I love it when you guys theorize that royal reporters are secretly Prince William and Kate’s biggest opps. I’ve long believed that royal rota reporters see themselves more as gatekeepers to the Waleses in particular, and that there’s a lot of “common knowledge” among the rota, stuff which is barely ever reported but is often hinted at within various stories. What’s gone down this year has broken a lot of codes and agreements though, and we could see that with our own eyes as the rota tried to contain the five-alarm PR fire that happened in the first three months of the year. Lies, manipulated photos, secrets, a missing princess, day-drinking, it was all pretty bizarre. Months later, people are still trying to work out exactly what happened and whether the stories we were fed were all lies. Which is why it caught on when Rhiannon Mills at Sky News seemingly let the cat out of the bag when she emphasized that the Princess of Wales had “pre-cancerous cells,” implying that was all it was. As of Monday, the palace had not responded and Mills’ reporting had not been corrected. Then something shifted on Tuesday. Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast sounds pissed off at this utter clownshow:
The extraordinary rumor that Kate Middleton never had cancer, which went viral over the weekend after an old report resurfaced saying the princess had been afflicted by “pre-cancerous cells”, can arguably be traced back to a deliberately opaque communications policy by her and her office.
The half-transparent/half-secretive approach to Kate’s health crisis this year also resulted in one of the most disastrous episodes of news management ever seen in the royal family, when Kate disappeared from view for weeks on end, triggering a tsunami of speculation about her health and her marriage, before she reappeared in a photo that turned out to be doctored. Kensington Palace never produced the original. Many still darkly mutter that rather than being subject to some light editing by Kate sitting up in bed with her laptop as the palace subsequently suggested, the Mother’s Day picture was in fact an out and out forgery stitched together from a selection of old photos.
After an outcry from global picture and news agencies which declared William and Kate’s office to no longer be a credible news source, Kate then appeared to be bounced into revealing that she had cancer in the first of two momentous videos. But, astonishingly, that story is now being called into question after the Sky News report which said that Kate had actually been treated for “pre-cancerous cells.” The report originally dated from September but resurfaced online this weekend. It was authored by Rhiannon Mills, senior royal editor for Sky News.
Mills and Sky are members of the so-called royal rota, a quasi-official group of royal journalists working for the British media who—while maintaining their editorial independence and frequently writing critical stories about the royals—cooperate with the palace, especially on logistics, in a broad sense. Palace staffers are often able to get simple errors made by rota journalists easily corrected.
The Daily Beast understands that reputable journalists contacted Kensington Palace last week to ask them about the Sky News report but it went unchanged until Tuesday, when it was finally amended by Sky to remove the reference to “pre-cancerous cells.” Mills has not responded to requests for comment and the palace has told The Daily Beast that it won’t be commenting, with sources saying the phrase “pre-cancerous cells” was never used by them.
The specific formulation of the words went largely unnoticed at the time amid relief at Kate’s announcement that she was “cancer-free.” Intriguingly, her office said at the time that the press shouldn’t use the phrase “cancer-free” although Kate did, suggesting another significant disconnect between the press office and its principal figures.
“Her office said at the time that the press shouldn’t use the phrase “cancer-free” although Kate did…” This is true. The rota gossiped about that too, that the palace issued talking points and guidance and Kensington Palace said that no one should actually quote Kate. It was in that stupid “romping in the meadow and fondling a butterfly” video where Kate said, in her voiceover, that her goal was remaining “cancer-free.” As for Mills, I have no idea if she simply made a mistake or if she was making a choice to spill some tea or whatever. I think it’s interesting that Sky News just edited the report and Mills hasn’t said anything on the record. God, so much weird-ass sh-t has gone down with these people this year.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Kensington Palace.