prince andrew. were we critical of- what happened there? yes, we were. were we critical of the royal family when meghan said i that she was driven to suicide? were we critical of the late | duke of edinburgh when he crashed his car, you know, - in his late 90s in sandringham? i think there is a . place for criticism. we do criticise where - it is needed, but i think a lot of the time, royal stories are generally a little - bit more upbeat. sometimes, our editors want them in the bulletin- because they, you know, they lift the bulletin - sometimes. i think that s quite important to get the right mix- in a bulletin. so, yes, there s a place - for criticism and i think that that has to go in there and i think we have i to acknowledge that a good 20% or 30% of the country want us i to have an elected head of- state and not have a monarch. and laura, would you say there s a difference between individual criticism criticism of individuals within the royal family and then criticism of the
and that s a really good point. but i think sometimes for example, in my old job at bbc breakfast, we would regularly practice for a categoryi death. you know, you do the obit procedure to make sure that once that happens and that would be like prince charles or the queen or the queen mother, before she passed away, or, you know, the duke of edinburgh you sometimes practice those sorts of procedures. and i would always say once we did those practices that i felt we go too far on the tone. and when the duke of edinburgh did die, i do think that the bbc did make a mistake in putting the same output on bbc one, on bbc two, and. and got a lot of criticism forthat, indeed. and rightly so. and i think that s where the balance should have come in, because you can t force grief upon a nation. 0k. you can report on it, likejonny s saying, but you can t make everybody feel the same way because some people don t feel that way about the royal family. i think that s important. 0k. and just ch
the world cup or lots of people don t care about the world cup. we just cover it. and so that, for me, is a sort of structural problem in the argument about criticism. 0k. but i take on board what laura says. that s interesting. and it s a good point to bring in dan walker, who s sport and news all in one. you know, you ve obviously met various royals on breakfast. yeah. how do you view the line the bbc and perhaps other broadcasters walk when it comes to covering the royal family? it s really interesting why it s been fascinating to listen to chris tojonny and to laura on that as well. i mean, i ve made one of those documentaries thatjonny was talking about there. i spent quite a bit of time with prince william on a documentary about mental health and i ve also covered a lot of royal stories, likejubilees and various members of the royal family as well. the one thing that i often think about is is that issue of of balance, and i listened to whatjonny said there about the way we
it with really anybody else, there will be conditions attached. and yes, they re particularly stringent with the royal family and that s the deal they re able to strike. with news, it is different. we broadly share, i mean, most of our material with people like chris and organisations like itv news and we don t get sort of favours in that front that means we can be as critical i mean, look, laura, i mean, i think you ve got you make a very good point. i think part of the problem is the age and affection of the sovereign. i think part of the problem is that, as chris says, it s an upbeat story and it s seen as a sort of happy end point for a lot of bulletins, particularly tv. and i think part of the problem is a classification problem, which is if you are republican and i totally get this if you are a republican, you see nearly every royal story as a political story, and you think, where is the counter voice? actually, i think most royal stories are more like sports stories,
well with the sussexes, you know, they spoke about their mental health struggles, the duchess admitted she was not ok, really, and that made news around the world. and i wonder whether there were consequences for itv, based on what perhaszonny was saying earlier, just about, you know, reflecting that particular side of the story. i don t think there can be - consequences when actually, what you ve reported is the truth. - what tom uncovered l in that documentary and i was doing the news every day, working kind i of alongside him - what he uncovered was that all was not well with - the sussexes inside the royal family and, well, what happened? i well, that turned out to be| very true, because a couple of months later, - they went to canada. so, i don t think there can be consequences if what you re i telling is the truth - and if we are reflecting as best we can the truth i which is ourjob as journalists then i think we shouldn t| worry about consequences. and if there are i