Meghan Markle has slammed the media for posting “salacious” stories, amid her ongoing lawsuit against Associated Newspapers in the UK.
The Duchess of Sussex is currently suing the publishers of the UK Mail on Sunday for printing a “private and confidential” letter she sent to her estranged father Thomas Markle in 2018.
Speaking at a virtual summit organised by non-profit newsroom The 19th, Meghan said there’s “so much toxicity” in the media at the moment.
She said: “It’s so fascinating, at least from my standpoint and my personal experience the past couple of years – the headlines alone, the clickbait alone, makes an imprint.”
The #19thRepresents: Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, on why she thinks we need a venture like The 19th.
She says, we need to get to a place “where people are just telling the truth in their reporting” and using a compassionate and empathetic lens. pic.twitter.com/Mcmn4BGPOt
— 19thnews (@19thnews) August 14, 2020
“That is part of how we start to view the world, how we interact with other people, and I think there’s so much toxicity out there in what’s being referred to, my husband and I talk about it often, this economy for attention.”
“That is what is monetisable right now when you’re looking at the digital space and media,” she continued.
“And so if you are just trying to grab someone’s attention and keep it you’re going for something salacious versus something truthful.”
Meghan said getting to a place where stories are told “through a compassionate or empathetic lens” will “help bind people as a community”.
“You want to have trust in journalism and you want to have trust in what you are reading in the hope that it’s fact,” she said.
“We have become so, sadly, comfortable with the idea that we are just getting all this stuff and it becomes noise as opposed to truth and accurate journalism.”
Meghan also addressed the Black Lives Matter movement, and said it was “devastating” to return to the US and see the “state of affairs” it was in.
Meghan and her husband Prince Harry moved to California with their son Archie back in March, and are currently living in Santa Barbara – where they recently purchased a house.
The former actress continued: “To come back and to just see this state of affairs, I think at the onset, if I’m being honest, it was just devastating. It was so sad to see where our country was in that moment.”
“If there’s any silver lining in that, I would say that in the weeks after the murder of George Floyd, in the peaceful protests that you were seeing, in the voices that were coming out, in the way that people were actually owning their role… it shifted from sadness to a feeling of absolute inspiration, because I can see that the tide is turning.”
Meghan then said she’s looking forward to using her “voice” in a way she wasn’t able to before, referring to her departure from the royal family earlier this year.
#19thRepresents: The Duchess on returning to the U.S. in this moment of racial reckoning — “To come back and to just see this state of affairs, I think at the onset, if I’m being honest, it was just devastating…” https://t.co/1HZNydmPDD
— 19thnews (@19thnews) August 14, 2020
“From my standpoint, it’s not new to see this undercurrent of racism and certainly unconscious bias, but I think to see the changes that are being made right now is really — it’s something I look forward to being a part of,” she added.
“And being part of using my voice in a way that I haven’t been able to of late. So, yeah, it’s good to be home.”
