Why the British Media Has Put Up a ‘United Front’ to Simmer Online Kate Middleton Hysteria

variety.com:

Alex Ritman “Great to See You Again Kate,” bellowed The Sun on its March 19 cover. The British tabloid newspaper had good reason to shout, having just won a bidding war for a grainy amateur video it asserted was of Kate Middleton “pictured out in public with husband William for the first time since undergoing surgery in January.” The “royal world exclusive” hadn’t come cheap.

According to sources in the British tabloid industry speaking to Variety, The Daily Mail had been willing to pay more than £100,000 ($126,000) for the video of the royals leaving a farm shop — shot on an iPhone by member of the public through a car windscreen — but ultimately The Sun emerged victorious with a larger, unknown bid.

The footage of Middleton had arrived, The Sun wrote, “amid weeks of vile and bullying online behaviour where wild conspiracy theories have spread unchecked.” In an accompanying comment piece, the paper’s royal photographer wrote that there had been “so many rumours circulated about her on social media — but they can now be put to rest.” Other papers took a similar stance. “Finally, everyone can calm down,” said The Daily Telegraph, citing a “royal source,” while on its cover The Daily Mail declared a still — plastered in The Sun’s watermark — to be the “Image The World Has Been Waiting For.” Whatever editors had expected, the video didn’t put the rumours to rest.

And people didn’t calm down. Not at all. Following weeks of growing online hysteria about the whereabouts and wellbeing of Middleton, which went into overdrive following the release of the now-infamous doctored Mother’s Day photo, amateur internet sleuths were by now wilfully ignoring The Sun’s demands to “Lay Off Kate” (as per its front page on March 12) and were.