Harry loses his complaint against MoS over drugged animal pictures
THE Duke of Sussex has lost a complaint against The Mail on Sunday over a report headlined: ‘Drugged and tethered… what Harry didn’t tell you about those awe-inspiring wildlife photos.’
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which regulates most newspapers, rejected Prince Harry’s claim that the article breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.
The report, published last April, featured photographs taken in Africa by the Duke of a rhino, elephant and lion which he posted on Instagram to highlight Earth Day, the annual environmental protection event. But the article noted ‘the reality is that all three animals had been stunned by a tranquilliser before the Prince clicked the shutter. The elephant had also been tethered – but because of the way the picture was edited, Harry’s Instagram followers were unable to see the rope around its hind legs’.
The report added that the post had ‘notably avoided explaining the circumstances in which the images were taken – the tranquillised animals were in various states of comatose as they were being relocated as part of conservation projects’.
At the time, a spokesman for Prince Harry declined to discuss the images but sources denied the rope was deliberately edited out of the elephant picture, claiming instead that ‘it was due to Instagram’s format’. The Duke claimed to IPSO that the implication he had ‘intentionally misled the public to give the impression that he was a superior wildlife photographer who had captured the images in dangerous circumstances’ was inaccurate.
He said the images had been uploaded to his account to raise awareness of Earth Day, not to show off his photography skills, and that ‘the caption made clear that the animals were being relocated as part of conservation efforts’.
He added it was therefore ‘not necessary for the captions to explicitly state that the animals had been sedated or tethered as this would be understood by readers’.
Denying the report was inaccurate, The Mail on Sunday told IPSO that Prince Harry had posted the cropped photo to his then 5.6million Instagram followers without explaining the circumstances behind it, despite having the opportunity to do so.
It added that his followers could not be expected to remember what he had said publicly about the conservation work three years earlier or on the conservation organisation’s website, as the Duke had argued in his complaint.
The newspaper called the Duke ‘disingenuous’ for arguing that his preference to have a border around his photographs was an Instagram formatting requirement rather than his own ‘presentational choice’. To prove its point, the newspaper uploaded the full image to Instagram itself and provided a screenshot to IPSO.
In its ruling, IPSO said: ‘The Committee considered that it was not clear from the images themselves that the animals had been tranquillised and tethered. The photograph of the elephant had been cropped to edit out the animal’s tethered leg; the publication had demonstrated that the photograph could have been edited differently and the complainant
‘It did not quite tell the full story’
accepted that the album could have been uploaded in a different format which would have made editing the photograph unnecessary.
‘The accompanying caption did not make the position clear or that the images had previously been published, unedited, in 2016. The position was not made clear simply as a result of the inclusion of the link to the website.
‘In these circumstances, the Committee did not consider it was significantly misleading to report that the photographs posted on the complainant’s Instagram account did not quite tell the full story and that the complainant had not explained the circumstances in which the photographs had been taken. There was no breach of Clause 1.’