Meghan Markle has hit out at the press and believes “toxic” tabloids should come with their own warning label, like CIGERETTES! During a discussion with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the The New York Times DealBook Online Summit on Tuesday, the Duchess said tabloids are “toxic for your mental health”.
Meghan's candid comment came after Sorkin asked her what it's like "being a boss" at the Archewell Foundation she co-founded with Prince Harry.
“I've read great things about you as a boss, and if you read the tabloids, you can read all sorts of crazy things about being a boss," he remarked, prompting Meghan to advise the columnist to steer clear of gossip. Well, first I would urge you not to read tabloids, because I don't think that that's healthy for anyone. Hopefully, one day they come with a warning label like cigarettes do, like, 'This is toxic for your mental health.'”
Meghan has also claimed that social media has changed the landscape of news, especially for the so-called “click-bait culture”.
“I think there is really legitimate media but at the moment, you see in many ways social media feeding into that, so it becomes a race to the bottom,” said Meghan. “This clickbait culture has made it so that something that's salacious is more interesting and gets more pickup and can be monetized, so that ends up being the thing that feeds the entire environment of the media.”
With social media news being “so quick and rapid in how it's being delivered”, Meghan feels that certain parts of journalism have become more “about creating the news rather than reporting the news”. She added, “The damaging effects of that specifically for women, and especially for young girls, is impossible to even quantify.”
Meghan has had quite the few dealings with the press in her life, especially so during her rein as Duchess and wife of Prince Harry. The former Suits star has even gone as far as bringing some of those tabloids to court.
Earlier this year, a British judge ruled in Meghan's favour in a privacy and copyright infringement case involving five articles published by U.K.'s The Mail on Sunday in 2019 that included parts of a handwritten letter she had previously sent her father, Thomas Markle.
When asked in regard to the outlet's publishing company recent decision to file for an appeal, Meghan said she believes she “won the case.”
“This issue frankly has been going on when I had no children at all, I now have two children as you know, so it's an arduous process but again it's me just standing up for what's right, which I think is important across the board. Be it in this case or in the other things we've been talking about today…if you know the difference between right and wrong, you must stand up for what's right and that's what I'm doing.”
