None of yesterday's coverage or discussion is available on the official replay page, the listings have been rewritten from 12 noon onward in Orwellian fashion to say "This programme is not currently available - BBC News Special - Continued coverage from BBC News following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh" which is actually untrue, the switch from the scheduled programs happened at ten past. On Radio 4e the coverage of the death ran for twelve hours without a break, on Radio 4 for over six hours, I don't know about the other hundred or so channels because I didn't access them.
We had, as might be expected, hagiography - the canonisation of the Prince. Rescued from Greece at the age of one as a refugee, schooled in Germany and eventually Scotland, the sole member of his family to fight for the Allies instead of the Axis powers in World War Two, undoubtedly headed for the highest naval rank before marriage to the heir to the throne, founded the WWF and the DoE Award scheme, misspoke idiosyncratically on occasion. The wildlife WWF thing, not the wrestling. I turned off the radio after a while. Evan Davies is the ideal front man for any serious discussion but one can only take so much.
The Royal Family is essential to the fabric of the nation but I dislike having it spoken of. It should be seen but not heard. No doubt the Prince will be missed in some quarters but the ownership displayed by the media, pre-planned for decades, is just unseemly. If there were a Society for the Prevention of Exploiting Caged Figureheads I'd send a contribution. The Independent, when it was launched back in the mid-80s, made a promise to its readers never to mention the Royal Family, a promise long since broken under subsequent owners and editors but a worthy principle even so. Wikipedia mentions the position taken by the founding editor Andreas Whittam Smith: "Originally, it avoided royal stories, Whittam Smith later saying he thought the British press was "unduly besotted" with the Royal Family and that a newspaper could "manage without" stories about the monarchy". I agreed with that then and I agree still. There's an echo of the idea in yesterday's public reaction:
Within six hours of Prince Philip’s death being announced the BBC had received so many complaints about its wall-to-wall coverage of the news that it opened a dedicated complaints form on its website.
The BBC curtailed dozens of broadcasts on Friday, taking the nation’s most popular television and radio channels off air and reduced dozens of other broadcasts on stations across the country, in order to provide uninterrupted coverage of tributes to the Queen’s husband.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/ ... p-coverage
An anecdote, perhaps, from The Guardian. A snapshot of a moment.
Philip was patron of the Cartoon Art Trust for more than 20 years. In 1997 Rowson was at a fundraising dinner for the trust at St James’ Palace and was summoned to meet the duke along with the Times cartoonist Peter Brookes.
Philip asked whether any of Rowson’s work was syndicated. “I said I had no idea,” said Rowson.
“He then turned to Brookes who bowed low and said: ‘Peter Brookes, sir, the Times,’ at which point Phil the Greek exploded … ‘The Times? Bloody Murdoch rag! Wouldn’t have it in the house! Dreadful self-righteous rubbish!’
“At which point I interjected to say that the Guardian was the self-righteous one, to which he replied: ‘Not as bad as the bloody Times!’ and stalked off. Needless to say, he went up considerably in my estimation at this point and his comments are worth bearing in mind as all those News International – as was – papers drool over his memory. He clearly hated them.”
Rowson said it was “a delightful evening” and there was no question of Philip joking. “It was a visceral reaction … it was very, very funny.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... -the-times
