Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s tightly-controlled media operation has come under scrutiny after details shared in an exclusive WhatsApp group for royal reporters were abruptly reversed just days before the couple’s planned return to Britain.
The group, created by the Sussexes’ Director of Communications Liam Maguire, was established to provide accredited journalists with updates about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s UK visit, which is due to begin on July 7.
According to Daily Mail UK’s diary editor Richard Eden, journalists in the group initially received an extensive operational briefing outlining the Montecito-based couple’s itinerary.
The information reportedly included plans for Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, to accompany their parents, along with details that the family would be staying at a royal residence during the visit.
Although Eden was not included in the WhatsApp chat, he said he was “profoundly relieved not to be a member” after the information circulated to reporters was later contradicted.
He revealed that journalists received a lengthy briefing on Friday, June 26, far more detailed than the short updates typically sent to the royal press, including a comprehensive outline of the Sussexes’ movements after their arrival in Britain.
News organisations, including the BBC, quickly published the information.
However, the situation quickly changed after The Sun reported on Saturday that Prince Harry’s bid to regain automatic taxpayer-funded police protection had again been rejected by the government committee responsible for royal security.
According to Eden, reporters then received another message in the group chat informing them that key details they had published the previous day were no longer accurate.
“The reporters should be forgiven,” Eden said.
“As royal correspondents, they are used to receiving briefing notes that help them cover events. The palace notes are usually factual, so the journalists might have expected Harry and Meghan’s messages to be equally trustworthy.”
Eden argued that nothing had materially changed between the two briefings.
He noted that the security arrangements remained exactly as they had been since Harry and Meghan stepped back as senior working royals in 2020 and relocated to the United States.
Those arrangements were also upheld when Harry lost his legal challenge over his security last year.
“The only thing that changed was that Harry threw his toys out of his pram when the Home Office confirmed that its policy still applied to them,” Eden said.
Royal commentator Tom Sykes, who was included in the WhatsApp group, also addressed the confusion in his Royalist newsletter, apologising to readers after reporting information that later proved unreliable.
He echoed Eden’s claims that the Sussexes’ office had distributed “a precise, minute-by-minute rundown of everything Meghan and Harry were planning to do on their tour of the United Kingdom”, only for reports to emerge less than a day later suggesting Meghan and the children might not travel after all.
“The reason his team gave for (maybe) pulling the plug is that they have been denied a security package by RAVEC,” Sykes wrote.
“Let me say this as plainly as I can: Harry has not had a security package from RAVEC for well over half a decade. He has been told this over and over again. He has challenged it in the courts and lost.”
Sykes acknowledged it was embarrassing to have relied on the briefing but defended journalists for treating official communications as genuine.
“I can’t really offer my readers an apology for taking an operational note at face value. As a journalist you have to assume such documents are in-good-faith statements of intent or you can’t do much.
“Yes, it’s a bit embarrassing to have been conned. But think of the King. And think of the veterans who this tour was supposed to be about supporting!”
Sykes went on to argue that the communications strategy appeared designed to increase pressure on King Charles III over Harry’s long-running security dispute.
“The tour, the announcement that Meghan and the kids were coming, the whole carefully choreographed media rollout, the months of assurances to the Royal Household that this was happening, the accommodation requests, the detailed planning: it was all just to bounce his poor, weak, loving father into intervening in the Government’s security decision-making, something Charles, to his eternal credit, has refused to do,” Sykes said.
“This is the high-water mark of Harry’s emotional blackmail.”
SkyNews.com.au has contacted Sussex representatives for further comment.