10:17 PST 3/12/2021
in
Etan Vlessing
British tabloid lawyers wrote to ViacomCBS asking for “offensive content” to be removed before a retransmission of the interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Associated Newspapers, which owns the Daily Mail tabloid in the UK, wrote to ViacomCBS demanding the exclusion of “offensive content” in Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
Lawyers from Associated Newspapers have opposed images in a newspaper headline montage that they claim have been altered or misrepresented and require that they be edited from the TV special.
“As a responsible and honest broadcaster, we therefore believe that you will reject, as we do, the deliberate distortion and adulteration of newspaper headlines in the misleading British newspaper broadcast on ‘Oprah with Meghan and Harry’. Many of the headlines were 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 in the British press, “wrote Associated Newspapers legal director Elizabeth Hartley.
“I appreciate your urgent confirmation that the offending content will be removed from the program that is being made available to the public. We also understand that a new broadcast is being planned for tonight. The assembly should therefore be excluded before this transmission, “added Hartley.
The CBS primetime two-hour special, entitled Oprah with Meghan and Harry, where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex sat for their first in-depth television interview, opened on March 7. In the interview, Winfrey speaks for the first time in person with Markle about why the Sussex departed from real life, their marriage to the prince and his philanthropic work, as well as the intense press scrutiny and public pressure that the couple has faced.
Prince Harry joins the interview later, and the couple talks about their move to the United States and their plans for the future, as well as alluding to the difficulties that Markle and Harry’s late mother, Princess Diana, faced with the scrutiny of the press.
ViacomCBS representatives were not available for comment.