The Daily Mail’s “aggressive” approach to reporting on Prince Harry and Meghan’s Australian visit has “irreparably damaged” the Sussexes’ ability to brief press ahead of trips, Guardian Australia has been told.
The Daily Mail broke the embargo by publishing the royal couple’s movements five days before they landed in Melbourne, despite that information being strictly non-publishable until they arrived.
The Mail reported “under-wraps details” about the location of the stops in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra as well as the background notes and a Q&A, against the instructions given to media by the royal pair’s team.
The Guardian has been told the Sussexes’ media office complained, resulting in the Daily Mail report being taken down.
Sources close to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex also alleged the Daily Mail followed the advance security team from the airport and reported on their movements, with fears that the safety of Harry and Meghan was compromised.
The Daily Mail has been approached for comment.
The breach will have a major impact on the way the couple deal with all media in the future as it showed the tradition of embargoed information is not respected by some media, sources said.
The leak meant that Harry and Meghan’s itinerary had to be changed at the 11th hour and that the police involvement had to be ramped up – an unpopular aspect of the pair’s trip to Australia which was criticised as a waste of taxpayer money.
Victoria police had told the media it would deploy resources as necessary to ensure community safety. NSW police confirmed they had provided “some additional security measures”.
Sources said there was an “aggressive escalation” in the Mail’s reporting which led to aspects of the tour being changed, including the ability to brief journalists ahead of time as the couple moved from Melbourne to Sydney, and Harry travelled to Canberra.
Meghan’s PR team called out the Mail, Sky News Australia and the UK’s Daily Mirror last week.
“Media from the Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, and Sky News Australia unfortunately reported on sensitive embargoed information, complicating and compromising security arrangements,” a spokesperson from Meghan’s PR team said last week.
“We are therefore no longer sharing itineraries beyond the initial ops note with media for the remainder of their trip.”
The statement led to an angry response from Sky News which told their press team it did not break the embargo and was merely reporting on information already in the public domain.
The Daily Mail in the UK has a hostile relationship with Harry and Meghan.
A case brought by Prince Harry; Elton John and his husband, David Furnish; the actors Sadie Frost and Elizabeth Hurley; the campaigner Doreen Lawrence; and the former politician Simon Hughes against the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday has just wrapped up in London. The allegations – which included phone hacking, landline tapping and bugging celebrity houses – have been denied by the publisher.
During the trial, Prince Harry accused the Daily Mail of wanting to drive him “to drugs and drinking” by placing his life under surveillance.
Recent stories on the Australian Daily Mail website are overwhelmingly negative about Meghan, saying she glared at an adviser who touched her husband, she talked about her “very hard life” after appearing at a luxury wellness retreat, and that the event she headlined had failed to sell out.
They criticised her outfits as “stiff, impractical and worst of all, horribly ageing”.
Some events were not forecast on the embargoed briefing notes, including a surprise visit to Bondi Beach to meet survivors of the Bondi beach terror attack on their final day.
Harry and Meghan met emergency workers who responded to the attack, as well as representatives of the Sydney Jewish Museum, which is opening an exhibition on the massacre.
