Their Royal Heilnesses

Not that I have an agenda for the The Sun but It does strike me there is a lot of guff blowing around concerning the 'Heilnesses' film. The only 'motive' I perceive is the bottom line- they want to sell papers: they do it with scoops.

There is no doubt that the film is a scoop, can anyone deny it? Any paper which came into possession would publish. Indeed all the other papers did publish- after the Sun.

Everyone is falling over themselves trying to absolve the Queen, which is beside the point; of course the Queen is blameless. What they fail to note is that the film is newsworthy- the reams of content written in the wake of publication are testament to that!


I’ve not read the Sun’s copy on the story but from what I hear they have laid out the context in full, exonerating the Queen from any Nazi posturing. As you say this was the early 30’s. Even if they were being serious (highly unlikely) they are still just aping an interesting, novel German salute. Anyone who discerns any intention political or otherwise in those individuals pictured has to be a mind-reader. There is nothing at all problematic or otherwise controversial that can be discerned from the images. But (and this is surely the point) it is still newsworthy- simply for being interesting footage of an interesting public person. The fact that it is de facto newsworthy is demonstrated by the huge response. I’m not saying it was right to publish (the manner of its procurement is suspicious enough), just that to publish such stuff is the business of tabloids (and indeed all media).