For years, parts of the British press have treated Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex as both outsiders to the monarchy and permanent fixtures in royal coverage.
That contradiction has become especially visible since reports emerged that the Sussexes are preparing to spend more time in Britain. Within days, newspapers were building fresh stories around acting, reconciliation, Christmas, money, public opinion and Harry’s royal status.
The question is no longer whether Harry and Meghan still attract attention. They clearly do. The more interesting question is what that attention tells us about the business of royal reporting.
Sunday Front Pages Show the Sussexes Still Sell
Sunday’s front pages offered a useful snapshot. The Daily Star Sunday found another commercial angle, putting Prince Harry lookalike Rhys Whittock on its front page under the punning headline “I’m the Duke of Su$$ex” and reporting that the impersonator expected Harry’s return to boost his bookings. The Mail on Sunday pushed a poll claiming just 4% of respondents wanted William to make the first move in peace talks, while also promoting a separate claim that Meghan’s proposed television comeback had been cancelled.
The Sun on Sunday gave Meghan a prominent front-page slot with its claim that a role in The Gentlemen could be worth £1 million, while warning that the deal might be off. Even the Sunday Telegraph, which took a more restrained tone, devoted major front-page space to Harry, showing him paying respects at Arlington National Cemetery alongside a separate report saying there was “no guarantee” Harry and Meghan would spend Christmas with the Royal Family.
What stands out is how many different stories the press managed to build around the Sussexes in just a few days. Acting, money, reconciliation, Christmas, royal status and public opinion all became separate angles. The return story did not produce one headline. It produced a whole news cycle.
The Data Shows How Heavily the Press Covers the Sussexes
Ground News data puts that front-page frenzy into a wider context. One important caveat: Ground News measures the political leaning of the outlets publishing the stories, not whether each individual article is positive or negative. Meghan receiving 44% of her coverage from right-leaning outlets does not mean 44% of those stories were hostile. It tells us which publishers are covering her.
The six Ground News topic pages recorded a combined 5,853 story entries over the three-month period, although those totals can overlap because one article may cover several members of the Royal Family. Harry’s Ground News topic page recorded 1,718 stories, the highest total among the six royal topic pages examined. Meghan followed with 1,246, narrowly ahead of William on 1,235. King Charles received 1,051 stories, while Kate Middleton received 593.
The political mix is also striking. Meghan had the highest proportion of coverage from right-leaning outlets at 44%, followed by Harry at 40%. William’s coverage was far more evenly distributed at 32% left, 36% centre and 32% right. Kate’s coverage leaned in the opposite direction, with 37% coming from left-leaning outlets and 27% from the right.
Harry and Meghan individually rank far more prominently in the Daily Express’s Ground News topic data. The Express appears as the leading publisher for Harry with 479 recent story entries and for Meghan with 399. Because stories can appear under more than one person’s topic page, those figures should not be added together as unique articles. Even so, they demonstrate how consistently the Express returns to both Sussexes as subjects.
That does not tell us whether those stories were positive or negative. But it does show which royal figures the outlet repeatedly considers newsworthy.
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Final Thoughts
The most revealing thing about the Sussex media cycle is not simply the volume of coverage Harry and Meghan receive. It is how easily one development can generate an endless stream of new stories.
Their reported return to Britain quickly produced headlines about acting, reconciliation, Christmas, security, money, polling and royal status. Then the Telegraph found yet another angle: who would look after Harry and Meghan’s chickens while they were in the UK.
That story is almost a perfect example of the wider point. When an outlet can turn the Sussexes’ poultry arrangements into a standalone royal article, and have it appear among Google’s top stories, it becomes difficult to argue that Harry and Meghan no longer matter to the media.
The Ground News figures suggest this attention is not limited to one unusually busy week. It forms part of a much larger pattern of sustained coverage.
Harry and Meghan remain unusually useful subjects because their names sit at the intersection of royalty, celebrity, family conflict, politics, culture-war commentary and international interest. Almost any detail of their lives can therefore become another angle.
That makes them valuable to publications even when those publications are critical of them. Harry and Meghan stepped away from royal duties in 2020, but the British press never really allowed them to leave the royal media economy.
If we have reached the point where the Sussex chickens are news, the dependency on Harry and Meghan for content becomes rather difficult to miss.
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