A letter of complaint alleges that the Oprah Winfrey TV special with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry uses “the deliberate distortion and doctoring of newspaper headlines” to make the UK press look racist.
The editorial legal director at Associated Newspapers claims that a montage of supposed press coverage to back the Duchess of Sussex’s claims of “undeniable racist overtones” used headlines that never ran.
“Many of the headlines have been either taken out of context or deliberately edited and displayed as supporting evidence for the program’s claim that the Duchess of Sussex was subjected to racist coverage by the British press,” wrote Hartley.
She has provided proof of the mocked-up headlines, where one example can be seen below. The first image is what was featured in the CBS special.
The second image is the headline that actually appeared online, with the line of text that appears in the first image seemingly taken from the middle of paragraph three in the 11-paragraph piece.
Hartley slammed the CBS interview and has demanded that it is taken off air.
“In conclusion, the programme in its current form, does not comply with the ViacomCBS editorial policies or align with its stated values. In terms of both accuracy and integrity, the programme is clearly compromised by the inclusion of this misleading montage.
“Accordingly, I should be grateful for your urgent confirmation that the offending content will be removed from the programme currently being made available to the public.
“We also understand that a further broadcast is being planned tonight. The montage should therefore be deleted prior to that broadcast.”
Harpo Productions, Oprah Winfrey’s company, said that “Prince Harry and Meghan shared in the interview their personal story. We stand by the broadcast in its entirety.”
Photo credits: Daily Mail
This article originally appeared on Over60.