Charles Spencer Says Buckingham Palace Has Journalists Who “Basically Take Dictation From Them”

Charles Spencer said on ITV’s Lorraine that the British press has spent years pretending not to hear. “There’s this huge power dynamic in this country,” he said. “Buckingham Palace has journalists who basically take dictation from them”. The line landed like a grenade in a drawing room. Palace spokespeople issued statements about “fraternal grief” clouding judgment. Royal commentators rushed to defend the honour of the press pack. But Spencer was not describing a literal transcription service. He was describing a system. And the system is real.

The evidence does not show that every royal correspondent mechanically reproduces palace press releases. It shows something more insidious: a closed information ecosystem in which access is controlled by the institution journalists are supposed to scrutinise, anonymous palace sources drive major stories, former royal reporters become palace communications chiefs, and documentary evidence about royal conduct is shielded by law. Spencer’s wording was provocative. The structure he described is documented fact.

"Buckingham Palace has journalists who basically take dictation from them." – Charles Spencer 👀#swansong pic.twitter.com/iTI8AeZHdv

— D.B.🌸 (@DBrown99944) September 23, 2026

The Rota: Access as Leverage

Start with the mechanics. Buckingham Palace’s own Media Centre says most royal engagements in the UK operate under a Royal Rota System. The rota includes broadcast organisations such as the BBC, Sky News and ITN, alongside newspaper, photographic and wire-service groups. Non-rota media usually receive limited fixed positions, which the host organisation or, on occasion, Royal Communications allocates.

Non-rota outlets receive “limited fixed point media facilities,” and positions are often allocated by the host organisation or by Royal Communications itself. The palace helps control who gets close enough to cover the monarchy.

This is not a neutral arrangement. That power shapes behaviour. Laura Clancy’s peer-reviewed study of royal correspondents found that the structure of royal news production “significantly obstruct[s] the ability to scrutinize the monarchy“. One correspondent told Clancy the palace was “very good at frustrating the journalistic process”. Another raised the exact question that became the study’s title: if you do hold them to account, will you find yourself hitting “more brick walls later”?

The Amy Robach case shows what those brick walls look like in practice. In 2015, the ABC News anchor interviewed Virginia Giuffre, who alleged she was trafficked to Prince Andrew. ABC killed the story. Robach was caught on a hot mic in 2019 saying the palace “found out and threatened us a million different ways“. She admitted the network was “so afraid that we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will” that it “quashed the story”.

ABC claims the interview “didn’t meet our standards”. That is the standard defence. But Robach’s own words describe something else: a network choosing access to the royals over a story about a prince’s accuser. That is not a healthy press dynamic. That is a beat where accountability carries a professional cost.

ABC had the Epstein scandal and buried it for years to protect the Clintons.

This "network" should be shut down. pic.twitter.com/UsQ95N3Iau

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 12, 2024

Anonymous Sources, Manufactured Stories

The 2021 Meghan bullying story is a textbook example of how the mechanism works. Days before Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex’s Oprah interview, The Times published allegations from royal aides accusing Meghan of bullying staff. Valentine Low, the paper’s royal correspondent, later said the material came from sources who “felt that only a partial version had emerged” of Meghan’s time as a working royal.

There is no proof that Prince William or Buckingham Palace ordered the leak, and Low denied that William authorised it. But that denial misses the point. Palace insiders supplied damaging information anonymously to a royal correspondent. That correspondent turned it into an international story at the most politically sensitive possible moment. Buckingham Palace then announced an investigation, amplifying the story further. Nobody needed to hand Low a script. The system delivered the message.

The same pattern appears with William’s future plans. Roya Nikkhah’s Sunday Times feature was headlined “How Prince William will change the monarchy, by those close to him“. William’s circle gets to present his future agenda through a high-profile exclusive without William sitting for a formal interview or answering difficult follow-up questions.

That is access journalism at its most useful to the institution: insiders supply the framing, the journalist gets the exclusive, and the palace avoids putting its own name on the message.

The Revolving Door

If Spencer’s “dictation” line still sounds extreme, consider who writes the palace’s own press releases. In March 2026, Rhiannon Mills, Sky News’ royal correspondent for more than a decade, left journalism to become media secretary at Buckingham Palace for King Charles and Queen Camilla. Her partner, Andrew Parsons, is a photographer who has worked with the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Mills is not an isolated case. Tobyn Andreae, the palace’s director of communications, spent 25 years in newspapers and was co-deputy editor of the Daily Mail before joining the royal household. Clancy’s research notes that palace communications operations have repeatedly hired people with media backgrounds, bringing established journalistic contacts and expertise in “packaging royal events for the news cycle”.

This does not retroactively prove that Mills or Andreae wrote dictated copy while in journalism. It demonstrates something more structural: the people covering the monarchy and the people managing its image operate inside the same professional ecosystem. They attend the same briefings. They cultivate the same contacts. They understand the same deadlines. When a royal correspondent becomes a palace communications chief, the line between scrutinising the institution and serving it has not just blurred. It has disappeared.

The Other Half of the System: Blocking the Evidence

Access journalism is only half the problem. The other half is that documentary evidence about royal conduct is unusually difficult to obtain. The Royal Household is not a public authority under the Freedom of Information Act. Section 37 provides absolute exemptions for communications with the Sovereign, the heir, and the second in line to the throne.

The Black Spider memos illustrate what this means in practice. The Guardian spent a decade fighting to obtain letters Prince Charles sent to government ministers, in which he lobbied on issues including homeopathy and defence spending. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favour of publication in 2015. But by then, legislation passed in 2010 had already strengthened the legal shield around royal communications, creating absolute exemptions that make comparable disclosure harder in future.

Norman Baker, the former minister and author of Royal Mint, National Debt, has documented how the royal family resists disclosure when the answers could be damaging, while releasing information that helps its image. Parliamentary questions have sometimes proved more effective than Freedom of Information (FOI) requests because MPs can force quicker answers. But even when Parliament forced the release of documents about Andrew’s trade-envoy role, the government explicitly redacted communications with the Royal Household on unrelated topics.

So the imbalance is stark. Palace officials can anonymously brief reporters about Meghan Sussex’s alleged behaviour. Journalists and citizens face unusually high legal and procedural barriers when trying to obtain documentary evidence about royal communications, lobbying, trade activity and public functions. One side operates in shadow. The other side operates behind a legal wall.

Why “Palace Sources” Matter

Royal reporting relies on phrases such as “palace source,” “royal insider,” “friend of the King,” “source close to William,” and “senior royal aide.” These phrases are not inherently propaganda. But within a system where access is controlled and records are sealed, anonymous palace sourcing carries disproportionate power.

The palace can shape a story without putting a named spokesperson behind the claim. The reporter gets the exclusive. The institution keeps deniability. The reader receives a narrative without knowing who supplied it, what institutional interest they represent, or what access they were granted in return.

That is not a conspiracy theory. It is the documented structure of royal news production. Clancy’s research found that correspondents themselves worry about the professional cost of aggressive coverage. The revolving door shows that the people who cover the palace can become the people who run its communications. The FOI exemptions show that independent documentary scrutiny is legally obstructed.

Buckingham Palace does not need to tell every journalist what to write. A system that controls access, rewards insiders, restricts competing information, and staffs its communications operation with former reporters can do much of that work for it. Spencer said the quiet part out loud. The evidence suggests he was not exaggerating. He was describing how the machine works.