Camilla Tominey defends tabloid media after Meghan interview
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This Morning was hosted by Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on Wednesday. The presenting duo welcomed journalist Camilla Tominey onto the ITV programme to discuss some of the biggest news stories of the day. As the group began chatting about recent critical comments Meghan Markle made about the tabloid media, Camilla hit back at the Dutchess.
In a recent interview, Meghan spoke out against tabloid newspapers, insisting: “I would urge you not to read tabloids because I don’t think that’s healthy for anyone.
“Hopefully one day it’ll come with a warning label like cigarettes do, like, ‘This is toxic for your mental health’,” she told The New York Times DealBook Online Summit on Tuesday.
Speaking on This Morning, Camilla quickly hit back at Meghan’s remarks and came to the defence of tabloids.
The journalist questioned: “Is she including People Magazine in that when she got her friends to give a defence of how she was being treated in the royal family?
“Or is she including The Sun in that, who very successfully every year campaigns for people in the military with the Millie Awards?
“Or is she including the Daily Mail in that, which very successfully campaigned to hold the killers of Stephen Lawrence to justice?
“Let’s not have this broad-brushed generalisations about aspects of the media, which in a great many instances has actually helped not only the general public with regard to raising awareness of things like MP’s being on the take but equally her own family.”
Phillip chimed in: “There are some pretty toxic areas.”
“There are, but nothing’s perfect and neither is Meghan,” Camilla insisted.
Phillip argued: “The thing is, isn’t it true though that a lot of people are very scared to take on those tabloids or the online papers?
“Because if you go for them, they quite obviously go for you. So, she was quite honest.
“They’ve been quite honest about their disapproval of them and therefore every single thing now is an attack on them,” he commented.
“To be fair they also attack back,” Camilla said, with Phillip replying: “That just creates a cycle then.”
“I know, but equally it’s an industry that unlike online – we’ve been talking about the online community sort of publishing with impunity – that’s regulated, subject to legal restraints, and indeed the independent code of practice.
“But, equally there’s this sense I think as well that, yeah, I mean of course tabloids are formidable, just look at the reaction to the sleaze scandal.
“Okay, the government thought that was going well until the Daily Mail absolutely unleashed on Boris Johnson and then suddenly we’ve had a u-turn,” she explained.
Camilla insisted: “People can use the tabloids often to turn on the tap of publicity, then they want to turn it off when the tap of publicity doesn’t seem to be as supportive as it once was.
“Sometimes tabloids go too far, particularly perhaps when it comes to issues of privacy and high profile individuals.
“But, also they are a very, very useful campaigning tool to hold people in positions of authority to account,” she concluded.
This Morning airs weekdays at 10am on ITV.
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