuss about nothing. A busy mother inexpertly tinkering with the folds of clothing in a picture which she knew were going to be viewed by millions. We will never know unless the “Palaces” – either Kensington or Buckingham – publish the source material on which Kate, if it were Kate, was working.
The unreliable photo is particularly troubling because there was nothing forcing the Waleses to give it out. It was distributed to gain advantage and scotch public curiosity aroused by Kate and her three children staying out of sight since the beginning of this year.
Picture editing is nothing new
Crude airbrushing and cropping of images have gone on since William Fox Talbot invented photography. Alterations were obvious. Professional photographers were even expected “to touch up” the portraits they took.
Drastic doctoring of photographs used to be an almost comical trope associated with dictatorships. Whoops, there goes Trotsky who used to be standing next to Lenin!
In free societies, artfully posed official portraits were welcomed. Independent photographers were also given access to take pictures for themselves. As a result, the public also got to see shots of politicians and dignitaries grimacing, alone or at each other, or even nodding off at official functions.
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How Kate doctored royal picture
Not cheating with photographs matters more today because it is so easy to do it. Anyone with a smartphone or laptop has a camera and the tools for editing at their fingertips.
Once digital copies are made it seems to be practically impossible to detect the full extent of manipulation that has taken place. For example, nobody has established definitively whether the picture of Prince Andrew with his arm around 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre is genuine or fake, as he has suggested.
Charlotte’s cuff, Kate’s zip, Louis’s jumper, the wonky skirting board and window frame – glitches have been spotted in the picture. Experts cannot confirm whether or not bigger changes were made.
They have identified at least three separate attempts to alter the central area of the picture, where the family are depicted.
Some media-savvy celebrities worked out how to exploit the public’s taste for candid photographs with studied informality. Who can forget Diana sitting alone outside the Taj Mahal or arriving dressed-to-kill at the Serpentine gala?
Diana’s famous photo outside the Taj Mahal, with William and Kate at the same spot. Pic: AP
William has combined his mother’s taste for informality with a fierce desire to protect his and his family’s privacy. In place of stiffly-posed shoots, the Waleses got into the habit of releasing pictures on red letter days taken by Kate, “a keen amateur photographer”.
Only a bit better than what could have been shot by the average mum, her pictures gave a winning impression of unstuffy informality. This has now backfired given the possibility that the family may have been unable to muster a spontaneous image of relaxed happiness for this year’s Mothers’ Day.
The media’s unique offering
Keeping photography in the Royal Family satisfied the public appetite for pictures, while maintaining absolute control by the Prince and Princess of what we got to see. A similar desire for control is manifested by Kensington Palace, and for that matter Downing Street.
Both have appointed official photographers in recent years, consequently excluding independent professionals from some photo opportunities. Number 10 only released the pictures taken at COVID “parties” when they were forced to by official investigations.
As sources of pictures have proliferated and the struggle for access has intensified, mainstream news organisations have had to take care of what they, uniquely, can offer – fair and accurate reporting.
The Prince of Wales during a visit to a charity youth zone, in a picture taken by the Press Association. Pic: PA
This includes taking great pains to verify what they distribute. Most reputable news organisations have been caught out by fakes and occasionally distorted their own analogue material in the past.
They have had to tighten up their procedures to deal with the growing ease with which fakes can be produced by anyone so inclined. The picture agencies put out the royal photo in good faith – it had come from an impeccable source after all – but on closer examination their trust was misplaced.
Citizen journalists, people offering their own material for use in reporting, have turned out to be unreliable.
Some, like those trying to get mentioned as “Hugh Janus” or “Ivor Bigun” on phone-ins, are out for a laugh.
Others, such as those who send in images of breaking news events, but which were actually taken elsewhere, just want to take part.
Then there are those who deliberately put out fake material to back up their argument and, just as dangerous, conspiracy theorists who try to discredit accurate material on the grounds that it has been faked.
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Where is Kate? A timeline of events
Reputational minefield
As ever in the IT age, the US has led with the promulgation of fake news, including doctored pictures of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The UK is following. To give just one example, an AI-generated soundbite, allegedly spoken by Sir Keir Starmer, was recently widely circulated and discredited.
Monitoring and annulling fake material will inevitably be one of the mainstream media’s most important functions in this year’s elections.
Once one thing turns out to be questionable, bigger questions arise. The Royal Family’s partial openness about the King’s cancer and Kate’s operation without specifics has inevitably raised more questions than answers – likewise William’s sudden withdrawal from his godfather’s memorial for a vague “personal matter”.
Now the Royal Family have stumbled into a reputational minefield with their doctored picture.
Questions are not only being asked in the “sewer” of the internet, as Britain’s official royal correspondents are reporting dismissively.
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Major foreign news outlets, including US network television, are openly speculating about William and Kate’s relationship.
The quickest way to dispel doubts will be if Kate is able to resume her full programme of public engagements after Easter, as expected.
