Prince Harry lost his dispute with the press after a lengthy battle in which the Duke of Sussex faced allegations of misleading the public with wildlife photos shared to social media.
British newspaper The Mail on Sunday slammed Harry for the images, which it claimed were manipulated to avoid showing the inhumane conditions under which the animals were being kept.
Harry retaliated with his own complaint but in a final ruling, the Independent Press Standards Organization concluded that "the complaint was not upheld."
The ordeal began in April last year. In honor of Earth Day, Harry posted a series of images depicting an elephant, lion, and Rhinoceros to Instagram. The Mail on Sunday responded to the photos with an article claiming that the images "don't quite tell the full story" and that Harry had "notably avoided explaining the circumstances in which the images were taken."
At issue was that the animals had allegedly been tranquilized and the elephant had been tethered. However, this was not evident in the photos posted to Instagram.
The rope around the elephant's leg had allegedly been edited out. In the article, sources linked to the Royal Family denied that the rope was deliberately edited out of the elephant picture, claiming instead that "it was due to Instagram's format."
Harry lodged a complaint claiming that the article was inaccurate and that it led the public to believe he was "a superior wildlife photographer who had captured the images in dangerous circumstances."
He explained that the uncropped photograph had been published on the Royal Family website in 2016 and has been publicly available ever since.
He further argued that he had included a link to the organization that conducts conservation work, which featured a description and a video of the tranquilizing and tethering process.
The IPSO ruled that the images did not accurately show how the animals had been tranquilized and that the photo of the elephant had been cropped to edit out its tethered leg.
It further stated that Harry's "accompanying caption did not make the position clear or that the images had previously been published, unedited, in 2016."
The ruling added that it was not "significantly misleading" for The Mail on Sunday to report that the photographs posted to Harry's Instagram account were not an accurate portrayal of the actual circumstances.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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