Summary
Overview
Marina Hyde and Richard Osman discuss the iconic photograph of Prince Andrew leaving a Norfolk police station, explaining how Reuters photographer Phil Noble captured the now-famous shot. They explore the technical and journalistic aspects of news photography, the media's historical coverage of royal scandals, and answer listener questions about music licensing in figure skating and how TV writers research illegal activities for shows like Breaking Bad.
The Prince Andrew Photograph: How Phil Noble Got the Shot
Reuters photographer Phil Noble captured one of the most iconic news images in recent history when Prince Andrew was arrested at a Norfolk police station. The photograph, showing Andrew with red-eye effect looking caught and diminished, required skill, luck, and a crucial tip-off. Noble had to guess which of 20 potential police stations Andrew would be taken to, stake it out all day, and then capture six shots in moments - only one of which was in focus.
- Phil Noble works for Reuters news agency, so the photo was sold worldwide rather than being one publication's exclusive
- Andrew could have been taken to any of 20 different police stations across Norfolk, making it extremely difficult to predict his location
- Noble received a tip-off about Aylsham Police Station and waited there all day with only two other photographers
- He was walking to his hotel when he got a call that cars were leaving, and he knew the second car would contain Andrew
- Of six shots taken, only one was in focus - the now-iconic image with red-eye effect that makes it even more striking
" He doesn't take anything in the first car. He gets six shots, all of which are out of focus apart from that one, which is incredible. "
" For me, it is very like the Francis Bacon, the Pope. But there are many other ones. It's dark and you know, I've worked at the Sun at the start of my career and I used to deal with the pictures for a little bit. "
Media Coverage of Royal Scandals: Then and Now
Marina draws parallels between Prince Andrew's situation and the 1936 abdication crisis, noting how both events energized ordinary people while troubling elites. She criticizes the UK media's long-standing failure to properly investigate Andrew's connections to Jeffrey Epstein, pointing out years of coverage disparity between scrutiny of Meghan Markle versus serious allegations against Andrew.
- The abdication crisis was loved by ordinary people as melodrama, while elites found it vulgar and damaging to the monarchy
- Politicians like Stanley Baldwin used the abdication to dominate Parliament, similar to how politicians now use the Andrew story
- Marina has covered the Andrew-Epstein story for over a decade with minimal media interest until recently
- The media was far more obsessed with Meghan Markle stories than investigating Andrew's connections to Epstein, even after damaging photos emerged
- Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald did stellar investigative journalism piecing together the Epstein story
" Nobody really bothered very much with it at all. The multiples of stories about Meghan compared to multiples of stories about this. After he had been pictured with Epstein, after all of these things which was ages and ages ago, and they all knew off the record what people said about him, and yet the obsession was still with Meghan. "
" The media is part of the establishment and the establishment has now decided that cutting him loose is a more protective stance than doing what they did before, which was not properly interrogating at all. "
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