The Waleses are not the only ones whose reputations are on the line.
The mainstream media are also under pressure to report truth as never before. Forgiveness, alas, is not the same as restoring trust.
Glasgow has been a city crying out for solutions to a devastating drugs epidemic that is ravaging people hooked on deadly narcotics.
We have spent time with vulnerable addicts in recent months and witnessed first-hand the dirty, dangerous street corners and back alleys where they would inject their £10 heroin hit, not knowing – or, in many cases, not caring – whether that would be the moment they die.
“Dying would be better than this life,” one man told me.
It was a grim insight into the daily reality of life in the capital of Europe’s drug death crisis.
Scotland has a stubborn addiction to substances spanning generations. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to properly get a grip of the emergency.
But there is a new concept in town.
From Monday, a taxpayer-funded unit is allowing addicts to bring their own heroin and cocaine and inject it while NHS medical teams supervise.
It may be a UK-first but it is a regular feature in some other major European cities that have claimed high success rates in saving lives.
Glasgow has looked on with envy at these other models.
One supermarket car park less than a hundred metres from this new facility is a perfect illustration of the problem. An area littered with dirty needles and paraphernalia. A minefield where one wrong step risks contracting a nasty disease.
Drugs paraphernalia in a supermarket car park in Glasgow, near the new facility
It is estimated hundreds of users inject heroin in public places in Glasgow every week. HIV has been rife.
The new building, which will be open from 9am until 9pm 365 days a year, includes bays where clean needles are provided as part of a persuasive tactic to lure addicts indoors in a controlled environment.
There is a welcome area where people will check in before being invited into one of eight bays. The room is clinical, covered in mirrors, with a row of small medical bins.
Clean needles are provided to lure addicts to inject in a controlled environment
There are eight bays users can inject in
We were shown the aftercare area where users will relax after their hit in the company of housing and social workers.
The idea is controversial and not cheap – £2.3m has been ring-fenced every year.
The aftercare area
Read more: ‘Dying would be better than my £1,000 a month heroin addiction’
Authorities in the city first floated a ‘safer drug consumption room’ in 2016. It failed to get off the ground as the UK Home Office under the Conservatives said they would not allow people to break the law to feed habits.
The usual wrangle between Edinburgh and London continued for years with Downing Street suggesting Scotland could, if it wanted, use its discretion to allow these injecting rooms to go ahead.
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The stalemate ended when Scotland’s most senior prosecutor issued a landmark decision that it would not be in the public interest to arrest those using such a facility.
One expert has told me this new concept is unlikely to lead to an overall reduction in deaths across Scotland. Another described it as an expensive vanity project. Supporters clearly disagree.
The question is what does success look like?
The big test will be if there is a spike in crime around the building and how it will work alongside law enforcement given drug dealers know exactly where to find their clients now.
It is not disputed this is a radical approach – and other cities across Britain will be watching closely.
Temperatures in northern parts of the UK could fall as low as minus 20C on Friday night as wintry weather continues, the Met Office has said.
There are yellow warnings for ice on Friday morning covering the eastern coast of England and Scotland, the South West, Wales and Northern Ireland.
There is also a yellow warning for snow and ice for northern Scotland. All the warnings expire before midday.
In addition, freezing fog is predicted across central and southeast England, and in parts of Wales, which may be “quite stubborn to clear” on Friday morning, said Met Office meteorologist Liam Eslick.
“It’s going to be another cold couple of days,” he added, and all areas of the UK are likely to experience sub-zero temperatures.
St Andrew’s church at Kiln Pit in Durham. Pic: PA
Friday night may bring the coldest temperatures of the current cold snap, with temperatures possibly plummeting as low as minus 15C or even minus 20C.
“That’s probably the lowest limits we’re expecting,” Mr Eslick said.
“We probably don’t really expect many places to get close to minus 20C, but we could see one or two places that could just touch that mark overnight Friday into Saturday.”
That is because of still conditions, high pressure, “not a lot of wind and clear skies”.
In addition, snow on the ground helps to create “sort of a perfect scenario to see those temperatures just plummet”, Mr Eslick added.
Saturday is also likely to be bitterly cold, while Sunday is forecast to be a little warmer.
On Monday, temperatures are expected to be more in line with the seasonal norm, at about seven or eight degrees Celcius.
A woman feeds ducks in a frosty High Wycombe. Pic: PA
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The freezing conditions have led to travel disruption, with Manchester Airport closing both its runways on Thursday morning because of “significant levels of snow”. They were later reopened.
Transport for Wales closed some railway lines because of damage to tracks.
Hundreds of schools in Scotland and about 90 in Wales were shut on Thursday.
Meanwhile, staff and customers at a pub thought to be Britain’s highest were finally able to leave on Thursday after being snowed in.
The Tan Hill Inn in Richmond, North Yorkshire, is 1,732 feet (528m) above sea level.
Six staff and 23 visitors were stuck, the pub said on Facebook.
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