The Royal Family isn't the only one upset about this week's bombshell announcement from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. A new Sussex Royal website (opens in new tab) states that the Royal Reporter's long-standing reputation as a "reliable source" is a "misconception" and that their work is edited to "give a false impression."

Unsurprisingly, the British media is not overjoyed by the Sussexes' reputation. The policy, announced along with the Sussexes' "revised" coverage policy, states that they will "no longer participate in the royal rotor system" and will instead "engage with grassroots media organizations and up-and-coming young journalists."

So what does this mean for the Royal Family correspondents? Their jobs depend on being able to churn out an endless conveyor belt of juicy stories (opens in new tab) about members of the royal family.""I don't think royal reporters will lose their jobs yet," said a "I don't think the royal press will lose their jobs yet," Phil Dampier, a veteran royal correspondent who first reported Meghan and Harry's relationship in 2016, tells Marie Claire. 'In fact, it's when there's scandal and turmoil within the royal family that we're the busiest.'

And many journalists claim that Meghan and Harry's description of the system is not entirely accurate. The new site (open in new tab) describes the rotas as giving "British media representatives the opportunity to cover the event exclusively," but their role, like that of the White House press corps, is also to limit the number of people who accompany the royal engagement. This is to prevent media scrums in confined spaces, especially since the royal family often meets with hospital patients, children, and other vulnerable groups. David Mapston, head of professional journalism for the British network Sky News (opens in new tab), tweeted, "The royal rotas system has been rightly criticized on the grounds that it leads to biased reporting. But the criticism [of Harry and Meghan] is the opposite: that it leads to unfair attacks." This is completely wrong.

As Mapstone points out, royal reporters have often been criticized for paying too much respect to the royal family because they must be careful to ensure continued access to royal events, such as overseas tours. So when it comes to gossip and speculation, all members of the royal family unfortunately fall victim to it, but it is rarely written by the royal reporters themselves, but more often by their colleagues on the news and gossip pages. From Princess Meghan's letter to her father in the Mail on Sunday (the Duchess of Sussex is suing the paper for copyright and privacy violations (opens in new tab)) to this week's announcement that Harry and Meghan have repeatedly They have fought the media. [For example, Thomas Markle's letter came via the Mail on Sunday's California correspondent, and it was the Sun's executive editor and columnist who broke the "step back" news. Harry has long blamed the press for his mother's death, and after witnessing the tabloid treatment of Princess Meghan, he worries that "history will repeat itself." However, many reporters in the Rota system have ties to the family dating back to when Harry and William were boys and feel as if they are being punished. The Sussexes' special call to the royal reporters is filled with anger and hurt.

Mapstone colleague Rhiannon Mills has spent five years as Sky News' royal correspondent, accompanying Kate and William to Bhutan, Charles and Camilla to the south of France, and Harry and Meghan to Australia, Fiji and Tonga. Mills told the Sky News website of this week's events, "As someone who has accompanied Prince Harry on numerous tours and engagements over the past five years and sat and chatted with him, it is deeply sad that he has decided to take such drastic measures to alienate the British press." analysis (opens in new tab).

As for whether other members of the royal family will follow suit in abandoning their traditional royal rotas, that seems unlikely. Emily Andrews, the Sun's royal correspondent, told The Press Gazette (opens in new tab) Another royal palace official told me he was "saddened" by the attacks on the royal rotas.

The Sussexes hope to stem the tide of gossip by keeping members of the Royal Rota out of the public eye in the future, but in reality that is unlikely to happen. As Dampier explains, "Good journalists always have their own sources of information and are never spoon-fed by the royals themselves."

If anything, coverage of Harry and Meghan is likely to be even more scrutinized, rather than limited. As Mills puts it, "I fear that this new media policy will make it open season on both of them.

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