LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Britain's press watchdog has
rejected a complaint by Prince Harry over a tabloid newspaper
article which said wild animals pictured in photos he posted on
Instagram had been drugged and tied up.
Harry, Queen Elizabeth's grandson, posted the pictures he
had taken of African wildlife on his Instagram account, which
then had 5.6 followers, to mark Earth Day and highlight
conservation efforts.
But the Mail on Sunday newspaper reported last April that
the photos had not revealed the full story. It said the animals
involved had been tranquilised and that a picture of an elephant
in Malawi had been edited so that it was not possible to see
there was a rope around its hind legs.
"Drugged and tethered ... what Harry didn’t tell you about
those awe-inspiring wildlife photos," read the headline.
The prince argued the report was inaccurate because it
indicated he had intentionally misled the public to think that
he was a superior wildlife photographer who had captured the
pictures under dangerous circumstances, the Independent Press
Standards Organisation (IPSO) watchdog said.
Harry said his caption had made clear the animals were being
relocated as part of conservation efforts and that the photo had
only been edited to meet Instagram's formatting requirements.
However, the paper said Harry had not explained the
circumstances of the photo to his followers and that he had not
needed to crop the pictures in the way he had.
IPSO's complaints committee supported the paper's argument
and rejected Harry's claim that the article was inaccurate.
"The committee did not consider that 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," it said.
Harry and his American wife Meghan have increasingly become
embroiled in conflict with Britain's tabloid newspapers.
Meghan is suing the Mail on Sunday over its publication of a
private letter she sent to her father, Thomas Markle, and Harry
has accused some newspapers of bullying his wife in the same way
they treated his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car
crash in 1997 as her limousine sped away from chasing paparazzi.
Earlier this month the couple, who are currently in Canada
with their baby son Archie, announced they would no longer use
their royal titles and were seeking an independent new life
based mainly in North America.
Last week, lawyers for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as
they are formally known, issued a warning to media not to use
paparazzi pictures of the couple.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison)