The implication, of course, is that these are pictures from Prince William's stag do, in advance of his wedding on Friday. The article begins:
He kept his stag do top secret, but these are the antics Prince William can get up to when he really lets his hair down.
Our world exclusive pictures show Wills the student larking around with TWO feather boas while in his boxer shorts.
Then they reveal:
The prince gyrated in front of a girl pal during the wild 21st birthday party of James Tollemache, the son of a lord...
It was December 2002, when 20-year-old Wills was on the Christmas break of his second year at the University of St Andrews – but had yet to start dating Kate Middleton.
So The People has dug up photos that are over eight years old, stuck them on the front page at a time when interest in Prince William is so high and given the strong impression they are new. It seems The People has been picking up tips on front page 'exclusives' from the Daily Star.
Will at The Media Blog says this isn't a 'world exclusive' either:
...the pictures, taken at a friend's 21st birthday party, circulated widely online in 2002 and appeared in a number of overseas publications at the time.
Fleet Street Blues, a blog which bills itself as the 'insider scoop on journalism' wrote about this front page late last night, before seeing the article, and suggested:
We haven't even looked at the other papers yet, but something tell us the People's exclusive pictures from Prince William's stag do are a shoe-in for the Sunday Scoop. This week or any other week.
If they fell for it, how many others were also fooled? As The Media Blog adds:
The degree to which this cover attempts to mislead readers suggests The People should actually be answerable to Trading Standards rather than the PCC on this one.
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Wow! That is incredibly sneaky.
ReplyDeleteI'd go as far as to say this is WORSE than the Star.
ReplyDeleteThe Star is sometimes a bit vague or uses odd wording for it's front page stories.
This rag however has clearly linked these 8 year old images to the recent stag do. The pictures of William are clearly old, he has thick, jet black for a start!