The Royal Family is speaking out about the BBC Two’s new documentary The Princes and the Press.
According to the Evening Standard, a joint statement from Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Kensington Palace was shown at the end of the program, which aired on Monday, Nov. 22.
“A free, responsible and open press is of vital importance to a healthy democracy,” the statement read, per the newspaper. “However, too often it is overblown and unfounded claims from unnamed sources that are presented as facts and it is disappointing when anyone, including the BBC, gives them credibility.”
The two-part series examines the years in which Prince William and Prince Harry have, as the BBC put it, “charted very different courses of their relationship with the media.” It’s presented by BBC Media Editor Amol Rajan, who has shared his own opinions about the royal family and coverage of them in the past. In a 2012 column for The Independent, for instance, he called the monarchy “absurd” and wrote “journalists are so bamboozled by aristocratic wealth that they can only portray a confected picture to their audience. In other words, they substitute propaganda where journalism should be.”
